Luxor is perhaps the Egyptian city with the most ancient sites. I chose to visit the most famous three – the Valley of the Kings, the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, and the temple complex at Karnak.
I arrived in Luxor by bus around 9:30 in the morning and immediately went to the train station to buy my ticket to Aswan for 10:30 in the evening. My work was cut out for me – thirteen hours in Luxor n
Luxor is split in two by the Nile. The funerary monuments are all on the western side, where the sun sets. This was symbolic to the ancient Egyptians. There are no bridges over the Nile in Luxor, so I got aboard the ferry, which in this case consisted of a small fishing boat with an outboard motor and an awning. It offered excellent views of the river.
Photography is prohibited in the Valley of the Kings, so I unfortunately don’t have anything to display here. I didn’t go inside the tomb of Tutankhamun, which is said to be one of the least impressive in the valley. All the treasures have been removed and placed in the Cairo Museum, which I visited a few days ago.
The walls of the tombs display scenes of the gods and the afterlife, sometimes including the embalming process. All the scenes and hieroglyphics have been carved into the rock, then painted in additional detail by hand. The effect this creates is impossible to describe.
The tombs were hewn straight into the rock, usually in a straight, downward-sloping line. In several cases, the masons cutting the tombs ran into other burial chambers, in several cases being forced to shift the axis by several metres.
It was hot in the valley, without the breeze the rest of Egypt usually experiences. I didn’t stay more than an hour, just long enough to explore three tombs. If it has been cooler, I would have stayed longer.
I also spent little time at the Temple of Hatshepsut, my next stop. Photos were allowed here, but the reconstructed temple is less impressive and should have been my first stop instead.
Hatshepsut was one of the few qeeens to exercise absolute authority over Egypt, but she was far from sainthood. She was only able to obtain her power by forcing her son to the sidelines through a combination of pressure and force. It’s not really surprising then that he had his mother’s temple vandalised shortly after her death. Interestingly, Hatshepsut is always portrayed in statues as a man.
After eating lunch with a spectacular view of the Nile, I went to Karnak in the middle of the afternoon. The main attraction here is the hypostyle hall, the largest indoor space of its time. The interior is the size of Notre Dame in Paris, and the roof is supported by massive columns.
In some places, cranes are still aiding one reconstruction.
I’m now relaxing in a charming little restaurant, waiting for my train up the Nile to Aswan in a few hours.
