Luxor Temple stands at the southern end of the Avenue of the Sphinxes in the center of the City of Luxor. Along with Karnak, Luxor Temple rates as one of the most popular visitor sites in Egypt. The temple (Ipet Resyt or Southern Opet to ancient Egyptians) became dedicated to Amememopet, “Amun in Opet”. This particular form of Amun-Ra was specific to this temple, especially tied in the idea of royal ka or the spirit of kingship entering into a king’s body at the time of his coronation. Evey year the Opet Festival took place in which the king visited the Luxor Temple in order for the royal ka to be ritually reborn, reconfirmed and re-energized.

OPET FESTIVAL

The temple here at Luxor originally evolved from a design where it served as an annex to the main temple complex at Karnak, 2.4 kilometers to the north. The temple is dedicated to Amenenmopet (Amun in Opet, a specific manifestation of Amun specific to this temple and to the cult of the royal ka. Divine kingship defined the pharaonic state. As Toby Wilkinson writes in his book The Nile, divine kingship was “the ideological glue which held ancient Egypt together.” The only problem with divinity relating to human kings was the problem of mortality. Egyptians answered that with the solution of the ka being the godlike essence which continued after the king died. When a king died, the royal ka passes unaltered into the heir, thus the king continued in divine form aided by the undying ka.

RECHARGING THE BATTERIES

Luxor Temple became the scene for a new set of religious rituals designed to recharge the ka while also reaffirming and rejuvenating the monarch presently in power. The Opet Festival – Festival of the Sanctuary – began at the Karnak Temple. Following offerings made by the king to the Theban Triad, the statues of the gods came out onto processional barques and brought by land or more so after the Eighteenth Dynasty, by river to Luxor. By land or river, the vast procession, led by king, priests and accompanying soldiers, proved a popular event for the commonfolk lining the riverbank or the Avenue of the Sphinxes to witness.

Once at Luxor Temple, again only those spiritually pure enough could follow the king and the gods into the cult chambers of the temple. The first chamber after a hypostyle hall was known as the Chamber of the Divine King. Here, while kneeling before Amun-Ra, the king became purified by priests with water and then his coronation re-enacted. Here, the royal ka spirit passed from the god to the king rejuvenating him. Everyone proceeded to the barque sanctuary of AmunRa where the god was viewed and further offerings were rendered. The priests then crowned the king a second time. King and gods now left the temple to rejoicing on the streets. The procession returned to Karnak by road or river.

DECADE FESTIVAL

Another important festival for Amenemopet was the Decade Festival. Here the god travelled across the Nile to the Temple of Ramses III at Medinat Habu. This was the location where the Ogdoad along with the serpent form of Amun, Kematef, were buried under a mound. Hatshupset built a small temple on this spot, though Ramses III went much better creating his large mortuary temple over the top.  In the Decade Festival, Amenemopet visited the burial mound to conduct a funeral for the Ogdoad. Mergin with Amun-Kemtef, he joined the Ogdoad to re-energize himself and be reborn.

DIVINE BIRTH

Close to the sanctuary is a “birth room” where scenes and texts show the divine birth of Amenhotep III. Amun-Ra took the form of the future king’s father, Thutmose IV. He entered the queen’s bed chamber with his divine scent (incense and myrrh) awoke her. From their union, Amenhotep III was born. Amun-Ra in one scene gives an anhkh (symbol of life) to the Queen’s mouth representing the conception. Other pharaohs used similar stories to show of their own personal divinity.

LUXOR and alexander

Alexander the Great was another ruler convinced of his own divinity. He also held Amun-Ra in particular esteem. He commissioned a large granite shrine decorated with scenes of his own divinity. In those scenes, Alexander appears as a traditional pharaoh. By placing his shrine in the middle of the temple, he co-opted the divinity of the temple for himself. Romans would further adapt the temple for their own imperial cult practices. Pharaonic reliefs became plastered over with Roman paintings covering up the old.

AVENUE OF THE SPHINXES

In recovering the almost 2.5-kilometer-long roadway connecting Karnak and Luxor, the restoration of the avenue in the early Twenty-first century became one of the largest restoration projects ever undertaken by the Ministry of Antiquities. The cost ran over six hundred million Egyptian pounds with many families needed removal from homes and businesses. Roads, gas and water mains all needed relayment.

VISITING THE TEMPLE

RAMESSIDE ENTRY

A large open court faces the temple on the north side – roads ring the temple to the south, east and west. A large pylon-gateway built by Ramses II fronts the main entrance to the temple. Two large statues of Ramses II stand to either side of the entrances. Two large obelisks stood on either side, as well, but one became removed to the Place de la Concorde in Paris in the middle of the Nineteenth Century. On the walls of the pylon, the battles fought by the armies of Ramses II, especially at Kadesh, against the Hittites, inscribed above on the walls.

A series of columns leads to a first courtyard built during the reign of Ramses II. Statues of Ramses II surround the yard.

aMENHOTEP iii

Heading past Ramses II, you enter the main area of the temple created by Amenhotep III. Here, you pass through a colonnade of fourteen giant stone columns shaped in the form of a papyrus in full flower. The colonnade leads into an open solar court with each side sprouting a double row of twelve columns of “bundled” papyrus leaves. The court is open to further associate the king with the sun, the supreme creator.

In one of the chambers on the east side, you find the birthing room for Amenhotep as a god – nearby is Alexander’s one claim to divinity. In the far back, one of the colonnade halls became co-opted by the Romans transforming it into a chapel of the imperial cult.

MOSQUE OF EL-HAGGAG

Pharaohs, Greeks and Romans gave way to three centuries of Christianity. Christianity was an easy thing for Egyptians to adopt to. The story of the Virgin and child copied the story of Isis and Horus. Tenets of the Trinity, Resurrection and last Judgement all showed borrowings from earlier Egyptian ideas. One Christian church moved into the old pagan temple.

But Christianity slowly gave way to Islam after 641 AD and the man central to converting Thebes to the new religion was al-Sayyid Youssef Ibn Abdel-Raheem (also and better known as Abu el-Haggag). The church within the old temple became converted into a mosque. As a place holding the bones of the sheikh, the mosque remains a site of pilgrimage for many. The mosque appears built on the second floor, well above the solar court. In the many centuries before the dams of Aswan, the yearly inundation of the Nile covered the floors of the temple here.

timelessness

So, each year, not only did the king become rejuvenated, but the temple also itself needed a rebirth with the removal of the sediments brought in by the river. With the passage of time and loss of importance of the temple, sediments built up gradually. When the Christian church – co-opted later as a mosque – was built, it was done so on the ground floor. Only in the late Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, especially with the annual floods of the Nile tamed by the dams, was the debris built up by centuries of disuse removed – a similar theme found in other ancient Egyptian temples set close to the river, as well.

READING BEYOND

Toby Wilkinson: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt

Gary J. Shaw: Egyptian Mythology: A Traveler’s Guide from Aswan to Alexandria

Toby Wilkinson: The Nile: A Journey Downriver through Egypt’s Past & Present