Luxor Travel Guide
Luxor "The city of the 100 gates" was the ancient city of the Thebes, the great capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom,The ancient Egyptians called the city Waset "the city of the scepter" capital of Egypt's IV nome.in a later period, the Greeks called it Thebai and the Romans after them Thebae.
The west bank did not, however, include only the tombs of the kings of
Egypt, of their families and of the leading dignitaries, whose paintings
are among the highest expressions of the art of all times. It was also
the place where the worship of the deified living king, besides that of
the dead kings, was conducted in the so-called temples "of the millions
of years", masterpieces of ancient architecture.
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| valley of The Kings |
The Royal necropolises, referred to as "Valley of the Kings" and "Valley of the Queens", the private necropolises, best known by the name of "tombs of the nobles", and the great memorial temples such as Deir el-Bahri, the Ramesseum or Medinet Habu, have nowadays become touristic attractions visited every year by millions of tourists wishing to admire the works of art enclosed in the ancient kingdom of Osiris.
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| The Karnak Temple |
The largest temple complex ever built by man, it represents the combined
achievement of generations of ancient builders and covers a truly
massive area.
There are three main compounds. The main precinct, that of Amun, along
with its subsidiary temples, lies in the centre; directly to the south
is the precinct of Amun's consort Mut; and to the north is the precinct
of Montu, the original falcon god of the Theban area who was displaced
by Amun. The small temple of Khonsu, third member of Karnak's great
triad (Amun, Mut and Khonsu), stands within the main Amun precinct,
along with some 20 other temples and chapels built along two axes
(east-west and north-south) this sprawling mass of ruined temple must be
carefully studied in order to understand its original plan and
subsequent growth. The original core of the temple was located near the
centre of the east-west axis on a mound which was doubtless an ancient
sacred site. From there the temple spread outwards, both towards the
Nile in normal temple expansion and also on its other axis towards the
outlying Mut temple to the south.
The modern entrance on the west is
by way of the quay built by Ramesses II which gave access to the temple
from a canal linked to the Nile in ancient times.
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| Colossis of Memnon |
Two colossal seated statues of pharaon Amenhotep III .
IN 27 BC an earthquake damaged the northern statue, and perhaps created
some flaw in the stone, causing it to produce a whistling sound each
morning.
This has been variously ascribed to the effect of the
breeze or the expansion of the stone, although the precise reason
remains uncertain.
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| Ramses II |
As a result of the identification of the colossi with Memnon, the
area of western Thebes itself became known as Memnonia, and the
RAMESSEUM as the Memnonium. The term Memnonium was even applied to the
Osireion at ABYDOS. These names were still fashionable in the early
nineteenth century, when Giovanni BELZONI applied the phrase 'young
Memnon' to a colossal head of Rameses II, which he transported from the
Ramesseum to the British Museum.
