The Temple of Luxor was built on the East Bank of the Nile and has the nickname, “The World’s Largest Outdoor Museum”. Luxor was built on the site of the ancient Egyptian capital of Thebes. Luxor Temple has large amounts of its structure still intact, along with statuary and relief carvings.

Amenhotep III, one of ancient Egypt’s great builders, constructed the temple during his New Kingdom reign, which lasted from 1390 to 1352 BC. But what is seen today was mostly one of the many projects that Ramesses II commissioned during his long reign. One feature of the builders is that they decorated their temples to mainly feature themselves.

Our hotel was right across the road from the Temple of Luxor and we visited it twice, once during the day and once in the evening. So if my pictures of Luxor Temple have different lighting, that’s the explanation.

The first picture is from the avenue of the sphinxes and a bit back from but looking towards the Temple of Luxor. You can see the large first pylon (gateway), some very large statues of Ramses II, and a large pink granite obelisk. There were originally six statues. There was also originally two matching obelisks. The missing obelisk now stands in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France. The second photo is just closer to the gateway.

Now, from the Luxor temple looking backwards, up the avenue of the sphinxes towards Karnak, you see in the third photo. The avenue ran right along the bank of the Nile The next photo is just a close-up of one of the sphinx statues. There were originally about 2,500 of the sphinx statues on the avenue. The avenue of the sphinxes connects the Temple of Karnak to the Temple of Luxor which was about 2.2 miles.

The Temple of Luxor was quite fantastic – if only we hadn’t visited Karnak first. Most of Luxor Temple is no longer in existence. It has been knocked down and covered over by the town of Luxor. What is left is only a small part of the original temple. They have been excavating Luxor Temple since 1885, but have barely begun.

The next photo is another shot of the first pylon or gateway which is about 80 feet tall. I took this one from the side where we entered the temple grounds. It makes it easier to see the mass of the pylon and the obelisk.

The next photo is the Great Court of Amenhotep III which measures 148 feet long by 184 feet wide. It has double rows of papyrus columns on three sides. This photo was taken from outside the court. You can see the papyrus columns that surround the court. Papyrus was a very important plant as it was made into papyrus paper. We saw this done and it was very simple to do and made very tough, durable, and pliable paper.

The next photo is a close-up of one of the statues of Ramses II. It gives you a better idea of the size of these statues.

We are still inside the Temple of Luxor. The first photo below is in the Great Court of Ramses II. This court had the most statues in it. This court is 188 feet long and 168 feet wide. Seventy four papyrus columns surround it. The northwest corner of the court has a shrine to Thutmose III, while in the southern part of the court there are a number of standing colossi of Ramses II.

The next photo is looking at the Colonnade of Amenhotep III.

The last photo is inside the Court of Amenhotep III. They had just turned on the lights.