to the high temple by a 1.2 km long and 46 m wide uncovered causeway. The causeway led to a large courtyard in front of the Deir el-Bahri temple. The courtyard was adorned by a long rectangular flower bed, with fifty-five sycamore trees planted in small pits and six tamarisk plus two sycamore trees planted in deep pits filled with soil. This is one of the very few archaeologically documented temple-gardens of ancient Egypt that are known enough about to reconstruct its appearance. The maintenance of such a garden more than 1 km from the Nile into the arid desert must have required the constant work of many gardeners and an elaborate irrigation system. Left and right of the processional walkway were at least 22 seated statues of Mentuhotep II wearing, on the south side, the White Crown of Upper Egypt and on the north side the Red Crown of Lower Egypt. These were probably added to the temple for the celebration of Mentuhotep II's Sed festival during his 39th year on the throne. Some headless sandstone statues are still on site today. Another was discovered in 1921 during Herbert Winlock's excavations and is now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Front part of the temple West of the causeway is the main temple, which consisted of two parts. The front part of the temple is dedicated to Monthu-Ra, a merger of the sun god Ra with the Theban god of war Monthu, particularly worshipped during the 11th Dynasty. A ramp aligned with the central axis of the temple led to the upper terrace. The ramp that is visible today was constructed in 1905 by Édouard Naville over the remains of the original ramp, which only is visible in two places as the lowest two layers of the lateral limestone cladding. The eastern front part of the temple, on both sides of the rising ramp, consists of two porticos with a double row of rectangular pillars, which make the temple look like a saff tomb, the traditional burial of Mentuhotep II's 11th-Dynasty predecessors. On the temple terrace, a 60-metre-wide, 43-metre-deep and 5-metre-high podium supports the upper hall surrounding an ambulatory and the core building. The ambulatory, separated from the upper hall by a 5-cubit-thick wall, comprised a total of 140 octagonal columns disposed in three rows. For most of these columns, only the base is still visible today.