luxor

the worlds greatest open air museum

the temple of karnak

the temple complex of karnak beats every other pharaonic monument but the pyramids of giza. built on a leviathan scale to house the gods, it includes three separate temple enclosures, the grandest being the precinct of amun, dedicated to the supreme god of the new kingdom - a structure large enough to accommodate ten great cathedrals, that is 18 times the size of the parthenon.

click on the picture to enter karnak page.

memnon kollossi

the 2 memnon kollossi guarding a now non existant temple. ruins of the temple have the only sphinx with an crocodile head.

the temple of hatshepsut

in front of the desert-mountains in which the valley of the kings lies, there is the funeral temple of the female pharaoh hatshepsut. the tour giude told us that hatshepsut became pharaoh, becose she invented the legend that the god amon became father of hatshepsut and therefore she is half a god. she was married twice unfortunately and her second husband and stepbrother thutmosis III hated her so much that he had all pictures and inscriptions of her destryed after she died. i think she was a very emancipated woman of her era, and brought egypt peace and prosperity during her reign. therefore she is still admired today by young and modern thinking people in egypt.