Karnak and Luxor

 

Covering about 200 acres, Karnak Temple is the largest

religious site in the world.

And I got to see it.

Be careful while entering these locations.

While we were walking in, another tourist fell off of a step

while trying to take a photo.

I think he was okay, only a bit embarrassed.

Through the line of sphinxes.

Ramsses II inserted himself here, which shouldn't surprise anyone by now.

This complex dates back to 2055 BC (and onward) so it's not too

surprising to see some of it in ruins.

Faces of statues and reliefs are sometimes "defaced" by later

people who wanted to make sure the people depicted by the statues

could not speak in the afterlife. It was an ancient form of desecrating the dead.

Some of the colours have survived the centuries, as you can see here on the ceilings that remain.

Min, the god of fertility, as represented by his prominent member.

*tee hee*

Obelisks. There was once at least a dozen of theses, but only these two remain.

Most of them were taken and some still stand in several different parts of the world.

Even though much of this complex has been degraded, it's remarkable how well

preserved some of the colours are.

The Hypostyle Hall contains 134 columns, many with inscriptions still visible.

The parts that seem to be scrubbed off are parts where the hieroglyphs were damaged.

It is an amazing experience to wander through the forest of columns.

Garden of ruins.

Pieces and parts of long damaged statues and columns.

Karnak is now an open-air museum for all these pieces.

The columns represent papyrus stalks.

Open at the top, like these.

And closed papyrus buds, like these.

Hibiscus tea, offered to us on arrival at our hotel.

I drank a lot of tea, as it is customary to offer a beverage to visitors.

A few of us took an hour to visit the Luxor Museum.

Saw a couple of mummies.

It's about time I saw a mummy.

Akhenaten

The pharaoh who decided to place the god Aten above Amun, and 

was, for a time, erased from the record for it.

He basically tried to reform the religious structure.

And it wasn't very popular.

He is also believed to be the father of Tutankhamun.

One guide told us that Tutankhamun was so celebrated to help to

somewhat make up for the attention given to Aten, 

and attempted to return the order to Amun.

The other end of the very large Karnak complex.

You can walk from the temple to here, if you wanted to.

Just follow the Avenue of the Sphinxes for about 3km.

In the foreground are Roman columns.

They look so small and frail in comparison to the older Egyptian columns.

More papyrus columns.

Took a different route back from the restaurant.

Always up for an adventure.

Avenue of the Sphinxes.

Sorry for the blurriness. We were walking a bit fast through town

View from the van on the drive from the Nile to Luxor.

We drove through many small villages.

It was interesting to watch people go about their day as we passed.