THE TEMPLES, SITES AND MONUMENTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT

Luxor is a modern Egyptian city with a population of more than150,000 people. It is a pre-eminent tourist destination and often called the "world's greatest open air museum".

The Luxor area of Upper Egypt was the Thebes of the ancient Egyptians - the capital of Egypt during the Middle and New Kingdoms.

To the north are the ruins of the massive temple complex at Karnak. On the west bank of the Nile are the monuments, temples and tombs of the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. On the east bank, running alongside the river bank is the Luxor Temple (left).

Modified over many centuries, its main pylons, or gates, are on the northern end.

In front of them is one obelisk. Its companion was given to France and taken to Paris where it was erected on the Place de la Concorde in 1836, where it stands today.

OPET FESTIVAL
Many festivals were celebrated in Thebes/Luxor, but the Temple of Luxor was the center of the most important one, the Festival of Opet. Built largely by pharaohs Amenhotep III (1382-1344 BC) and Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC), the temple provided a suitable setting for the rituals of the festival.

The festival's metaphysical purpose was to reconcile the human aspect of the pharaoh with his divine office. During the 18th Dynasty the festival lasted eleven days, but had grown to twenty-seven days by the reign of the 20th Dynasty Ramesses III (1184-1153 BC). At that time the festival included the distribution of over 11,000 loaves of bread, 850 cakes and 385 jars of beer.

A procession of images of the current royal family began at Karnak and ended at the temple of Luxor. By the late 18th Dynasty the journey was made by gilded barges on the Nile River. Each god or goddess was carried in a separate barge that was towed by smaller boats. Large crowds of soldiers, dancers, musicians and high ranking officials accompanied the flotilla by walking along the banks of the river. During the procession the common people were allowed to ask favors of the statues of the kings and images of the gods floating by. Once at the temple, the king and his priests arrived to a thunderous greeting from thousands of Egyptians, then entered the back chambers.

There, the king and his ka (the divine essence of each king, created at birth) were merged, and the king 'transformed' into a divinity. The crowd outside anxiously awaited the transformed king, and greeted his re-emergence with another tumultous roar. This completed the religous portion of the ritual. The Pharaoh of Egypt had become a god. Revelry ensued.

The Opet Festival was the backbone of a pharaoh's government, providing legal and spiritual legitimacy to the ruler of Egypt. It confirmed an established pharaoh, and gave strengthened authority to a usurper or one outside the dynastic bloodline.

Just south of the temple is the Old Winter Palace Hotel - used early this century by Lord Carnarvon as work proceeded on West Bank excavations and preliminary work on the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Home | Nile Valley | Dynasties | Wealth | Divinity | Temples | Hieroglyphs | Mysteries