The Temple of Luxor: The Southern Sanctuary of Amun
The Temple of Luxor stands at the very heart of the modern city of Luxor, on the east bank of the Nile about three kilometers south of the great temple complex of Karnak. It was the southern “harem” or second house of the god Amun in Thebes, a partner to Karnak in the great Opet Festival and one of the most frequently visited and best-known monuments of Ancient Egyptian Civilization. Its central core was built by Amenhotep III (c. 1390–1352 BCE) in the 18th Dynasty, and the most prominent surviving elements (the great colonnaded court and the colossal pylon) are the work of Ramesses II a century later. Alexander the Great and the Roman emperors added their own touches, and the temple continued to be used in one form or another until the early medieval period.
The Site and the Name
The modern name “Luxor” is a corruption of the Arabic al-Uqsur, “the palaces” or “the castles,” which in turn is derived from the Latin castra (a military camp) but applied in the Middle Ages to the ruined temple. The Egyptians themselves called the temple the Southern Harem of Amun (Ipet-Resyt in Middle Egyptian, ipet rs.t in late Egyptian), a name that may reflect the association of Amun with the mother goddess Mut and the wider family of the Theban triad. The temple is, in essence, the southern limit of a sacred processional circuit that began at Karnak and terminated at Luxor, returning to Karnak after the great Opet Festival.
The Founding of the Temple
The origins of the temple go back to the early 18th Dynasty, when a small shrine was dedicated to Amun on the same site, but the main building was laid out by Amenhotep III, the great builder-king of the early 14th century BCE. The temple was probably the center of a major program of civic and religious construction in Thebes, including the great palace of Malqata on the west bank, the colonnade of the mortuary temple (the modern Colossi of Memnon), and the rich painted tombs of the Tombs of the Nobles in the Theban necropolis.
Amenhotep III’s temple was aligned north–south, with its main axis perpendicular to the river. The southern sanctuary of the temple is the oldest part, dating to Amenhotep’s reign, and was dedicated to the cult of the king. The northern sanctuary of the temple is slightly later, and the great colonnaded court was added by Ramesses II. The two sections are noticeably different in style: Amenhotep’s sanctuary is a smaller, darker, more intimate space; Ramesses’ court is large, open, and bright.
The Approach: The Avenue of Sphinxes
The temple was originally approached from the north by an avenue of human-headed sphinxes, two rows of them, leading to the great pylon. Each sphinx held a small statue of a king between its paws, a pattern that has been restored in a major project of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities in the early twenty-first century. The avenue, originally about 2.5 kilometers long, was flanked on the east side by a processional canal that connected the temple to the river and on the west side by a broad processional road. The 2021 reopening of the Avenue of Sphinxes between Luxor and Karnak as a continuous pedestrian way has made it possible once again to walk the entire route that the Opet Festival took in antiquity.
The Great Pylon and the Court of Ramesses II
The most prominent surviving structure is the Great Pylon at the entrance of the temple, built by Ramesses II and decorated with the typical battle scenes of his reign: the king smiting foreign enemies, his cartouches dominating the wall surface. A colossal seated statue of Ramesses and an obelisk originally stood in front of the pylon. The pylon gives access to the Peristyle Court of Ramesses II, a broad rectangular court surrounded on three sides by a double colonnade of papyrus-bundle columns. The court was the heart of the Roman-period and modern visit to the temple, and the sphinxes that line the modern entrance to the temple are modern replicas of the ancient originals.
The reliefs in the Peristyle Court depict the Festival of Amun-Min, an important fertility festival in which the king was believed to renew his creative powers. The western wall shows the king making offerings to the god Min, the ithyphallic god of male fertility, in a ceremony celebrated each year in the temple. The eastern wall depicts the king’s military campaigns.
The Amenhotep III Colonnade
Beyond the Peristyle Court, a second colonnade of large papyrus columns leads into the heart of the temple. The columns are the work of Amenhotep III and were originally richly painted, traces of which can be seen on the surviving shafts and capitals. The colonnade leads to a smaller vestibule, beyond which lies the central sanctuary, the room that housed the cult statue of Amun during the Opet Festival.
The reliefs in the Amenhotep III colonnade are notable for their elegance and for the prominence they give to the Theban triad. The southern wall depicts the king making offerings to Amun-Ra and Mut; the northern wall shows the king offering to Amun and Khonsu.
The Sanctuary and the Birth Room
The most sacred part of the temple is the small sanctuary at the southern end, a chamber that housed the cult statue of Amun during the Opet Festival. The original sanctuary of Amenhotep III still stands, with a granite naos that once held the god’s image. Adjacent to the sanctuary is a small birth room, a chamber in which the divine birth of the king is celebrated, paralleling the divine birth cycle in Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari. The decoration is partly a 4th-century BCE restoration by Nectanebo I, the last native pharaoh of Egypt, who was a vigorous builder.
The Christian and Islamic Periods
After the Roman period, the temple was gradually abandoned. In the Byzantine period, a church was built within the temple precinct, and many of the ancient wall reliefs were destroyed or defaced. The temple became a quarry, and many of its stone blocks were taken for other buildings. In the medieval period, a small mosque was built at the southern end of the temple, and the site was known by the name that gave rise to the modern “Luxor.” The mosque, dedicated to the local saint Abu al-Hajjaj al-Yamani, still stands at the southern end of the temple and is a landmark visible from the modern city.
Modern Excavation and Restoration
The temple was cleared of its medieval village in the late 19th century and has been the subject of major excavation campaigns by French and Egyptian teams. In the 1880s, the Egyptian Antiquities Service cleared the courts and began a long-term program of consolidation. In the 1960s, the temple was one of the key monuments involved in the salvage campaign associated with the Aswan High Dam, which raised the level of the Nile and threatened several Nubian sites, though Luxor itself was not in the danger zone. The most recent major project, the Avenue of Sphinxes reopening, has restored the processional way between Luxor and Karnak for modern visitors.
The Setting Today
The Temple of Luxor is approached today through the modern city of Luxor, with its broad corniche along the river and its tourist infrastructure. The temple stands a few hundred meters from the Nile, with a forecourt that is now used as a public square. The mosque of Abu al-Hajjaj still rises above the southern end of the temple, and the Luxor Museum, a small but beautifully curated collection, is a short walk away. From the temple, the Avenue of Sphinxes leads north to Karnak, an unbroken processional way of about 2.5 kilometers that brings the visitor from the heart of modern Luxor to the heart of ancient Thebes.