Luxor, rather – Thebes. More than a day it sure needs.

Next up – Luxor. But you need the luxury of plenty of time for this one, which, alas, we didn’t have…

Luxor (formerly – Thebes), for a long time the capital of Ancient Egypt, has one really rich history – and a very long one: it’s nearly 5000 years old! All the same, a lot of it remains to this day – along both banks of the River Nile – albeit in ruins. Statues, columns, temples (and surely tombs?:) – and all of them simply must-see…

First up for us was the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut (I knew there just had to be ~tombs!)… ->

Mortuary temples like this one were erected close to the royal tombs of Ancient Egypt, and designed to commemorate the reign of a Pharaoh while alive, and then be used by his imperial cult after death…

Not bad for a purely ritual building )…

Inside – same [very!] old. Not that I was complaining! ->

An empress and the god Ra:

// Ever wondered how many gods the Ancient Egyptians had? I did. I imagined a few dozen at the most; how wrong I was!

More tales from the ancient side…

Empresses?

Next up: the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III; however, it’s in much worse shape today than the one we’d just seen:

The two colossuses that guarded the entrance to the temple are showing their age, but the temple itself – there’s hardly any of it left at all. The reasons? (i) Age, pure and simple; (ii) its being plundered for construction materials down the millennia (the inhumanity!); and (iii) the Nile spilling over regularly every year and fairly flooding the place – over thousands of years.

A leg and an arm are all that’s left of this similar statue:

Down below: modern graffiti:

Inscriptions in Latin and Greek! ->

…French too. And some of the dates were surprising: 1817, 1820…

Next: come nightfall we made it to the main temple of Luxor (on the eastern bank). Alas, one day for Luxor is way too short a time.

Luxor Temple:

Grandiose and gigantic. But we had too little time to check it out properly. Must come back – in the daytime – for a proper go… ->

Alas – too many folks milling about:

The Avenue of Sphinxes, discovered only relatively recently:

2.5km long, running directly to another temple: the Karnak Temple Complex.

Must walk along its full length next time!…

We made it to Karnak literally at night. This huge complex needs checking out during the day, taking one’s time. So that’s yet another reason we must come back, and next time we must plan better!…

We only got a few glimpses of this magnificent masterpiece of ancient construction:

Later on here at night there’s some kind of historical-musical-light show. That’s where all these crowds were heading ->

We’ll just have to save that experience too for next time )…

The rest of the pics from Egypt are here.

That’s all for today folks, but I’ll be back with more from the Land of the Pharaohs shortly…