Fodor's Expert Review Luxor Temple

East Bank Fodor's Choice

An astounding contrast with the modern city right outside its gate, Luxor Temple is a mostly New Kingdom construction started around 1390 BC. The temple was the southern counterpart to the temples of Karnak. During the annual Opet festival, statues of the gods were paraded down the Avenue of Sphinxes from Karnak to Luxor. For nearly 35 centuries, this religious complex has been a place of worship—from the ancient Egyptian pantheon to the mosque built into the temple's foundations that is open to the local community.

Like Karnak, Luxor Temple was adapted and expanded over millennia. Likely built over a Middle Kingdom predecessor, the largely 18th-Dynasty temple was developed by Amenhotep III and expanded by Ramses II, Nectanebo I, Alexander the Great, and the Romans. The Romans transformed the area around the temple into a military camp, and after the 4th-century AD Christian ban on pagan cults, several churches were built inside the temple.

A towering obelisk and a series... READ MORE

An astounding contrast with the modern city right outside its gate, Luxor Temple is a mostly New Kingdom construction started around 1390 BC. The temple was the southern counterpart to the temples of Karnak. During the annual Opet festival, statues of the gods were paraded down the Avenue of Sphinxes from Karnak to Luxor. For nearly 35 centuries, this religious complex has been a place of worship—from the ancient Egyptian pantheon to the mosque built into the temple's foundations that is open to the local community.

Like Karnak, Luxor Temple was adapted and expanded over millennia. Likely built over a Middle Kingdom predecessor, the largely 18th-Dynasty temple was developed by Amenhotep III and expanded by Ramses II, Nectanebo I, Alexander the Great, and the Romans. The Romans transformed the area around the temple into a military camp, and after the 4th-century AD Christian ban on pagan cults, several churches were built inside the temple.

A towering obelisk and a series of seated and standing statues of Ramses II guard the 79-foot-tall First Pylon and entrance to the temple. Originally, it was a pair of obelisks, but Muhammad Ali Pasha, the ruler of Ottoman Egypt, gifted the other to the French in 1830, and it's still in Paris. The pylon shows war scenes from the Battle of Kadesh, a campaign that Ramses II waged against the Hittites in modern-day Syria.

Heading off in the other direction is the 3-km (2-mile) Avenue of Sphinxes that leads to the Karnak temple complex. Its full length was opened in 2021 to pedestrians for the first time in thousands of years, and you can walk to a "back door" entrance to Karnak after exploring Luxor Temple.

Beyond the First Pylon lies the Court of Ramses II, encircled with a double row of papyrus-bud columns. Wall carvings show the pharaoh making offerings to the gods, as well as a list of some of his sons' names and titles. To the right of the entrance is a triple shrine built by Hatshepsut but taken over by her stepson successor, Thutmose III, who took credit for the monument by removing her cartouches and writing in his own. The shrine is dedicated to the Theban Triad: Amun-Ra in the middle, Mut on the left, and Khonsu on the right. To the left of the court entrance, well above the temple's floor level, is the still-open Mosque of Abu al-Haggag, built atop a Christian church. Al-Haggag was a holy man from Baghdad who died in Luxor in AD 1245.

The Colonnade of Amenhotep III consists of two rows of seven columns with papyrus-bud capitals. The wall decoration, completed by Amenhotep's successors, illustrates the voyage of the statue of the god Amun-Ra from Karnak to Luxor Temple during the Opet festival. On each side of the central walk are statues of Amun-Ra and Mut, carved during the reign of Tutankhamun, which Ramses II later usurped.

The colonnade leads to the Court of Amenhotep III, where a cachette of statues hidden by the Romans was found in 1989; it's now on display in the Luxor Museum. Double rows of remarkably elegant columns with papyrus-bud capitals flank this peristyle court on three sides. A Hypostyle Hall with even more columns lies to the south. Between the last two columns on the left as you walk to the back of the temple is a Roman altar dedicated to the Emperor Constantine.

South of the hypostyle hall are chapels dedicated to Mut and Khonsu. The first antechamber originally had eight columns, but they were removed during the 4th century AD to convert the space into a Christian church. The Romans plastered over the ancient Egyptian carvings, but one still intact scene shows an entourage of Roman officials awaiting the emperor.

Behind the chapels is the Offering Hall, with access to the inner sanctuary. On the east side, a doorway leads to the mammisi (chapel showing divine birth), used to prove that Amenhotep III was the son of the god Amun-Ra and to strengthen the pharaoh's position as absolute ruler. The symbolic birth scenes are spread over three registers on the left wall, showing goddesses suckling children, the pharaoh's birth in front of several gods, and Hathor (the goddess of motherhood) presenting the infant to Amun-Ra.

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Quick Facts

Mabad el-Luxor St.
Luxor, Luxor  Egypt

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Rate Includes: LE160

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