Luxor Egypt is located in upper Egypt 675 km south of Cairo on the right bank of the Nile river.

Luxor includes the village of Karnak (Karnak Temple) to the northeast and the ancient monuments and the burial ground, Valley of The Kings, on the other side of the Nile and, of course, the Luxor Temple. Ancient Egypt Temples KARNAK.

The Karnak Temple is located on the east side of the Nile, just north of the Temple of Luxor. The temple of Karnak was known as Ipet-isut (most select of places) by the ancient Egyptians. It is a city of temples built over 2000 years and dedicated to the Theben triad of Amun, Mut and Khonsu.

This derelict place is still capable of overshadowing many of the wonders of the modern world, and in its day must have been awe inspiring.

For the largely uneducated ancient Egyptian population this could only have been the place of the gods. It is the mother of all religious buildings, the largest ever made, and a place of pilgrimage for nearly 4,000 years. Although, today's pilgrims are mainly tourists.

It covers about 200 acres - 1.5km by 0.8km. The area of the sacred enclosure of Amun

Massive Column - Karnak Temple Ancient Egypt Temples Karnak

This derelict place is still capable of overshadowing many of the wonders of the modern world, and in its day must have been awe inspiring.

For the largely uneducated ancient Egyptian population this could only have been the place of the gods. It is the mother of all religious buildings, the largest ever made, and a place of pilgrimage for nearly 4,000 years. Although, today's pilgrims are mainly tourists.

It covers about 200 acres - 1.5km by 0.8km. The area of the sacred enclosure of Amun alone is 61 acres, and would hold ten average-sized European cathedrals. The Hypostyle hall, at 54,000 square feet, and with its 134 columns (the tallest of the 134 columns reaches a height of 23 meters) is still the largest room of any religious building in the world. In this enormous forest of columns you get a genuine feeling of the wealth of the New Kingdom and of the importance of Amun as the State-God.

Karnak is the home of the god Amun who was an insignificant local god until the 12th dynasty when Thebes became the capital of Egypt. He was represented in his original state as a goose and later as a ram, at the height of his power he was shown as a human with a head dress of feathers - all that remained of the goose.

In ancient times wars were not fought between countries but were considered as contests between gods. One deity subduing and replacing another, the victorious god and its people growing in strength. This is how Amun, with the help of Thutmose III and various other New Kingdom kings, rose to become the first supreme god of the known world and was hailed as God of gods.

Little is known of him, unlike most other gods he has no legends or miracles to impress his worshippers and seems to be closer to an abstract idea of a godhead. His followers came from all the strata of society and he was known to some as 'Vizier of the poor.'

All ancient Egyptian temples had a sacred lake, Karnak's is the largest. It was used during festivals when images of the gods would sail across it on golden barges.

The water supply to the lake, which symbolized the primeval ocean Nun, comes directly from the Nile. Next to the lake is a small café where you can pit stop in the shade and fantasize about the temple in its golden ages.

Ancient Egypt Temples LUXOR

The Luxor Temple has many fascinating aspects and features that continue to attract multitudes of people:

The Luxor Temple The temple of Luxor, some 260 m (850 ft) long today, was built by Amenophis III on the foundations of a previous religious structure, dating from the time of Queen Hatshepsut.

The Colonnades One of the glories of the ancient Egyptian temple of Luxor is a majestic colonnade dating to the reign of Amenophis III, with 14 columns with papyrus-shaped capitals standing 18 m (60 ft) tall, and almost 10 m (33 ft) in circumference.

The colonnade is enclosed on both sides by a masonry curtain wall, with reliefs depicting various phases of the Festival of Opet, completed and decorated during the reigns of Tutankhamun and Horemheb.

A magnificent courtyard follows; it is lined with a double row of columns, and bordered to the south by the hypostyle hall, which itself contains 32 gigantic columns.

From here, the visitor passes on to the inner section of the attraction where there is a series of four antechambers and ancillary rooms, as well as the Sanctuary of the Sacred Barque, situated in the innermost room. The chapel was rebuilt by Alexander the Great. The ceremonies that took place in the temple of Luxor were of great importance, and their religious symbolism complex. During the Festival of Opet, the feast of the royal jubilee, the divine rebirth of the pharaoh, son of Amun, was celebrated, reaffirming in this way his power.

The ancient Egyptian temple of Luxor also served as a shrine for the worship of the divine and immortal portion of the pharaoh, the royal "ka", symbol of the legitimacy of the pharaoh's power, which was universal and not restricted to any individual pharaoh.

In terms of purity of structural design and the elegance of its columns, the temple is one of the most remarkable architectural achievements of the New Kingdom. The Courtyard of Ramsees II The courtyard of Ramses II, is surrounded by a peristyle of 74 papyrus columns arranged in a double row and adorned with 16 statues of the pharaoh, and incorporates a three-part chapel on the northern side, also dedicated to the Theban triad and dating to Hatshepsut's reign.

The Obelisks Also dating to the reign of Ramsees II are two large obelisks that once stood before the first pylon (a word derived from the Greek meaning 'gateway') and which were given to France by the ruler of Egypt, Mohammad Ali, in 1819.

The western obelisk, more than 21 m (70 ft) tall and weighing 210 tons, was removed by the French in 1836 and erected in Paris in the Place de la Concorde. All claims to ownership over the second obelisk, which remained in its position in Egypt, were renounced by France in 1980.

The Abu El Haggag Mosque On the eastern side of the courtyard a Byzantine church was built in the sixth century AD, and on top of that, during the reign of the Ayyubid sultans (thirteenth century AD), the mosque of Abu El-Haggag was built. This Egyptian tourist attraction is still in use today as a place of prayer.

The Mummification Museum This small and fairly new attraction illustrates the fine art of embalming and mummification with wall pictures and archaeological artefacts.

Valley of the Kings, West Bank in Luxor

The desert valley on the west bank of Thebes is best known as Valley of the Kings, Egypt.

The location was the political and religious capital of the New Kingdom, and was first used as a royal necropolis by Thutmosis I, although it was his predecessor, Amenhotep I, who was considered the patron-god of the valley by the actual builders of the tombs.

The last known king to have built a tomb in the Valley was Ramsees XI, the last king of the New Kingdom, although it is doubtful that he ever used that tomb.

Despite its modern name, the majority of its tombs were not built for members of the royal family and entourage.

The valley of the Kings Egypt has two main branches: the East Valley, where most of the royal tombs are situated, and the West Valley, which contains only the tombs of Amenhotep III and Ay, and some pits.

The tombs of most of the New Kingdom kings have been discovered over the years; some were already open to public during the Greek-Roman era, others have only recently been unearthed.

All of the tombs have fallen victim to one or several visits by tomb robbers, even the famous tomb of Tutankhamun that was discovered almost intact in 1922 by Howard Carter.

In an effort to save the royal mummies of these attractions from destruction, and to salvage the remaining treasures of the royal tombs, the priests of the end of the 20th and the 21st Dynasty opened the tombs, collected the mummies and buried them in two or more "caches".

The first "cache" was a rock tomb high up in the mountains of Deir el-Bahri that was probably intended as the family tomb of the 21st Dynasty king-priests. The second "cache" was the tomb of 18th Dynasty king Amenhotep II.

Not every royal mummy of the New Kingdom has been found, so there is room for the hypothesis that there may have been a third "cache" which has not yet been identified as such or which has not yet been discovered.

The only royal mummies to have been found in their own tombs were those of Amenhotep II, who was re-buried in his own tomb by the 21st Dynasty priests, and Tutankhamun, whose tomb lay undisturbed from the middle of the 20th Dynasty on.