thebes-luxor-and-karnak-temples Photos

THEBES - LUXOR AND KARNAK TEMPLES are UNESCO world heritage sites.

The complex of Luxor and Karnak temples is the largest ancient religious site in the world.

Thebes, the famous City of God Amon, was the capital of ancient Egypt during the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom. Situated on the premises of ancient Thebes, Luxor and Karnak temples are places of overwhelming beauty and evidences of the grandeur of the ancient Egyptian civilization. For 13 centuries they were continually expanded by every new pharaoh, who added new palaces, or halls or courtyards, or obeliscs. These extraordinary temples were dedicated to Amun-Ra, the supreme god who, together with his wife Mut and his son Khonsu, the God of the Moon, constituted the Theban Triad.

Connected by the famous Alley of Sphynxes, a procession road 3 km long, the Karnak and Luxor temples are some of the most important religious and intellectual centres of the ancient world, their grandeur shining off the pages of historians and writers’ memoirs even a thousand years after their decline. With the forest of seeming sky-high collonades of the impressive Hypostyle Hall (a hall of 5,000 square metres with 134 massive columns arranged in 16 rows), with the wonderful gigantic statues, obeliscs, walls and hyrogliphs, these temples continue to have secrets to reveal.

Ancient Egyptian constructions and monuments have a beauty and dignity that few other monuments were able to reach in subsequent millenia, evidence of the genius and power of this colossal human civilization.