The ancient Egyptian name for Medinet Habu, in Arabic the "City of Habu" was Djamet, meaning "males and mothers." Its holy ground was believed to be where the Ogdoad, the four pairs of first primeval gods, were buried.
Medinet Habu was both a temple and a complex of temples dating from the New Kingdom. It adjoins the cultivation at the southern end of the Theban necropolis, opposite southern Luxor. The area was one of the earliest places within the Theban region to be associated with the worship of Amun. Hatshepsut and Tutmosis III built a small temple to Amun on the site of an earlier structure. Next to their temple, Ramesses III built his mortuary temple, Medinet Habu’s most conspicuous standing monument.
Ramesses III then enclosed both structures within a massive mud-brick enclosure that included storehouses, workshops, administrative offices, and residences of priests and officials. On the grounds of the entire temple complex, however, are numerous other structures besides the small temple. There are the memorial chapels of the Divine Adoratrices of
Amun. Less well preserved is the memorial temple of King Horemheb, which he usurped from his predecessor Ay, that stands on the north side of the Ramesses III enclosure. To its east are a number of tomb chapels made for high officials of the later new Kingdom.
The main temple is the great memorial temple of Ramesses III, the best preserved of all mortuary temples of Thebes. It is called the Mansion of Millions of Years of User-Maat-Re Meriamun, the throne name of Ramesses III, "United with Eternity in the Possession of Amun in
Western Thebes." It contains more than 75,350 sq ft of decorated surfaces across its walls
