The Temple of Karnak and Luxor Temple are the most famous must-see temples in Luxor. Everybody who makes the trip to Luxor will visit these temples because they showcase the pinnacle of architecture and construction during the New Kingdom and visually, they are simply stunning. I regret not visiting the temples on our own during the previous days while we were in Luxor because now that we were officially on the Nile cruise circuit and following an organized itinerary and schedule, we met huge crowds at both of these temples. Every single one of the 200 or so passengers on our Nile cruise boat, times 10 or so boats means that on that day, there were around 2000 or so visitors in the morning. Maybe some groups decide to go to Luxor Temple first or try to avoid the crowds by going a little earlier or a little later but all of the cruise passengers visit these two sites before 2 pm when the boats set sail and head south on the Nile River.
It is for this exact reason we usually prefer to plan our own travel. We hate crowds and given that November is low season for travel in Egypt plus the war in Gaza has reduced travel significantly in the region, there really wasn’t any good reason that we had to deal with crowds, except that we were part of on an organized tour. In contrast, all of the other sites that we visited on our own were virtually deserted and we could enjoy the sites at our own pace.
If we have the chance to visit Luxor again, I would definitely visit these two temples either on non-cruise days and/or visit them early in the morning before most cruise passengers have had breakfast on the boat and begun their day of sightseeing or in the afternoon after the cruise ships have left port.
Temple Complex of Karnak
The Temple of Karnak is not just one single temple, but a temple complex, or a city of temples, anchored by the legendary Amun temple and several other cult temples dedicated to Mut and Khonsu. It was built by generations of pharaohs who contributed construction works, in the form of temples, pylons, sanctuaries and rooms, to the temple complex over the course of thousands of years. Construction of the temple began under Senusret I, around 1971 BC. What we see today is the cumulative effort of around 30 different pharaohs who added to and altered the appearance and function of various parts of the temple complex.
The powerful pharaohs of the New Kingdom, whose names are well known today, like Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis III, Seti I, Rameses II all made significant contributions to the temple complex. Although the peak of its significance as a religious center was during the New Kingdom, additions and changes to the temple complex continued into the rule of the Ptolemies, Romans and early Christians.
The temple complex spans over 200 acres and is larger than the main temple of Angkor Wat, where we have fond memories from our 3-week visit in 2020 just as Covid was emerging. It smaller than the entire Angkor temple complex which is nearly double the size at 406 acres.
The temple complex was significant because it was the site of the annual Opet festival that was held at Karnak. Ancient Egyptians believed that at the end of the agricultural cycle, the gods’ energy needed to be replenished. The Opet festival was held to rejuvenate the energy of the gods and also to celebrate the link between the pharaoh and the god Amun. The procession began at the Temple of Karnak, traveled down the Avenue of the Sphinxes and ended at Luxor Temple.
During our visit to the temple complex, our guide Omar, pulled out a fantastic book called “Alix’s Journeys of Discovery”. Apparently, they are a spin-off of a Belgian series about the main character Alix, who is from the Greco-Roman times, and his adventures. The “Journeys of Discovery” books cover Alix’s travels to various countries during ancient time periods. The books are known for the great historical accuracy of the text and illustrations that depict with amazing detail what the sites probably looked liked during the height of their influence. As we walked through the Amun temple, Omar referred to the book repeatedly, showing us the illustrations to give us an idea of the original appearance of the temple. The illustrations were detailed and stunning and helped us to see beyond just the ruins before us. The books opened a portal which we stepped through, to experience the Karnak temple from thousands of years ago and imagine how awe-inspiring this temple would have been to anybody who set their eyes on it.
“Alix’s Journeys of Discovery” came in a set of three books – Book 1 covered the sites at Karnak and Luxor, Book 2 covered Abu Simbel and Aswan and Book 3 covered the pyramids. I very much wanted to have a copy of the books to study them carefully. I was thrilled to eventually find the books in an English-language Egyptophile bookstore at the site of the unfinished obelisk in Aswan.
There is simply so much to see at the temple complex of Karnak that it can feel overwhelming. While we were there, we did not focus so much on remembering the history and significance of the various temples, pylons and architectural elements. We allowed ourselves to be enveloped by the breathtaking grandness and stunning visual details of everything before us.
For me, the most unforgettable part of the Amun temple was the massive columns in the Great Hypostyle Hall. There are 134 gigantic stone columns depicted as giant stalks of papyrus that would have been brightly painted and supported a heavy wooden roof. This hall was built by Seti I around 1290 BC and added to or altered by subsequent pharaohs. Rameses II was adept at adding depictions of himself throughout the hall and engraving his cartouche on top of existing cartouches, effectively claiming the Great Hypostyle Hall as his domain.
We walked through the temple complex and approached the sacred lake. Just in front of the sacred lake was the statue of a scarab beetle. We saw other tourists walking around the statue and Omar explained to us the reason. The Ancient Egyptians associated scarab beetles with the blessings of happiness and rebirth because they believed that scarab beetles, in rolling their dung and laying eggs that turned into larva, mirrored the work of Amun Ra in the celestial realm. It is believed to be good luck if a person walks around the statue seven times. If the person has a specific request to Amun Ra, they can walk around the statue up to 21 times. We didn’t hesitate to make a wish and circle the statue 21 times.
Very close to the scarab beetle and just in front of the sacred lake is a recent addition to the site. Queen Hatshepsut’s pink granite obelisk was built in 1457 BC but had fallen either due to natural causes or intentional destruction. For hundreds of years, the top one-third of the obelisk was laying by the wayside in disrepair and in danger of crumbling into oblivion. A completely restored obelisk was re-erected in 2022. It does look disproportionately short, compared to the other obelisks that we have seen. The reason is because it is only the top one-third of the original obelisk as the bottom two-thirds has never been found.
For thousands of years, the temple complex of Karnak was an ever-changing, ever-evolving site where new pharaohs sought to make their mark and leave their legacy. We spent some time strolling through the Karnak Open-air Museum, located off to the side of the main tourist area and often overlooked by visitors who focus on the main temples. While the existing temples show the structures that have managed to survive the ages, the Karnak Open-air Museum is an effort to show the structures that didn’t make it. When new pharaohs ascended the throne, they demolished old structures that they considered unimportant and used the materials to build new ones. The pieces that were not reused were found scattered inside or used as filler material for newer monuments. Like putting together the pieces of a massive 3-D puzzle, made even harder by many missing pieces that are already part of another monument, archaeologists pieced together some of the structures that had not existed for thousands of years. Two of the most impressive and significant were the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III and the White Chapel of Sunusret I. Scattered throughout the Open-Air Museum were rows and rows of crumbling pieces that had not yet found their way back to the monument they were once a part of.
Luxor Temple
The Temple of Karnak and Luxor Temple are only a short distance from each other. In ancient times, they were connected by the Avenue of Sphinxes comprised of about 1350 sphinxes along a 3 km stone road. The avenue was used once a year during the Opet festival when priests would carry statues of Amun and Mut from the Amun Temple at Karnak to Luxor Temple in a ritualistic fashion.
Similar to the temple complex of Karnak, Luxor Temple as it stands today is the cumulative effort of generations of rulers that added to it and changed it to suit their needs. Construction of the temple began with Amenhotep III in around 1390 BC and was completed by Tutankhamen and Horemheb and then added to by Rameses II. Even after the pharaonic age, the temple was used as a place of worship for Christians and Muslims. Inside the temple walls, there is a Coptic church and a mosque and you can see where the original artwork was changed to reflect Christian iconography.
At the entrance of the temple stands a massive 25 meter tall obelisk built by Rameses II. It is obvious due to the lack of symmetry that there was originally another obelisk that stood beside it. The missing obelisk is in Paris at the Place de la Concorde.
There are thousands of Egyptian antiquities that are held by museums and private collectors overseas. This is a point of protest, frustration, anger and sadness for anybody involved in Egyptology and for Egyptians in general. How did these treasures end up outside of Egypt? For all of antiquity, grave robbers have looted the tombs and the whereabouts of the objects can remain a mystery until they pop up in a foreign museum or a private collection overseas. Some objects were given as gifts to foreign powers, for example the obelisk from Luxor Temple, that I mentioned above was given as a gift to the French. But the vast majority were acquired through other means, surprisingly, mostly legal at the time. It was not uncommon for foreign invaders and colonizers, and the list is long, from the Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, French, Italians and British, to send treasures back to their home country. For hundreds of years as foreign archaeologists from Europe, in particular France, Italy and Britain excavated sites all over Egypt, they were at times entitled to and at times pilfered from the artifacts that they discovered. Now, it is illegal to remove antiquities out of Egypt but even with laws in place, looting and smuggling of ancient antiquities to other countries has been a booming business, particularly during the Arab Spring.
There have been demands for some of the most high-profile artifacts to be repatriated back to Egypt. At the top of the list is the Rosetta Stone (currently at the British Museum) the bust of Nefertiti (currently in the Neues Museum in Berlin) and the Dendera Zodiac (currently in the Louvre). It seems the chance of that happening is low as the museums where the objects are housed argue that they were acquired legally in accordance with the laws of the era.
The first pylon (face) of Luxor Temple has six huge statues, or colossi, of Rameses II. The center two are seated and the two statutes on either side are standing. Again, Omar took out his Alix’s Journey of Discovery book and showed us what the temple would have looked like during the height of its influence. Each of the status of Rameses II are wearing the double-crown of Egypt, showing that Rameses was the ruler of both Upper and Lower-Egypt.
Walking through the first pylon gave us a sense of just how large the structures are. After passing through the first pylon, we entered the great Court of Rameses II. The most impressive figures here are the standing colossi of Rameses II and the papyrus columns.
We explored the Amenhotep III colonnade and the Great Court of Amenhotep III. Everything we saw was spectacular and we could only wonder about how all of this was built. Our guide Omar told us about a clever method Ancient Egyptians used to build the hypostyle halls with tens or hundreds of columns. They didn’t build one column at a time. They built it in levels. They would place the base layer of all of the columns in the hall at once. Then they would fill the area up with sand to create an embankment, effectively raising the working level. They would continue increasing the height of the embankment with sand until all of the columns reached the designated height.
I most enjoy seeing how new rulers with different religions adapted the temple to suit their plan and purpose. Inside the temple, there are at least two Coptic Christian churches that were built during the Byzantine period. There were engravings throughout the temple that were altered to reflect Christian iconography like the Coptic cross. The Mosque of Abu al-Haggag was built on top of the site of a demolished church during the Islamic period. It contains the tomb of the Sufi mystic Yusuf Abu al-Hajjaj.
It is hard to wrap my mind around the enduring presence of Luxor Temple in the lives of the Ancient Egyptians. It has been a site of worship for over 3500 years. The Christian religion is only 2000 years old and the Muslim religion is even younger than that. It is simply fascinating that this structure has managed to remain an important part of people’s lives by staying relevant and influential through adaptations to suit the religion of the time.
Great posts and an incredible journey! I’m finally all caught up and have learned much, thanks.
11/21 卡納克神廟，盧克索神廟
龐大神廟建築群，修建千年續耕耘。
震撼人心卡納克。最古埃及神殿群。
塔門大道方尖碑，彩繪浮雕石刻美。
敬拜太陽神阿蒙，巨柱大廳嘆宏偉。
聖甲蟲雕聖湖旁，遊客繞行意忙忙？
逆鐘七轉許心願，助你完願好棒棒。
～～～～～～～～～
不遠盧克索神廟，相銜人面獅身道。
宏偉龐大建築群，遙想繁華輝煌貌。
牆外坐像高豎立，方尖巨碑二缺一？
遙指巴黎廣場尋，只見殖民強權欺。
神廟教堂清真殿，千年變化遺址現。
阿蒙基督阿拉神，埃及古國多變遷。
往日輝煌已不在，一日五次行禮拜。
百姓溫和生活簡，天下太平難等待。