When Amen, on holy days, left his sacred residence for procession through the streets of Thebes, he sailed in a style hidden in the shrine, the boat was raised on wooden poles, and is carried on the shoulders of the priests (pictured below). When Amen was not traveling, the boat was kept in its own shrine complex. The sacred boat played only a small role in Egyptian religious rites, but in the early New Kingdom, it became an increasingly important part of Egyptian theology, and most temples are now. become outstanding with the sacred boat shrine. Unfortunately, Hatchepsut’s temple was dismantled during the reign of Tuthmosis III and later used as fill material for other construction projects. Although many of the stone blocks were rediscovered in the 1950s, the chapel was never reassembled and more than three hundred blocks from Chapelle Rouge are now on display as a giant jigsaw puzzle in the Lourdes Museum in Karnak.
