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Egypt · 2025

Day 8 - Luxor Temple

Colorful hot air balloons drift above a misty mountain town at first light.
Colorful balloons fly above a palm-lined river and a white cruise boat. A weathered stone obelisk bears rows of carved hieroglyphs against a blue sky. People stroll down a path between towering stone walls and ram-headed sphinxes. A line of sandstone columns stands behind rows of ram-headed sphinx statues. A line of ram-headed sphinx statues with small pharaoh figures between their paws. A towering ancient stone gate with palm trees at its base stands in the sun. Two colossal pharaoh statues stand guard beside a doorway in an ancient carved stone wall. A large carved temple wall shows hieroglyphs and a relief figure beside a standing pharaoh statue. A massive statue of a pharaoh with a striped headdress rises before a carved hieroglyph wall under a clear blue sky. Rows of ankh and djed pillar symbols are carved in relief across an ancient stone surface. A colonnaded courtyard is lined with rows of identical pharaoh statues rising between stone columns. A weathered wall carries a carved winged sun disk, seated figures, and hieroglyph cartouches in shallow relief. The dark stone lower legs and feet of a statue stand on a pedestal carved with hieroglyphs and small figures. Inside an ancient temple, tall columns frame a ceiling covered in colorful reliefs and hieroglyphs lit by a small window. Massive sandstone columns carved with hieroglyphs rise in an ancient temple hall. Eroded stone wall reliefs and hieroglyphs cover an ancient temple surface. Rows of towering statues flank a sand-colored courtyard and a central gateway. Dense hieroglyphic inscriptions and relief figures cover a sunlit stone wall. Two massive towered gateways rise on either side of a bright sky. Colored reliefs show figures in profile amid bands of hieroglyphs. Large carved figures and hieroglyphs rise up a tall temple wall. Cylindrical columns bear painted reliefs of figures and hieroglyphs. Sandstone wall covered with tiered hieroglyphs and raised figures. Massive carved columns of an ancient temple reach toward the sky. Faded painted hieroglyphs and oval cartouches on a stone beam. Giant bundled papyrus columns rise toward a patch of blue sky. A flared stone capital decorated with faded painted hieroglyphs. A column shaft shows seated deities and a royal figure in sunk relief. A wall relief lines up offering bearers beneath bands of hieroglyphs. A tall wall relief of a royal figure stands between carved columns. Rows of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and relief figures fill a sunlit temple wall. Worn sandstone reliefs of figures and inscriptions cover an aged temple wall. Profile figures, cartouches and hieroglyphs are carved across a warm-toned sandstone wall. A sandstone temple wall bears carved figures, cartouche columns and rows of hieroglyphs. A carved pharaoh figure stands among hieroglyphs and cartouches on a temple wall. Huge inscribed temple columns tower over a person with a camera among them. A carved lintel between columns is inscribed with hieroglyphs above an open passage. A tall carved stone pillar bears reliefs and a cartouche against a deep blue sky. A towering sandstone obelisk carved with hieroglyphs rises against a clear blue sky. Palm trees rise before the imposing stone columns of an ancient temple. Huge carved columns rise over tiny tourists walking through the ancient hall. A dark obelisk silhouette stands against a glowing blue sky. Warm low light rakes across the carved pyramidion of a sandstone obelisk. A tall obelisk stands beside the papyrus-shaped columns of a ruined temple. A sandstone lintel shows seated figures and hieroglyphs carved in raised relief. An obelisk towers over heaps of collapsed sandstone blocks in a temple ruin. Weathered sandstone lintel covered in ancient Egyptian relief carvings and hieroglyphs. Bare stone ceiling of an ancient Egyptian structure, lit in shadow. Ancient temple gateway with two standing stone figures guarding the entrance. Faded hieroglyphs and reliefs cover an old stone wall, a pigeon perched on top. A tall carved obelisk stands behind a pile of temple rubble stones. A weathered stone block is densely inscribed with rows of ancient hieroglyphs. A large weathered block with faint etched signs beside a courtyard with a palm tree. Vast sandstone temple ruins with tall obelisks rising among palm trees. Sunlit sandstone temple ruins with a tall obelisk and a lone palm tree. Faded blue and ochre hieroglyphs and winged symbols decorate a stone lintel. An ancient temple courtyard with an obelisk, carved columns, and scattered stone rubble. Great stone columns with flared capitals rise beneath heavy ceiling beams. Weathered blue-and-gold painted ceiling over a columned corridor with a palm beyond. Sunwashed stone columns and a heavy lintel stand tall against a brilliant blue sky. Faded blue ceiling slabs with painted stars rest above decorative column capitals. Papyrus columns and a single architrave beam stand brightly in the sun with palms behind. Weathering sandstone frieze etched with falcon and hieroglyph carvings. Great columned hall under a clear blue sky. A visitor stands among broken temple blocks. Fallen stone blocks surround a standing doorway. Ancient relief stone bearing cartouches and bird signs. Inscribed shrine columns stand before a small obelisk. Rows of carved column bases front a distant obelisk. Colossal carved columns tower over a gateway. Weathered stone walls covered in carvings, with an obelisk rising under a clear blue sky. Two giant stone pharaoh statues with crossed arms stand on either side of a pathway. Towering stone columns covered in hieroglyphs stand close together against a blue sky. Tall date palms rise above rubble and fallen carved stones in a dry landscape. A large stone slab bearing a relief of a figure with a tall feathered headdress and hieroglyphs. Broken stone columns carved with hieroglyphs and royal cartouches stand in a ruined hall. A smiling woman stands among tall inscribed stone columns in a sunlit temple court. A long stone wall is covered in dense rows of carved figures and hieroglyphic text. A lone visitor examines weathered sandstone blocks and a small shrine at a sun-baked temple site. A carved Egyptian lintel shows worn figures and hieroglyphs, with a fluted column behind. Huge stone pillars support a heavy lintel, their faces still bearing faint painted reliefs. Looking up at a decorated ceiling and thick papyrus-bundle columns still holding blue and ochre paint. Sunbeams fall between heavy round columns beneath a blue-painted ceiling. A tall obelisk towers over tumbled stone walls, with a shorter obelisk and palms behind. A single tall obelisk rises clean against a deep blue sky over collapsed temple walls. The obelisk tip carries reliefs of a falcon and cobra beside rows of hieroglyphs. Collapsed sandstone temple walls rise beside two standing obelisks and pharaoh statues beneath a deep blue sky. A sandstone temple wall is densely carved with rows of hieroglyphs and scenes of robed figures. A heavily carved temple wall in the foreground leads to weathered ruins and palms in the distance. A tall hieroglyph-covered obelisk stands in a paved courtyard with palms and ruined walls behind it. A still green pool mirrors the clear sky and the slender palm trees lining its sandy bank. A reddish granite monument is carved with a winged sun disc and columns of hieroglyphs. A green lake sits beside a grassy bank, tall palms, and shade umbrellas beneath a clear sky. A towering sandstone wall is covered from top to bottom in bands of carved figures and hieroglyphs. Close-up of an ancient sandstone temple wall covered in hieroglyphs and rows of square niches. Large carved relief of a pharaoh and divine figures on a steep sandstone pyramid face. Dimly lit temple wall carved with standing figures in sunken relief holding staffs. Looking up at a massive sandstone temple wall covered in hieroglyphs and bathed in shadow. A name and inscription carved long ago into a rough weathered stone block. Two colossal seated pharaoh statues in front of a ruined stone wall under a clear blue sky. Ancient sandstone temple ruins, a pylon-like wall and palm trees under a clear desert sky. Two people stand on a dry rubble mound with tall palm trees behind them under a pale sky. Backlit figures stand on a rocky ridge beneath tall palm trees. Men with rakes clear dry brush on a sandy, palm-fringed hillside. Fallen blocks of an ancient temple stand among defiant date palms. Two slender palms tower over a weathered, ruined stone building. Colossal royal statues flank a paved walkway through an ancient court. Every inch of this sandstone wall is carved with ancient symbols. Giant pharaoh statues stand before an ancient temple gate. Cartouches and figures are carved into a massive temple wall. Ancient sandstone temple wall densely carved with rows of hieroglyphs and standing figure reliefs. Ancient stone panel showing a deity and smaller figures carved in profile amid faded hieroglyphs. Cylindrical stone columns fully ringed with hieroglyphs and reliefs fill the frame. Stone lintel underside painted with yellow cartouches, ankh symbols and red-green rosettes. A long colonnade of hieroglyph-covered columns leading to a bright window and ceiling. Relief of an ibis-headed deity with a cobra and a kneeling figure in profile. Two colossal hieroglyph-covered columns frame a bright blue sky seen from below. Granite columns with papyrus-cluster capitals rise in a golden-lit columned hall. Rows of painted Egyptian hieroglyphs cover a worn sandstone ceiling beam Towering Egyptian columns with palm leaves glimpsed through a doorway Huge temple columns and a broken wall under bright sunlight Sandstone column capitals and a carved lintel against a blue sky Symmetric sandstone facade with narrow slatted openings between two columns Flared lotus capitals of Egyptian columns filling the sky Decorated stone lintel with ankh symbols spanning between columns Tall Egyptian column shafts carved with figures and hieroglyphs Close-up of a weathered stone wall covered in Egyptian carvings and hieroglyphs. Long temple wall decorated with rows of carved figures and hieroglyphs. Temple wall bearing a large relief of a king and rows of hieroglyphs. Rows of huge stone columns rise behind a carved temple wall. A tall stone obelisk stands among fallen blocks and palm trees. A toppled stone block on the ground bears rows of carved hieroglyphs. Two obelisks rise among toppled column pieces and tall palm trees. Rows of columns and palm trees rise beside a dusty path at the temple site. A tall fluted sandstone column stands amid low ruin walls and grass. A sandstone wall is carved with hieroglyphs and a seated deity. A carved cobra and hieroglyphs decorate a cracked sandstone block. Deeply carved hieroglyphs and a coiled cobra fill the weathered wall. Two obelisks rise above an ancient complex of walls and palm trees. A towering stone wall is packed with rows of hieroglyphs and figures. A falcon-headed god and a standing ruler are carved into stone. A square pillar covered in hieroglyphs stands in a stone courtyard. A dark seated pharaoh statue stands on a white pedestal before an engraved stone wall. A traveller with a backpack steps through an engraved doorway toward a bright temple courtyard. Rows of carved hieroglyphs and cartouches cover a sunlit sandstone archway. Figures and hieroglyphs carved on a temple wall cast in dramatic half-shadow. A densely carved column of hieroglyphs fronts a palm-filled courtyard and distant ruins. Two obelisks and a ruined stone tower stand among dry grass in an ancient temple courtyard. A weathered stone archway with a remaining lintel rises among tall date palms. Three people in khaki vests walk away down a gravel path between temple walls, one marked 'Egypt-China Archaeological Mission'. Sunlit ruins of an ancient temple with a standing obelisk and scattered stone blocks Sandstone wall relief showing a pharaoh seizing bound prisoners amid hieroglyphs Stone relief of a seated ruler flanked by goddesses with sun disks and hieroglyphs Sandstone relief of horse-drawn war chariots charging in a battle scene Weathered stone block bearing a carved cartouche of hieroglyphs Round temple column carved with a winged sun disk and hieroglyphs Stone temple gateway with a tall portal, flanking statues, and palm trees Sloped temple pylon with rows of figure reliefs and a central doorway Golden stone ceiling engraved with winged sun disks and rows of hieroglyphs. A tall carved temple gateway towers against a clear blue sky. A sunlit temple wall covered in rows of ankh symbols and god figures. A jackal-headed god and a goddess with cow horns carved in relief. The winged sun disk is carved above the gateway of a sandstone temple. A long row of ram-headed sphinx statues with small figures between them. An information board showing a historical aerial view of the Karnak temples. An old black-and-white aerial map of the Karnak temple complex on display. A broad sandy avenue flanked by sphinx statues runs toward a distant town skyline. Three exhibition panels show black-and-white photos of historic excavations. A weathered stone gate covered in hieroglyphs rises between palm trees. A sandstone wall bears a carved relief of a stout dwarf-like deity. Seated lion-headed statues line the foot of a mud-brick wall. A path winds through scattered ancient blocks carved with hieroglyphs. A dark seated statue of a lion-headed goddess rests among ancient column fragments. A finely carved dark statue of a lion-headed goddess with a sun-disk crown sits beside a brick wall. A sun-washed ochre apartment building with satellite dishes, hanging laundry, and a blue door. A weathered headless pharaoh statue sits on a cracked throne among dusty ruins. A dark stone statue of a lion-headed goddess sits on a throne before a mud-brick wall. The carved head of a lion goddess wears a sun-disk crown against a clear blue sky. A seated pharaoh figure with striped headdress sits amid broken temple blocks. A flagged path runs between tall walls of carved ancient blocks toward distant gateways. A line of headless, eroded figures stands before a wall covered in hieroglyphic carvings. Torsos, feet, and carved bases of ancient statues lie in a line on the earthen edge. Weathered headless granite statues line an excavated path beside green fields. A dark granite statue fragment wears a striped royal headdress. A baboon-headed granite figure sits beside a row of weathered statues. A sunlit block of sandstone shows faint carved figures and glyphs. A stone block carved with a calm goddess face rests on a wooden pallet. A weathered block carries faint relief carvings of figures and glyphs. A row of serene carved faces forms a frieze amid scattered stone rubble. A stone wall dense with carvings and glyphs stands behind a broken pillar. A weathered grey sphinx statue rests on sandy ground among dry brush. Ram-headed sphinx statues in a line against the temple wall beneath palm trees. Scattered stone blocks lie on sandy ground before a distant palm grove. Two ancient sphinx statues sit before a mud-brick wall in the sun. A carved stone slab shows figures, a cartouche, and hieroglyphs amid rubble. A crumbling stone gateway rises among ruins and palm trees in bright sunlight. A vast mud-brick pylon gateway rises above an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes. A paved avenue stretches to the horizon, lined with rows of ram sphinx statues. A towering temple wall covered in carved figures and hieroglyphs reaches into a clear blue sky. Three carved figures of gods stand among columns of hieroglyphic text. Rows of carved ankh symbols and seated figures cover the weathered wall. A winged sun disk and cartouches are carved across the stone lintel against the sky. A shadowed doorway cuts through a huge stone pylon into a corridor beyond. Looking straight up at a ceiling of winged disks and hieroglyphic bands. A carved corner of the pylon is framed by a wedge of blue sky. Registers of carved figures and hieroglyphs rise beside a vast blue sky. Rows of deep-cut hieroglyphs and ankh signs across an ancient temple ceiling. A weathered temple wall covered in large figures and hieroglyphs. An ancient temple gateway flanked by figures and crowned with a winged sun. Huge carved columns in a hall, with scaffolding on the right. A dense colonnade of thick columns etched with reliefs and hieroglyphs. Relief lintel above columns, with scaffolding rising on the right. A pillar face with a figure, cartouches and a radiant sun relief. A temple wall showing a winged sun and a line of carved figures. A faded painted beam carved with a winged sun disk and rows of hieroglyphs. A weathered wall covered in faded hieroglyphs and carved figures. A visitor sits beside massive carved columns held in wooden scaffolding. An upward view of massive columns and lintels covered in colored carvings. A seated stone statue of a pharaoh sits between towering columns. A dark doorway frames a bright courtyard where a robed figure stands. Bright temple walls of carved stone enclose a shadowed doorway. A wall covered edge to edge with carved hieroglyphs and figures. Massive carved stone columns tower toward a bright sky in an ancient Egyptian temple hall. A thick temple column of carved sandstone stands beside a dark lintel with a slatted opening. A weathered stone baboon statue sits on a sunlit temple floor between round column bases. A carved temple doorway topped by a winged sun disk and rows of hieroglyphs opens to bright sky. A wall carving shows a large sun disk, a standing figure and royal cartouches in deep relief. A dark sooted ceiling beams hangs above a lintel carved with a winged sun disk and hieroglyphs. Sunken relief figures and a winged sun disk fill a temple wall, lit by a streak of sunlight. A close relief carving shows the profile of a wiggled Egyptian figure beside ankh signs and hieroglyphs. Ancient stone wall covered in rows of hieroglyphs and relief figures beneath a clear blue sky Detailed relief panorama of hieroglyphic text and seated figures carved into sandstone Ornate fluted stone column capital seen from below against a pale ceiling and sky Two tall obelisks stand among collapsed stones and scaffolding of a temple ruin Giant seated pharaoh statues guard the sloped stone facade of a ruined pylon A large relief carving of a bird and hieroglyphs etched into a broken stone block lying in sand Workers with a wheelbarrow and debris working in front of a wall covered in carved hieroglyphs Two standing pharaoh statues with crossed arms flanked by eroded, hieroglyph-covered pillars Weathered sandstone relief of hieroglyphs and figures from an ancient Egyptian temple wall. Two huge sandstone temple pylon walls stand beside a paved courtyard under a clear blue sky. A crowd of visitors walks along a stone path leading to a massive ancient temple pylon. An orange sun sinks behind dark silhouettes on a glittering river at golden hour. Tall-masted feluccas rest near a multi-deck river cruise ship at dusk. A lone sailboat with a triangular sail glides across calm water against a sunset sky. A dark-sailed felucca leads several small boats across the water in fading light. Warm floodlights illuminate sandy desert cliffs above a dark river cruise ship at night.
Journal Notes

General

Luxor Temple stands on the east bank of the Nile in the centre of the modern city of Luxor, on the ground of ancient Thebes, which the Egyptians knew as Waset. In antiquity the sanctuary was called Ipet-resyt, “the southern sanctuary”, the counterpart of Ipet-isut, “the most select of places”, the great temple of Amun at Karnak some three kilometres to the north. The two temples face one another along a straight processional avenue lined with sphinxes and known in Egyptian as the Path of God. Luxor Temple is unusual among the great sanctuaries of Egypt in being aligned towards Karnak rather than towards the river: its axis runs from the tall pylon at its northern end southwards through court and colonnade into the sanctuary, parallel to the Nile.

The building is essentially the work of two kings of the New Kingdom. Amenhotep III of the Eighteenth Dynasty raised its southern half in the fourteenth century BC, the inner sanctuary, the birth room, the great sun court and the colonnade that was to lead out of it; Ramesses II of the Nineteenth Dynasty added the northern forecourt, the pylon, the obelisks and the colossal statues of the entrance. Between them, Tutankhamun, Ay and Horemheb decorated what the builders had left bare; later rulers restored the fabric; Alexander the Great installed a granite barque shrine in the innermost part; and the Roman army turned the whole precinct into a fortress and a seat of provincial government.

Unlike the cult temples of Thebes, Luxor Temple was not dedicated to a god of fixed worship nor to the mortuary service of a dead king; it belonged to the living kingship. Here the ruler was believed to be conceived by the god Amun and reborn as his son, and here the festival of Opet brought the barque of Amun from Karnak so that the royal ka, the vital force of kingship, might be renewed in the reigning pharaoh. The Epigraphic Survey of the University of Chicago, which has studied the temple’s reliefs for decades, concludes that the whole building served the cult of the royal ka and that its courts were originally filled with statues of the king as the embodiment of that force.

The temple forms part of the World Heritage property Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis, inscribed by UNESCO in 1979 (ref. 87) together with Karnak and the cemeteries of the west bank. It has never ceased to be a holy place: the mosque of Abu al-Haggag still stands above the ancient columns at its north-eastern corner, and in the evening the sandstone is floodlit above the corniche, among the great sights of Luxor after dark.

History

A sacred place stood here before Amenhotep III: beneath the forecourt that Ramesses II later built, excavators found the remains of a small temple of the early Eighteenth Dynasty, with chapels of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, and older shrines appear to have occupied the same ground since the Middle Kingdom. The great temple that survives, however, is the creation of Amenhotep III (c. 1390-1352 BC), who rebuilt the modest sanctuary at the height of the Eighteenth Dynasty, when Thebes was the capital of an empire that reached from the Euphrates to the fourth cataract.

The plan of Amenhotep’s temple is a single disciplined composition on the long axis. At the southern end the rooms of the inner sanctuary received the barque of Amun; beside them the birth room carried the reliefs of the divine conception and birth of the king, in which Amun, in the form of Thutmose IV, fathers the child upon the queen Mutemwiya; and north of these lay the great sun court, ringed with a double row of papyrus columns, which opened through a monumental colonnade of fourteen columns towards Karnak. The colonnade stood unfinished for a generation; it was Tutankhamun who filled its walls with the reliefs of the Opet festival, the barques borne on the shoulders of priests, the offerings and the rejoicing, and Ay and Horemheb who completed the decoration and cut their names over those of the original builder.

Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC) gave the temple the frontage the visitor sees today. His builders turned the open end of the colonnade into a covered passage between two courts and raised before it the great pylon whose walls carry the reliefs of his war against the Hittites, the chariot charge and the rout of the enemy at Qadesh. Two obelisks of Aswan granite, some twenty-five metres high, and colossal statues flanked the gateway, and the new forecourt was lined with further colossi and papyrus columns bearing the royal names. Of the obelisks, one was transported to Paris in the 1830s and now stands on the Place de la Concorde; of the colossi, two seated figures of Ramesses II still sit before the towers, and one standing statue survives of the original four.

The temple was maintained long after the New Kingdom. Nectanebo I (380-362 BC) laid out the processional way between Karnak and Luxor with its rows of sphinxes, ram-headed at the Karnak end and human-headed towards Luxor, more than a thousand statues along a paved road nearly three kilometres long. Alexander the Great, whose conquest of Egypt was sealed at the oracle of Amun at Siwa, claimed to have been crowned at Luxor, and a granite barque shrine bearing his name stands in the temple, though historians doubt that he ever travelled so far up the Nile. Under the Romans, who annexed Egypt in 30 BC, the old city shrank to a village clustered about the pylon; the temple served as a legionary fortress and seat of the provincial government, and about AD 300 a chapel in the forecourt was remodelled as the cult room of the Tetrarchy, its walls painted with the portraits of the four emperors, before the same corner passed to a Christian church in the following century.

The Middle Ages buried the monument. The town of Luxor grew over the temple until three quarters of it lay beneath an artificial mound of rubble and houses as much as fifteen metres high, with only the mosque, founded in the thirteenth century in the court of Ramesses II, marking the ancient walls. Excavation began under Gaston Maspero in the 1880s and continued intermittently until 1960, removing the barracks, storehouses and pigeon towers of the village; the mosque was spared, and the temple emerged again down to its pavement. Its latest chapter belongs to the processional way: the avenue of sphinxes, first traced in 1949 when eight statues came to light before the pylon, was cleared, restored and opened to the public in November 2021, reuniting Karnak and Luxor as in the age of the Opet festival.

Geology

Thebes lies at a broad bend of the Nile in Upper Egypt, some 670 kilometres south of the Mediterranean. The valley is closed on the west by the high desert plateau of the Theban massif, whose bare Eocene limestones, crowned by the pyramid-shaped peak of al-Qurn, carry the royal tombs of the New Kingdom; to the east the desert edge lies far back. Between them the river crosses an alluvial plain several kilometres wide, built of the silts of the annual flood laid over older sands and gravels, and it is on this flat ground, not on rock, that the temples of Karnak and Luxor stand. A shift of the river course some four thousand years ago widened the floodplain; the monuments of the east bank rise today from the cultivated plain and look across the green fields to the limestone cliffs beyond the water.

The stone of the two temples is not the limestone of the cliffs opposite but the Nubian Sandstone of the south, brought down the Nile from the quarries of Gebel el-Silsila, sixty-five kilometres north of Aswan, where the river cuts between cliffs of the same formation at its narrowest point. The Egyptians called the place Khenyt, the Place of Rowing, after the labour of hauling the stone boats through the narrows; from the Eighteenth Dynasty to the Greco-Roman age its more than one hundred and twenty quarry faces supplied almost all the great temples of Upper Egypt, Karnak and Luxor among them. The rock is a quartz-rich continental sandstone of the great Nubian sequence, laid down between the Palaeozoic and the Cretaceous in shallow seas, deltas and dune fields and coloured by iron oxides in warm browns and reds; it takes a sharp, fine relief and dresses far more easily than granite, but it lacks endurance.

Sandstone weathers grain by grain. The cement that binds its quartz sand is never quite uniform, so harder and softer beds alternate in the masonry, and moisture, salt and wind pick out the difference: column shafts are hollowed into flutes, the fine detail of reliefs is lost where a skin of grains has fallen from the surface, and the painted plaster that once covered the walls survives only in sheltered traces, the faded blue of a ceiling, the yellow of a cartouche. Deep-cut hieroglyphs outlive raised relief because the sunk sign shelters its own edges, while the desert wind blasts away whatever stands proud of the wall; the dry air of Upper Egypt preserves what the dust storms do not sand-blast.

Water is the greater enemy on the east bank, and it is largely a modern problem. Until the twentieth century the annual flood rose and fell past the temple and the ground water with it; since the first Aswan dam of 1902 and the High Dam of 1970 the flood no longer arrives, perennial irrigation has raised the water table of the valley, and the balance at Luxor has tipped. When Georges Daressy sought the avenue of sphinxes in 1893, the Luxor end lay below the water table and could not be excavated; a century later the same rising ground water, laden with salts, attacks the foundations by capillary action, flaking the column bases and the lowest courses of the walls. Drainage and dewatering works now protect the monuments, and decayed blocks are replaced with fresh sandstone from the old Silsila quarries; scaffolding about parts of the temple still marks the campaign of repair. Human occupation added its own strata: the temple stood for centuries inside the town, and the artificial hill of debris that buried it, up to fifteen metres deep, was removed only in the last hundred years, while the mud-brick minaret of the mosque still dissolves in the rare rains.

Things to See

The temple of Amun at Karnak, three kilometres north of Luxor along the same bank of the Nile, is the northern counterpart of Luxor Temple and the largest temple complex of ancient Egypt. Building continued here from the Middle Kingdom into the Ptolemaic age, so that the pylons, courts and chapels of many reigns stand close together inside the great enclosure wall. The great hypostyle hall, begun by Seti I and completed under Ramesses II, dominates the centre of the precinct: 134 sandstone columns in sixteen rows supported its roof, and the twelve columns of the central aisle stand higher than the rest so that clerestory windows could light the painted ceilings and the reliefs covering walls and column shafts. Of the pair of obelisks that Hatshepsut raised in the temple, one still stands with its pyramidion intact while its companion lies broken where it fell, and the sacred lake of the precinct, the great basin in which the priests of Amun performed their daily purification, lies within the same walls.

The two sanctuaries are joined by the avenue of sphinxes, the processional road of the Opet festival, which runs for nearly three kilometres through the modern town. Nectanebo I laid the avenue out in the fourth century BC along the course of the ancient route, lining it with more than a thousand sphinx statues, ram-headed at the Karnak end and human-headed towards Luxor. Buried for centuries beneath the houses of the medieval town, the road was first traced in 1949, when eight statues came to light before the pylon of Luxor Temple; today the cleared avenue, with its long files of re-erected sphinxes, is open to the public once more, and since November 2021 it links the two temples again as it did in the age of the Opet festival.

The avenue ends at Luxor Temple itself, whose great pylon faces Karnak to the north. Ramesses II raised the two towers, twenty-four metres high and sixty-five metres wide, and covered them with sunk relief of his war against the Hittites: the king charges the enemy in his chariot at Qadesh and smites his captives before the gods. Two colossal seated statues of Ramesses II guard the gateway, and of the four standing colossi and the pair of obelisks of Aswan granite that once flanked the entrance, one standing statue and a single obelisk survive; the obelisk’s twin was carried to Paris in the 1830s and now stands on the Place de la Concorde.

Beyond the pylon lies the great court of Ramesses II, surrounded by double rows of papyrus columns among which further colossal statues of the king stand; on its eastern side the whitewashed walls and minaret of the mosque of Abu al-Haggag rise above the ancient colonnade, for the mosque, founded in the thirteenth century, was spared when the town that had buried the temple was cleared from the ruins. From the court the visitor follows the great colonnade of Amenhotep III, whose fourteen columns lead towards the heart of the building; the walls of the colonnade carry the reliefs of the Opet festival that Tutankhamun had carved there, the sacred barques of Amun, Mut and Khons borne on the shoulders of priests. Beyond it opens the sun court of Amenhotep III, ringed with a double row of papyrus columns, and at the southern end stand the rooms of the sanctuary with the granite barque shrine of Alexander the Great in the innermost chamber.

The temple fronts the corniche of the modern town, the broad riverside promenade of Luxor. Feluccas, the traditional lateen-rigged sailing boats of the Nile, ply the water between the banks past the cruise ships moored along the quay, and beyond the green cultivation rise the limestone cliffs of the Theban west bank. At dawn the sky over those cliffs fills with the hot-air balloons that set out from the west bank at sunrise, their coloured envelopes drifting above the palm belts and the low desert in the cool morning air; the spectacle has made daybreak over Luxor as much an attraction as the temples below. The temple is floodlit after dark, and its evening illumination above the corniche counts among the most famous night views of Upper Egypt.

References

  1. Strudwick, N., & Strudwick, H. (1999). Thebes in Egypt: A Guide to the Tombs and Temples of Ancient Luxor. London: British Museum Press.
  2. Wilkinson, R. H. (2000). The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson.
  3. Bell, L. (1985). “Luxor Temple and the Cult of the Royal Ka.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 44 (4), 251-294.
  4. Said, R. (1990). The Geology of Egypt. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema.
  5. UNESCO World Heritage Centre (1979). Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis. World Heritage List, ref. 87. whc.unesco.org/en/list/87/
  6. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Luxor Temple. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_Temple
  7. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Karnak. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnak
  8. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Opet Festival. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opet_Festival
  9. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Avenue of Sphinxes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_of_Sphinxes
  10. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Thebes, Egypt. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thebes,_Egypt
  11. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Luxor. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor
  12. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Amenhotep III. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenhotep_III
  13. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Ramesses II. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II
  14. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Abu Haggag Mosque. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Haggag_Mosque
  15. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Gebel el-Silsila. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebel_el-Silsila
  16. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Nubian Sandstone. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubian_Sandstone