Luxor Temple is located in the historic city of Luxor, which is the modern name of the ancient Thebes. The temple of Luxor is one of the best-preserved of all of the ancient monuments containing large amounts of structure, statuary and relief carvings that are still intact to this day, making it one of the most impressive places to visit in the Luxor area and all of Egypt.
The Temple's location is in the heart of Luxor which makes it a very easy site to visit at almost any time of the day. Even when it is not open to visitors, the temple is visible during a stroll down the Nile corniche or through downtown Luxor.
On the East bank of the Nile River, in the south of Egypt, the World’s Largest Outdoor Museum, Luxor city, contains one of the most beautiful temple standing. The Luxor Temple is a mark of Ancient Egyptian civilization, strikingly graceful monument in the heart of modern Luxor.
The Luxor Temple was built with sandstone from the Gebel el-Silsila area, which is located in South-Western Egypt. This sandstone is referred to as Nubian sandstone. It was used for the construction for monuments in Upper Egypt as well as in the course of past and current restoration works.
Like other Egyptian structures, a common technique used was symbolism, or illusionism. For example, to the Egyptian, a sanctuary shaped like an Anubis jackal was really Anubis. 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. 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.
The temple was not built in adoration to a god or to a god figure of the kings and pharaohs; instead, Luxor Temple was built in dedication to the rejuvenation of kingship. Many kings might have had they crowning at the Temple of Luxor, whether crowned in reality or conceptually as in the case of Alexander the Great, who claimed he was crowned at Luxor although facts contradict appear that he had never traveled south of Memphis which is considered the modern city of Cairo.
In the Egyptian language, the Luxor Temple is known as ipet resyt which means the southern sanctuary; its main function was during the annual Opet festivals. At these festivals, the statues of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu were moved from Karnak, along the Avenue of Sphinxes, and reunited here during the inundation.
The temple was built in 1400 BCE during Egypt New Kingdom. Pharaoh Amenhotep III, one of the great builders of ancient Egypt, was responsible for starting the construction of the Luxor temple during the New Kingdom (1390-1352 BC) who Amenhotep III greatly enlarged an older shrine built by Hatshepsut, and rededicated the massive temple as Amun’s southern ipet (harem), the private quarters of the god. The structure was further added to by Tutankhamun, Ramses II, Alexander the Great and various Romans. 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, following by Tutankhamun (1336-27 BC), then Horemheb (1323-1295 BC) and then finished by Rameses II (1279-13 BC).
The Luxor temple appears to be one of the many projects that Ramesses II commissioned during his long reign. Ramesses II also repurposed many existing monuments to add to his own reputation. The statuary and carvings that decorate the temple today mainly feature Ramses II.
The Luxor Temple was constructed of sandstone blocks from Nubia. The temple is surrounded by mud-brick walls which symbolize the separation between the world and the sacred realm of the gods. The Temple’s design during the New Kingdom exhibited a set of common design features in the construction of the temple. The Luxor Temple displays many of the features typical of temple construction known during the New Kingdom.
Luxor Temple is one of the most famous temples around Luxor. The temple complex contains several pylons that can reach 70 yards long. In front of the temple is the beginning of the Avenue of Sphinxes. It ran all the way to the Karnak Temple for 3 kilometers to the north. The avenue is currently under excavation, but the section nearest to Luxor Temple has already been restored.
In ancient times the temple would have been surrounded by a warren of mud-brick houses, shops and workshops, which now lie under the modern town, but after the decline of the city people moved into the – by then – partly covered temple complex and built their city within it. In the 14th century, a mosque was built in one of the interior courts for the local sheikh (holy man) 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.
The temple contains a peristyle courtyard which dates back to Amenhotep. It holds the best-preserved columns on the eastern side while the southern side is made up of 32 columns. They lead to the inner sanctums that were used as a chapel during the Roman times. Temple of Luxor also holds a birth shrine built by Amenhotep III and a barque shrine that was used by Amun built by Alexander. Ramses II constructed a pylon (The massive first pylon) which shows two towers at the height of 24m and the wide of 65m. It is decorated with his military expeditions and victory at the battle of Kadesh.
The pylon was originally fronted by six colossal statues of Ramses II, four seated and two standing, but only two of the seated figures and one standing remain. Of the original pair of pink-granite obelisks that stood here, one remains while the other stands in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. Beyond lies the Great Court of Ramses II, surrounded by a double row of columns with lotus-bud capitals, the walls of which are decorated with scenes of the pharaoh making offerings to the gods. On the south (rear) wall is a procession of 17 sons of Ramses II with their names and titles. In the northwestern corner of the court is the earlier triple-barque shrine built by Hatshepsut and usurped by her stepson Tuthmosis III for Amun, Mut and Khonsu. Over the southeastern side hangs the 14th-century Mosque of Abu Al Haggag, dedicated to a local sheikh, entered from Sharia Maabad Al Karnak, outside the temple precinct.
Beyond the court is the older, splendid Colonnade of Amenhotep III, built as the grand entrance to the Temple of Amun of the Opet. The walls behind the elegant open papyrus columns were decorated during the reign of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun and celebrate the return to Theban orthodoxy following the wayward reign of the previous pharaoh, Akhenaten. The Opet Festival is depicted in lively detail, with the pharaoh, nobility and common people joining the triumphal procession. Look out for the drummers and acrobats doing backbends.
South of the Colonnade is the Sun Court of Amenhotep III, once enclosed on three sides by double rows of towering papyrus-bundle columns, the best preserved of which, with their architraves extant, are those on the eastern and western sides. In 1989 workmen found a cache of 26 statues here, buried by priests in Roman times, now displayed in the Luxor Museum.
Beyond lies the Hypostyle Hall, the first room of the original Opet temple, with four rows of eight columns each, leading to the temple’s main rooms. The central chamber on the axis south of the Hypostyle Hall was the cult sanctuary of Amun, stuccoed over by the Romans in the 3rd century AD and painted with scenes of Roman officials: some of this is still intact and vivid. Through this chamber, either side of which are chapels dedicated to Mut and Khonsu, is the four-columned antechamber where offerings were made to Amun. Immediately behind the chamber is the Barque Shrine of Amun, rebuilt by Alexander the Great, with reliefs portraying him as an Egyptian pharaoh.
There’re six barque shrines, serving as way stations for the barques of the gods during festival processions, were set up on the avenue between the Karnak and Luxor Temple. The avenue which went in a straight line between the Luxor Temple and the Karnak area was lined with human-headed sphinxes; in ancient times it is probable that these replaced earlier sphinxes which may have had different heads. Along the avenue the stations were set up for ceremonies such as the Feast of Opet which held significance to temple. Each station had a purpose, for example the fourth station was the station of Kamare, which cooled the oar of Amun. The Fifth station of Kamare was the station which received the beauty of Amun. Lastly the Sixth Station of Kamare was a shrine for Amun, Holy of Steps.
A small mudbrick shrine was built in the courtyard of Nectanebo I in early second century (126 CE) and was dedicated to Serapis and Isis; it was presented to Roman Emperor Hadrian on his birthday.
To the east a doorway leads into two rooms. The first is Amenhotep III’s 'birth room' with scenes of his symbolic divine birth. You can see the moment of his conception, when the fingers of the god touch those of the queen and ‘his dew filled her body’, according to the accompanying hieroglyphic caption. The Sanctuary of Amenhotep III is the last chamber; it still has the remains of the stone base on which Amun’s statue stood, and although it was once the most sacred part of the temple, the busy street that now runs directly behind it makes it less atmospheric.
As for Abu Haggag Mosque is the active mosque located within the temple, standing on the ancient columns themselves. That part of the Luxor Temple was converted to a church by the Romans in 395 AD, and then to a mosque in 640, more than 3400 years of continuous religious worship. Hence, the Luxor Temple is the oldest building in the world at least partially active for other than archeological or tourist purposes.