Luxor , comprises • Part of: Thebes
About Temple
History
The Luxor Temple was one of the most powerful temples in Ancient Egypt, the temple deity being Amun or Amun-Ra. Beginning in the New Kingdom period, the power of Amun’s priesthood rivaled that of the Pharaoh. Luxor was also an important temple because of its location.
Luxor Governorate, Egypt
Luxor Temple history
Constructed in the 14th century BC by Amenhotep III, the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Luxor Temple was part of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes.
The Ancient Egyptian temple complex of Luxor was founded in 1,400 BC and was expanded by 18th Dynasty Pharaohs Amenhotep III and Tutankhamun, and later by Ramesses the Great, and under the Roman Empire it was used as a fortress and government building.
The Romans constructed a military fort around the temple that the Arabs later called Al Uqsur (The Fortifications), which was later corrupted to give modern Luxor its name.
The Temple was also known as the Southern Sanctuary, its main function was during the annual Opet celebrations, when the statues of Amun, Mut and Khonsu were brought from Karnak, along the Avenue of Sphinxes, and reunited here during the inundation.
In the 14th century, a mosque was built in one of the interior courts for the local sheikh Abu Al Haggag. Excavation works, begun in 1885, have cleared away the village and debris of centuries to uncover what can be seen of the temple today, but the mosque remains and has been restored after a fire.
Construction
The Luxor Temple was built with sandstone from the Gebel el-Silsila area, which is located in South-Western Egypt.[4] This sandstone is referred to as Nubian sandstone.[4] It was used for the construction of monuments in Upper Egypt as well as in the course of past and current restoration works.[4]
Like other Egyptian structures, a common technique used was symbolism, or illusionism.[5] For example, to the Egyptian, a sanctuary shaped like an Anubis jackal was really Anubis.[5] At the Luxor Temple, the two obelisks (the smaller one closer to the west is now at the Place de la Concorde in Paris) flanking the entrance were not the same height, but they created the illusion that they were.[5] With the layout of the temple they appear to be of equal height, but using illusionism, it enhances the relative distances hence making them look the same size to the wall behind it. Symbolically, it is a visual and spatial effect to emphasize the heights and distance from the wall, enhancing the already existing pathway.
Festivals
The Luxor Temple was built during the New Kingdom and dedicated to the Theban Triad consisted of Amun, his consort Mut, and their son Khonsu. The focus of the annual Opet Festival, in which a cult statue of Amun was paraded down the Nile from nearby Karnak Temple (ipet-sut) to stay there for a while with his consort Mut, was to promote the fertility of Amun-Re and the Pharaoh. However, other studies at the temple by the Epigraphic Survey team present a completely new interpretation of Luxor and its great annual festival (the Feast of Opet).[6] They have concluded that Luxor is the temple dedicated to the divine Egyptian ruler or, more precisely, to the cult of the Royal Ka.[6] Examples of the cult of the Royal Ka can be seen with the colossal seated figures of the deified Ramesses II before the Pylon and at the entrance to the Grand colonnade are clearly Ka-statues, cult statues of the king as embodiment of the royal Ka
Avenue of Sphinxes
History
Construction of the Avenue of Sphinxes began during the New Kingdom era and was completed during the Late period during the reign of 30th Dynasty ruler Nectanebo I (380–362 B.C.), the road was later buried under layers of sand over the centuries.[2]
In Description de l’Égypte (1809) the Avenue of Sphinxes is described as 2,000 meters long, lined with over 600 sphinxes
Georges Daressy reported in 1893 that at Luxor the road is buried and couldn’t be excavated because it lay below the groundwater level, whereas at Karnak nearly a kilometer of it is visible.[4]
The first trace of the avenue (at Luxor) was found in 1949[5] when Egyptian archaeologist Mohammed Zakaria Ghoneim discovered eight statues near the Luxor Temple with 17 more statues uncovered from 1958 to 1961 and 55 unearthed from 1961 to 1964 all within a perimeter of 250 meters. From 1984 to 2000, the entire route of the walkway was finally determined, leaving it to excavators to uncover the road. The original 1,057 statues are along the way, and they are divided into three shapes:[1]
The first shape is a lion’s body with a ram’s head erected on an area of approximately 1,000 feet between the Karnak temple and the Precinct of Mut during the reign of the ruler of the New Kingdom Tutankhamun.
The second shape is a full ram statue, built in a remote area during the eighteenth dynasty of Amenhotep III, before being transferred later to the Karnak complex.
The third shape which includes the largest part of the statues is a statue of the Sphinx (body of a lion and head of a human), the statues extend over a mile to Luxor Temple.
Renovation and Grand Reopening
On 25 November 2021, the avenue was opened to the public having concluded restoration works that took over seven decades to complete. The march included participants in pharaonic dress, a symphony orchestra, lighting effects, professional dancers, boats on the Nile, horse drawn carriages. Three golden pharaonic-style model boats dedicated to the ancient sun god Amun Ra, moon god Khonsu and mother goddess Mut were carried by men in sheer gold and black robes. The vision for this event was created by a team under the German University in Cairo. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi attended the city-wide spectacle.[6] By that time, the avenue was lined with 1057 statues in total including 807 sphinx-shaped and 250 others with a ram-shaped head.[7]
Zahi Hawass called the Luxor site “the largest open [air] museum, the largest archeological site in the world that tells the history of Egypt from the 2,000 BC era known as the Dynasty XI — until the Roman Period.”[8]