Wonderful, Astounding, Awesome Luxor

WOW! Our trip to Luxor, Egypt was all I said in the title and more! But where to start? Our guide was an Egyptologist and loved sharing all of his knowledge. We both were overloaded with information and until our second day we were unable to make sense of a lot of what he was talking about.

We start with learning about the Egyptians beginning 4000 years ago but they have found records and dated ruins from 10,000 years ago. It was in 3200 BC that King Menes unified Egypt and brought stability to the area. He is the one who established Memphis (today Cairo), Egypt. Jump ahead to 2700 BC on the Nile River which is 4900 miles long ending in Egypt. The kingdom is divided with Luxor in the South and Alexandria in the North so the hieroglyphics also indicate this by painting the crowns of kings, pharaohs and gods white for South and Red for North. Jump ahead again to 1500 BC where we find Luxor and her temples and on the west side of the Nile is the burial grounds for the pharaohs, kings and their wives. This is the Valley of the Kings under a mountain whose peak is shaped like the great pyramid. But that is tomorrow's subject.

The hieroglyphics we saw are depicted over and over and have certain meanings to the Egyptians. The papyrus plant is the debts of the Kings. We saw its bloom mostly as the capitol on the columns. It was used not only for paper but to make boats (its smell repelled crocs) and mattresses. The Lotus flower represents beauty and is seen at the top of the columns. The sycamore tree is the tree of life. The anch or cross with a loop at the top is the Key to Life. The asp or cobra represents life, the head of a Jackel is death, baboons represent wisdom, the scarab (dung beattle) is the sun, a ram's head is night, a shepherds crook represents the ruler, and many symbols have more than one meaning.

The most important symbol is the sun disk which is the symbol for Amman-Ra. Ra is the sun god and Amman was a pharaoh who was revered as a god and was believed to turn into the god Amman-Ra. The sun disk will be over the head of Amman-Ra in all the hieroglyphics and sometimes over Ramses III.

Rams head Sphinx with Ammon-Ra.

Our first stop was at the Karnak Temple complex in Luxor which was known as Thebes in ancient times. It took 4000 years to build the complex as each king or pharaoh had to add to it, move things around, and rebuild to suit their status. The Avenue of the Ram's Head Sphinx is lined on both sides by the sphinxes and it supposedly runs from Karnak to the Temple of Luxor, several miles away. The ram's head is one incarnation of Amman-Ra. The open courtyard is the contra-temple and is the eyes and ears of the gods.

The courtyard with 134 columns is called the Hall of Shinning because the roof would have let light into the area in a certain way and the columns would have been painted and polished to shine.

The Temple of Luxor was built by Ramses III. He is the one wearing the double crown shown with a cone shaped white crown on top and the red crown with the cobra on the forehead. This temple has 64 columns in its open courtyard and they have the lotus capitols. Ramses II had 52 sons.

The god Amman-Ra would come to the Luxor Temple to meet his wife as a human then he would travel the avenue of the sphinxes to Karnak and along the way return to his god form so no one would see him return.

There is a Muslim Mosque built on top of the temple and a room inside the temple was made into a Catholic Church in 3rd century AD. This was done by Alexander the Great.

Avenue of the Sphinxes.

We checked into a 5 star hotel before returning to Karnak for a sound and light show. This made for a late dinner on the patio by the pool overlooking the Nile river. Beautiful evening.