This is the Temple of Karnak in Luxor. If I had to describe Karnak in one word, that one word would be “Overwhelming”. It’s a 63 acre complex. It was dedicated to the Theban gods and to the glory of the pharaohs. The oldest parts of the temple date to 1965 B.C. Karnak was worked on for 1500 years, but never finished. You will see that in some of the pictures. During the reign of Ramses III, 80,000 people worked on or for the Temple of Karnak. Karnak was considered the most important place of worship during the Theban period and was called Ipet-Isut, meaning ‘the most perfect of places.’

I should also say that due to the size and scope of Karnak, it was actually very difficult to get good pictures. It was crowded and our guide kept up a constant barrage about Egyptian minutia. My descriptions and posts of Karnak may get a bit out of sorts, but I’ll carry on – just like we did when we visited Karnak.

The first two photos are just to give a sense of the place. There was never a good place to get a good overall picture of Karnak. The first photo was taken from the back side of Karnak, but you can see some pylons, pillars, obelisks plus see that they still have a lot of work to do on the place. The second photo includes the sacred lake which I’m sure was a great value in the heat.

Vicky of course loves the animals, which includes the stone ones as well as real animals. There was, in ancient times, an “avenue of the sphinxes” between the temples of Karnak and Luxor. It was a distance of about 2.2 miles and there were about 2,500 sphinxes lining both sides of the avenue the whole way. Here in Karnak, it was “ram-headed” sphinxes. You can see Vicky and some of the sphinxes in the next photo. We will also visit the Luxor Temple and see some of the sphinxes on the other end of the original avenue of the sphinxes.

One additional note. In its heyday, the avenue of the sphinxes flanked a canal that connected to the Nile. So boats could come from the Nile right on up to the temple itself. The temple is still not very far from the river.