"Luxor... " a Luxor Travel Page by MM212

Once abundant with grand palaces, Luxor, el-Uqsur in Arabic, derived its name from the Arabic word for "palace". This modern name was adopted after the arrival of the Arabs and Islam to Egypt, by which time, Ancient Egyptian culture and religion had all but disappeared. Prior to the conquest by the Arabs, Egypt was an Eastern (Byzantine) Roman province deeply rooted in Christianity much like the rest of the Empire. Upon their arrival in Egypt, but before adopting Christianity, the Romans established a fort, or castrum, around the main temple Ipet-resyt, in the city they renamed Diospolis Magna. The Romans replaced the Ptolemaic Dynasty, inheritors of Alexander the Great, who had called the city Thebes and superimposed their own Hellenistic culture over Egypt, while maintaining its ancient religion and complex traditions. Despite the continued importance of the city and its temples through the Ptolemaic period, the golden age, which had occurred well before any dominant foreign interference had overtaken Egypt, was never repeated. This was during the New Kingdom when Thebes was known as Waset and served as the religious and, frequently also, the political capital of the nation.

Luxor is often described as the world's greatest open-air museum, a title well-deserved. Its enviable archeological sites are vast in number and size, extend over an enormous area, date over a long period and retain contributions from the various empires and dynasties that ruled the city. Most of the surviving construction, though, dates from the New Kingdom, the zenith of Luxor's history. Various Pharaohs from this period in particular, such as Hatshepsut, Amenhotep III and Ramses II to name a few, tried to out-do each other by expanding the grand temples on the east bank, while building eternal mortuary temples on the west bank. Their tombs and those of their families and people were scattered around the west bank of the Nile at the edge of the desert. Today, the ancient sites are divided into three main areas, the Temple of Luxor in the heart of the modern city, the Complex of Karnak, about 2.5 kms to the north, and the vast Necropolis of Thebes, located on the west bank of the Nile. Tips on this page discuss the modern city and the Temple of Luxor in detail, but only summarise Karnak and the Necropolis. Further details on the latter two can be found on separate pages (Karnak and The Necropolis of Thebes).

During Christmas 2007, I was in Luxor for two full days and three nights (sans Nile cruise). The two days, each dedicated to one bank of the Nile and charged with relentless sightseeing, were only enough to glance at the major highlights. While the monuments and ruins were magnificent, I discovered that beyond them was a thriving city filled with life and energy. Much like the rest of Egypt, poverty is rampant and the infrastructure crumbling, yet the people, elderly and children alike, seem jovial and content, and have the typical light Egyptian outlook on life. Indeed, the infamous touts and haggling for anything and everything got unpleasant at times, but there was much to admire in the simple life led by the locals, as distant as they could be from the life of palaces their ancestors once enjoyed.

Egypt December 2007 Itinerary:
Cairo - Saqqara - Pyramids of Giza; Luxor - Karnak - Necropolis of Thebes; Aswan - Philae - Kalabsha; Abu Simbel; Cairo again.