Visiting Luxor

Luxor 

Luxor is a small town located along the Nile in Egypt, where I highly recommend visiting if you are serious about exploring ancient ruins.

Luxor is only a short drive away from some of Egypt’s most interesting ruins, including Karnak Temple, Hashepsut’s Temple, the Valley of Kings, the Valley of Artisans, and the Valley of Queens. Some of the ruins are inside the city, but many more lie just across the river and a stretch of fertile farmland brought to life by the flooding Nile. These ruins are to the West of Luxor, like the setting sun, which once symbolized death in the Ancient Egyptian Culture. Near these ruins, you will find a village that has been inhabited by the same tribe since ancient times.

Karnak Temple

Karnak Temple is the largest temple in the Middle East and the second-largest in the world. More accurately, what we now call Karnak Temple is actually a complex of decaying temples, chapels, and pylons that was constructed by Egyptians under several pharaohs and took over one thousand years to build. Although the ceilings are gone and the pools of water have mostly dried up, the walls and columns that still stand are a testament to its former glory.

Hatshepsut’s Temple

Hatshepsut’s Temple is a strongly constructed temple with three terraces the size of football fields that is mostly still intact today. It stands as a testament to the reign of Egypt’s female pharaoh, Hatshepsut. It towers over the desert in the color of sandstone, and when looked at up close, some of the hieroglyphics even still have their original colors of yellow, blue, and brown.

Although it appears intact, there have been some major changes since ancient times. Although today the temple is surrounded by desert, the temple was once surrounded by pools of water, grass, and trees. Also, her image was destroyed by her successor, Seti, the pharaoh who followed her nephew, leaving the statues of her defaced and the etchings of her destroyed. You can still see the rest of the statues without her face and some of the etchings of her reign that did not include her image.

The Valley of Kings

Unlike the pyramids, these tombs were built to be hard to find. The belief at the time was that the afterlife was contingent on the presence of a mummy, or at least a statue, of the deceased, so tomb robbery could be tragic. These hidden tombs are made out of rectangular cuts to the bedrock with sloping corridors of about a hundred meters, various niches and rooms, and a burial chamber supported by pillars, and they are decorated with hieroglyphics that instruct the dead as to how to get to the afterlife.

Key tombs in the Valley of Kings include the tomb of Ramses I (a grave with a long passageway and a small burial chamber, still painted blue), the tomb of Ramses III (a grander tomb that has a wood ramp leading into a long hallway of hieroglyphics with white decorated pillars), the shared tomb of Ramses V and VI (where they were buried together at the end of a long tomb covered in hieroglyphics), and the tomb of Ramses IX (in poor condition now but was once one of the grandest).

The Valley of Queens

On the other side of the mountain from the Valley of Kings, we see a similar, but slightly more humble set of tombs for queens and princes, who were not entitled to the same grandeur as the kings but still warranted a regal burial. These tombs were also cut out of the bedrock, and most of them are preserved in lavish color, but they are smaller than the tombs you will find in the Valley of Kings.

Key tombs in the Valley of Queens are the tombs of Queen Titi (sister and wife of Ramses III), Nefertari (the legendary beauty from Sudan who brought her kingdom with her upon marriage), and Prince Amen Khopshef (the son of Ramses III who died at 13).

The Valley of Artisans

These monuments are impressive, but they don’t say a lot about the common people who built them. However, the walls of the city, which the workers who built the Valley of Kings and the Valley of Queens inhabited, still stand intact near the monuments. The walls, made of sun-dried mud bricks, form a grid that extends for some distance. Each family would have had two to three of these rectangular rooms, including a cistern and a kitchen. This is where the workers once resided.

Also in the valley of artisans, you will find the tombs of several distinguished artisans, many of which have been restored to their original glory. These tombs were decorated differently from the royal tombs; for example, it was forbidden to honor a non-royal by putting their name in a cartouche, and the walls were decorated with images from commoners’ experiences—for example, women with perfumed wax on their heads during a gathering. Although all souls were thought to face the same tests in the afterlife, which meant all the tombs depicted the same gods, these tombs did not have dedicated entryways like the royal tombs; one entryway could house more than one artisan’s tomb. Unlike the royal tombs, which were each dedicated to important individuals, these tombs were a hodgepodge of richly painted rooms connected by short hallways, stairs, and ladders underground.

While I was in Luxor, I befriended an incredible chef who went on to become a tour guide, limousine driver, and cooking class instructor through an organization called Tag Tour. His name is Mustafa Tag, and if you are looking for a guide, his organization may be a place to start. Although I have never used his services, I can tell you he is a very friendly and enthusiastic person who takes pride in his work. His phone number is +20 114 037 0753.