The Hall covers an area of 54,000 sq ft. The roof, now fallen, was supported by 134 columns in 16 rows; the 2 middle rows are higher than the others. The hall was not constructed by Horemheb, or Amenhotep III as earlier scholars had thought but was built entirely by Seti I who engraved the northern wing of the hall with inscriptions. Decoration of the southern wing was completed by the 19th dynasty pharaoh Ramesses II. A series of succeeding pharaohs added inscriptions to the walls and the columns in places their predecessors had left blank, including Ramesses III, Ramesses IV and Ramesses VI. The northern side of the hall is decorated in raised relief, and was mainly Seti I’s work. The southern side of the hall was completed by Ramesses II, in sunk relief although he used raised relief at the very beginning of his reign before changing to the sunk relief style and re-editing his own raised reliefs. Ramesses II also usurped decoration of his father along the main north-south and east-west processional ways of the hall, giving the casual observer the idea that he was responsible for the building. However, most of Seti I’s reliefs in the northern part of the hall were respected.
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