 In 323 AD, Constantine the Great recognised the Christian religion, and in 356 ordered the closing of pagan temples throughout the empire.Karnak was by this time mostly abandoned, and Christian churches were founded amongst the ruins, the most famous example of this is the reuse of the Festival Hall of Thutmose III's central hall, where painted decorations of saints and Coptic inscriptions can still be seen.References to the complex are found in Herodotus’, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo and presumably Hecataeus of Abdera and Manetho, but we only retain fragments of their works, though none of these authors relates more than rudimentary information about the complex.