Luxor and the Temple of Karnak

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Day 2 in Luxor, with this morning's first stop being the Temple of Karnak...

Construction began in the Middle Kingdom (around 2000-1700 BCE) and continued all the way up to the Ptolemaic Kingdom (305-30 BCE) with most of the buildings dating from the New Kingdom (16th-11th century BCE). The temple is huge and is believed to be the second most visited site in Egypt after the Giza Pyramid complex.........

Okay, this has been sitting in Saved since March, historical research holding it up for the most part, and I have since travelled to several other places and things are getting backed up...lol...time to move on...

So the condensed version of this is: Karnak is cool, probably my favourite temple visited on the trip...the site itself is a maze of temples, statues, carvings and frescoes, with the columns in the Hypostyle Hall being an absolute wonder...134 of them in total, most 10 meters high and some upwards of 21 meters, really enjoyed wandering through the hall and taking in all the intricate carvings, certainly my favourite part of the site...

It is also at one end of the Avenue of the Sphinxes, a 2.7 km long avenue connecting the Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple, also known as The King's Festivities Road or Rams Road (due to the sphinxes and ram-headed statues lining both sides).

The avenue was first discovered in 1949, and after decades of restoration work the road was opened to the public in November of 2021...beautiful, managed to explore it from both Temples, although time/logistics didn't permit walking the whole thing...it must have been quite the site/sight to behold in it's heyday, book-ended by both temples...

And finally before dinner we opted to check out the Luxor Temple...my favourite part was actually the entrance, with its obelisk and statues standing guard...the temple itself is cool, but again I much preferred Karnak and frankly by this time we were probably reaching temple fatigue...

Returned to Cairo the following day for our final stop of the tour, and then it was off to Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula and Red Sea for some R&R on our own...

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Photos

Ram-Headed Sphinxes
Entrance to Karnak - First Pylon

Avenue of the Sphinxes
Looking back at the Entrace/Exit/Tenth Pylon, with ram-headed sphynxes lining the route

Second Pylon
Entrance to Great Hypostyle Court - Karnak

Columns
Hypostyle Court, loved the detail in the carvings...

Ahmed and Storytime
Explaining the story behind this great mural in Great Hypostyle Hall - yeah I don't remember the details...

Entrance to Karnak
First Pylon

Allan at Karnak...
...our favourite Vanuatan lol...

Scarab Statue
Worshipped by ancient Egyptians, it is believed that going around the statue three times brings good luck, while going around it seven times brings marriage for those who did not marry and going around nine times causes pregnancy for an infertile wife...I did it three times lol...

Exit to the Avenue of the Sphinxes
Tenth Pylon

Lovely K
on the Avenue of the Sphinxes

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Karnak and more
It's tough getting behind on blogs. Hopefully, you'll have time to get caught up as we enjoy your travels. Temple fatigue is real. One does have to ponder what life was really like during those times.

[el Jefe]

Karnak and more
Thanks guys, always nice hearing from you...the age and history was truly mind-boggling, loved it...