Located in Upper Egypt Luxor has
been described as the world’s biggest open air museum. Nowadays it has been
elevated to the status of Governorate, though it is still classified as being
in the province of Qena. It has a population of round about 230,000, most of
who are employed in tourism somehow, though there are many who are employed in
agriculture and commerce. It is one of the most popular destinations in Egypt,
being one of those places that you must see. Because of this almost every
tourist company has an office somewhere in the town.
It has been estimated that Luxor
contains about a third of the most valuable monuments and antiquities in the
whole world, which makes it one of this planet’s most important tourism sites.
Monuments such as The Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, the Valley of the Kings, the
Valley of the Queens, Deir El-Bahri (the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut), the
workers village at Deir El-Medina, the list goes on and on and on. Though most
visitors will stay for just a few days, it would take a substantial amount of
time to visit everything in this amazing town.
Once known as Thebes, Luxor’s
importance in ancient Egyptian history cannot be denied. It was the religious
capital for almost all of the Pharaonic period which is why the town is
dominated by the two temples; The Temple of Luxor, and the immense Temple of
Karnak; the world’s largest temple complex.
Dedicated to Amun Ra, the Temple
of Karnak was constantly expanded by successive pharaohs, each adding his, or
her, tribute to the god. The site dates back to the Middle Kingdom under the
reign of Mentuhotep (11th Dynasty), but most of what can be seen today is from
the New Kingdom. Other parts of the complex include sites dedicated to Mut, the
wife of Amun Ra, and their son Khonsu.
Most people know that Luxor was
once Thebes, but “Thebes” was not what the ancient Egyptians called it. Ancient
texts show that it was called t-apt, which means “the shrine”, with the ancient
Greeks calling it tea pie. The Arabs had problems with pronunciation and so it
became Thebes to them. The name vanished then as the area submitted to the
desert and then by the 10th century Arab travellers thought the ruins were of
grand buildings so started to call it Al-Oksour, or “site of the palaces” which
slowly became Luxor.
Though it was never the capital of
a united Egypt, Thebes was capital of Upper Egypt during the times when Egypt
resorted to being split into two. This was especially true during the period of
the Hyksos invasion when Avaris became capital in the North. Thebes was where
the various pharaohs of Upper Egypt were based, and it was from here that the
final campaign, under Ahmose I, to expel the Hyksos originated.
Amon Ra
Today Luxor is split into two, by
the River Nile, and these two areas are known as the East Bank (where the town
lies) and the West Bank. Though this was also true in ancient times, the two
parts were called the city of the living (East Bank) and the city of the dead
(West Bank). Like most of the River Nile, the western side tends to be more
desert, with the eastern side having far more arable land, and so settlement
sites tended to favor this latter side.
Luxor is situated 670Km (416
miles) to the south of Cairo, 220Km (137 miles) to the north of Aswan, and
280Km (174 miles) to the west of Hurghada. It is the second most popular place
to visit in Egypt, behind Cairo, and is accessible in a number of ways.
