Egypt 11-day exploration of ancient civilization tour

The Luxor Temple was built by Amenhotep III, the 19th pharaoh of the ancient Egyptian 18th dynasty (reigned from 1398 BC to 1361 BC), to worship the sun god Amun, his wife and son, the moon god. It was later expanded by Ramesses II in the late 18th dynasty, forming the scale that remains today. The temple is 260 meters long, 56 meters wide, and covers an area of approximately 14,600 square meters. We walked from the pier to the temple. In front of the temple, there is a square where a group of pigeons fly in the air or forage on the ground. Upon arriving at the temple, the first thing that catches the eye is the tall tower gate and the towering obelisk. Two statues of Ramses II sit on either side of the gate. There were originally two obelisks at the entrance, but in 1836, the Egyptian governor Muhammad Ali gave one of them to King Louis Philippe of France. Now this obelisk still stands in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France. The walls on both sides of the tower gate are carved with murals of Ramses II fighting the Hittites. Inside the tower gate, on the east side, there is a mosque located 5 meters above the temple foundation, because when the mosque was built, the temple had already been buried under five meters of soil. To the west of the courtyard is a small shrine dedicated to Queen Hatshepsut, consisting of three small houses dedicated to Mut, Amun, and Khonsu. Passing through the second tower gate, we entered the colonnade hall, where there are 14 columns, each 16 meters high, which is breathtaking. In the courtyard ahead, there are columns on three sides, connected by beams at the top. Finally, we arrived at the sanctuary, which is relatively small. At the north side of the temple, there is a grand avenue with sphinxes on both sides. In ancient times, this avenue connected to the Karnak Temple 2.5 kilometers away. Now, this avenue is under restoration, and a replica of the sacred boat is placed in the center of the avenue. Coming out of the Luxor Temple, it was already noon. We took a carriage to the restaurant for lunch and stopped to drink frozen sugarcane juice, a specialty of Luxor, on the way. The cool drink was like a sweet rain in the scorching sun. Lunch was Egyptian cuisine, with grilled bread, rice, and a small pot of braised beef, which was very delicious, especially the beef was braised until very tender and the portion was large. After lunch, we will head to the last destination of the day - Karnak Temple. It's already around 2 pm. Fortunately, the road to the temple is not far. Karnak Temple was first built during the Middle Kingdom period more than 3,900 years ago and continued to expand under the rule of over 50 pharaohs until the Ptolemaic dynasty, forming a massive complex of buildings and becoming the largest temple site in Egypt. We entered the Temple of Amun through the Avenue of Sphinxes, where the first pylon gate stands at a height of 43 meters. On the inner walls of one side of the gate, there are the names of 21 French archaeologists carved to commemorate their contributions to the excavation and restoration of the temple. Inside the gate is the first courtyard, where there is a statue of Ramses II and life-sized statues of queens standing between his legs. On the south side of the courtyard, there is a row of well-preserved sphinxes with the heads of rams and the bodies of lions. After passing through the second pylon gate, we were awed by the hypostyle hall, where tall columns stand in rows of 16, forming a forest of 134 giant columns in the hall that is 110 meters wide and 55 meters long. The two rows of 12 columns in the middle are the largest, measuring 23 meters in height and 3.4 meters in diameter, too big for six or seven people to encircle. The tops of the columns are umbrella-shaped and were used to support the huge roof, which has now been destroyed, but the columns remain intact. These columns were made by stacking drum-shaped stones layer by layer without mortar, but with tightly fitting seams, and have stood for thousands of years, a testament to the superb craftsmanship of ancient Egyptian artisans. The columns are covered with reliefs and painted with exquisite patterns and inscriptions, and the capitals are carved into the shape of papyrus buds, symbolizing the birth of life. Li Hao pointed to one of the columns with a missing top and told us that it was the place where the stone was pushed down to kill Miss Linnet in the movie "Death on the Nile". Between the third and fourth pylon gates, there is an obelisk called the Thutmose obelisk, which is 23 meters high and weighs 143 tons. After passing through the fourth pylon gate, there is another obelisk, the Hatshepsut obelisk, which is 29 meters high and weighs 323 tons, the tallest obelisk at the time and still the tallest in Egypt today. The inscription on the obelisk records that it was quarried and transported from Aswan and took seven months to complete. How the slender and ten-story-high obelisk was erected without mechanical equipment in ancient Egypt has always been a mystery. On the southeast side of the Temple of Amun, there is a sacred lake, and on the west side of the square, there is a restored top part of an obelisk and a statue of a beetle, which the ancient Egyptians regarded as one of the incarnations of the sun god. We hastily ended our visit to the Karnak Temple. In this place with deep cultural heritage, even an hour of hurried sightseeing is not enough, let alone just scratching the surface in a whole day.