Egypt Travelogue - Luxor

We flew to Luxor from Cairo by Egypt Air. This saved us a day to spend more time in Luxor.  The ancient city of  the New Kingdom  with its capital at Thebes was dedicated to the God Amon-Ra. Our plan was to visit the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple and the Temples built by Queen Hapshet Sut the first woman pharoh and King Ramses III.  After a brief rest and breakfast we started our journey to the ancient sites. The two statues of Amenhotep III also called as the colossi of Memnon dated 14th century BC welcome us to the necropolis located in the west banks of the Nile. The two statues stand guard at the entrance of the mortuary temple which is now in rubbles and ruins.  Behind the statues are the limestone mountains facing the desert are the tombs of the Kings and Queens. The Egyptians also built tombs for the nobles, and common people.
 There are about 63 tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Tourists are allowed in about 11 of them. We visited the tomb of Tutankhamun and few other tombs. The whole valley is designated as the World Heritage Site and the paintings on the walls are protected by glass walls. One could still see ancient graffitti in some places. The rock cut corridor leads to the chambers. The funerary texts are etched on the walls.
After the visit to the tombs we headed towards the Temple of Ramses III which has beautiful paintings and columns with disfigured statues. 

Another noteworthy temple is the one built by Queen Hapshetsut facing the famous Karnak Temple.  The temple has three levels with huge columns and a big courtyard with colassal statues. This is located in the Valley of the Queens.

The Karnak and Luxor temples are in the east bank of the Nile and are dedicated to the God Amon-Ra. The west bank is the Valley for the dead and the east bank is for the temples. Amon-Ra with his consort Mut and Chon have statues in the Luxor temple. Queen Hapshet Sut has constructed two obelisks in the Karnak temple. These obelisks are the inspiration to the Wshington Monument in DC.

The avenue of the sphinx, the obelisks, the corridors, ritual tank which has an underground pipe connecting to the river Nile and the huge pillars are amazing. The colassal artifacts which dates back to 14th century BC to 900 BC make us feel humble.  The remains show us a glimpse of the past, a civilization that flourished and pushed the humanity to the present century. 

My head bowed in silence and I thanked those ancient artisans, architects, and sculptors.