Luxor Temple in the 19th Century- Excavating the temple and its Residents from the Sand

The front Pylons and Obelisk of Luxor Temple surrounded by houses, inside the temple and outside

In 1884 Gaston Maspero of the Antiquities Service had been given the Order to excavate about 40ft of Sand from inside and around the Temple of Luxor, that had accumulated over thousands of years. It wasn't wasn't his only problem though, as many Egyptians had built their homes inside of, and around the edges of the temple, so he had to negotiate compensation for the Egyptians for their pieces of land and the it is not a house that can be compensated for, but the land it stands on, and the dependancy of their families.

Amelia Edwards visited Luxor Temple and described her findings in her book 'A Thousand Miles Up The Nile' She said : 'Beyond that entrance lay a smoky, filthy, intricate labyrinth of lanes and passages. Mud hovels, mud pigeon-towers, mud yards, and a mud mosque, clustered like wasps' nests in and about the ruins. Architraves sculptured with royal titles supported the roofs of squalid cabins. Stately capitals peeped out from the midst of sheds in which buffaloes, camels, donkeys, dogs, and human beings were seen herding together in unsavoury fellowship. Cocks crew, hens, cackled, pigeons cooed, turkeys gobbled, children swarmed, women were baking and gossiping, and all the sordid routine of Arab life was going on, amid winding alleys that masked the colonnades and defaced the inscriptions of the Pharaohs. To trace the plan of this part of the building was then impossible.'

The Mosque of Abu Hagag

Inside the first temple courtyard, created by Ramses 11, there was an 800 year old mosque known as the Mosque of Abu Hagag, Once the sand was excavated it left the entrance door about forty foot above the new ground floor level, so the Mosque also had to be compensated for a new entrance door, and a set of steps leading up to the new entrance door to the rear. The mosque is still in use today, and if you go inside the mosque today you will see the top half of Ramses 11 columns, surrounded by prayer mats on the floor.

Gaston Maspero had lots of  problems to resolve before he could excavate the sand from inside the temple, there were also stores, houses, huts, pigeon towers, donkey's goats and chickens in both the courtyard of Ramses 11 but also the Festival hall of Amenhotep 111. In this photograph we can see an old man sat outside the door to his home with his grandchildren.

An English Lady lived inside Luxor Temple

When I lived in Luxor I made friends with a polite old man called Mr. Mohammed, who had been one of the first tour guides in Luxor, his permit was number 5, Mr. Mohammed had a beautiful Egyptian traditional house with a small courtyard and a tree in the middle, which was sat at the bottom of the little alley near to my friends Edward & Freeda who own 'Our Luxor.'  Sadly Mr. Mohamed has died now, but I often think about our talks over a drink of tea, as we both had the same passion for the history of Egypt. He used to call me 'A crazy English Woman' because I would ride over to the temples and Valley of the Kings on a bicycle.

One day he told me the story of Lady Duff Gordon who had actually  lived in a small ruined house for seven years that was  built in the sand filled Luxor  temple. She had shunned European society in Egypt and embraced the life with the Egyptians and their culture. Inside her home she created a makeshift hospital and welcomed the people of Luxor, regardless of their station in life, they could be rich or poor, and she would help them if she could,  usually she gave them her special cure for all ailments, a cup of English tea ! Her sympathy with the oppressed, endeared her to all the Egyptian people, to whom she was known as Sitt el Kebeer (Great Lady), who 'was just, and had a heart that loved the Arabs'.  Another name the Egyptians gave her was 'Noor Ala Noor', which means 'light from the source of all light'

Lucie is best known  for her two books ' Letters from Egypt,'  - 1863–1865 and ' Last Letters from Egypt  -  1875, most of which are addressed to her husband, Alexander Duff-Gordon, and her mother, Sarah Austin that she referred to as ' Mutter'.  Lucie had left England for the warmer climate of Egypt because she had contracted Tuberculosis. Whilst living in Egypt she learn't Arabic so that she could converse with her neighbors and she wrote many letters about Egyptian culture, religion, and customs,  and many personal stories from the Egyptians living around her inside Luxor Temple

The Festival Hall of Amenhotep 111 in Luxor Temple

Amenhotep 111 created a huge festival hall that was surrounded by both open and closed papyrus styled columns. This hall was used during the feast for dancing and eating, Oxen, ducks, fish, bread, wine,Beer, fresh salad and vegetables, were all brought to the temple by the priests for the festivities.

During the 'Opet Festival'  the King would enter the 'Birth Room and emerge seven days later symbolically reborn, where both himself and Egypt would be infused with new vitality and energy and Egypt would be refreshed with plentiful harvests.

You can see the festivities on the walls behind Tutankhamun's colonnade that joins the courtyard of Ramses 11 to the Festival Hall of Amenhotep 111. Tutankhamun was the grandson of Amenhotep 111, and the son of the Heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, who nearly brought Egypt to economic disaster by closing the Temples down, and moving his palace, and temples to the Aten, to a new beginning in the desert known as Armarna. He insisted that Egyptians must only worship one God, the Aten.

Luxor Temples Missing Obelisk

When you visit Luxor Temple now, there is only one Obelisk. Originally there were two erected by Ramses 111 that praised him by all his names, and when the rays of the sun flashed down the geometric sides highlighting the Hieroglyphics, Ramses name would be brought back to life again. The tip of the obelisk had a cover of Electrum, which is a mixture of Gold and Silver. Obelisks were usually erected in pairs to provide an energy field across the entrance to the temple infusing it with new life and vitality. The missing Obelisk was given to France by the Ottoman Ruler, Mohammed Ali, in 1835 in recognition of Champollion deciphering the Rosetta stone, enabling scholars to read the God Words on the temple walls once more

In this photograph there is a deep ditch in front of the pylons and Ramses sat on the Throne of Two Lands has finally been released from the centuries of sand, the sand was nearly up to his shoulders before the excavations began.


The Avenue of the Sphinx stretches from Karnack Temple to Luxor Temple

In Ancient times Luxor Temple was known as 'Ipet Resyt' which means'The Southern Sanctuary'. Luxor temple is unique as it is not the Earthly home of a God, nor is it a Mortuary Temple, it was created mostly by Ramses 11 and Amenophis 111 to celebrate the 'Opet Festival' which was held every year just before the flood, when the King and the Priests would carry the Holy Barques of The Gods Amun, Mut and their son Khonsu. from Amun's Earthly home at Karnack Temple down an avenue of sphinx that stretched from Karnack Temple to Luxor Temple approximately for two miles. In this photograph you can see that they have demolished the houses from in front of the Temple, and they are excavating the Avenue of Sphinx.

In October 2010 the Antiquities Service decided to dig further to reclaim some more of the sphinx,  which laid buried beneath a mosque, the police station, roads, shops, and houses in which modern day Egyptians had built and lived and worked in.. The Avenue of Sphinx comes to a standstill beneath one of the main roads that cuts through the town of Luxor.

Luxor Temple Today, unburdened and released from the sand

Joseph Austin Benwell - A 19th Century Victorian Traveler's paintings of Egypt

Joseph Austin Benwell (1816–1886) was an English artist, engraver and illustrator. He was primarily an artist in the 'orientalist' style.

From 1840 Joseph worked for the East India Company, so he traveled extensively and his work in Egypt often featured camel caravans and Arab scenes with the ancient ruins in the background, Luxor Temple, Collosi of Memnon, and the Mortuary Temple of Seti 1,  are all based in Luxor. Noticeably all his paintings I have chosen, and given with a description of the Temple or monuments in the background of the Caravan scenes all feature a 'white camel,' which would be very rare, but obviously his trademark.

Luxor Temple

Joseph titled this painting 'A Camel Train Leaving Luxor' 1874

In this first painting you can see that a caravan is leaving the Courtyard of Amenhotep 111 inside Luxor Temple, as you will notice in the painting, the sand has half covered the columns in the Temple. In the background of the painting is the Mosque of Abu Hagag, which was built on top of the temple roof about 800 years ago, at that time again the sand level was very high, but if you go into the Temple today, the door is high up and unreachable, so a new door and steps leading from the mosque had to be created on the back wall of the Mosque. this mosque itself is very unusual as it has some of the columns of Ramses 11 inside the actual mosque, they are surrounded by prayer mats.

In front of the mosque you can also see the front pylons of Luxor Temple, (behind the camels) and the Obelisk of Ramses 11, In Ancient Egypt, a temple was a recreation on earth of Egypt, the pylons represented the East and Western deserts, and the entrance would be where the River Nile would flow through dividing the deserts. An Obelisks would flash the rays of the sun down it's sides bringing energy and new life to the King and his temple, Luxor Temple originally had two obelisks, one was given to France in 1835 to express appreciation of Champollion deciphering the Hieroglyphics or 'Gods Words'

Amenhotep 111 had a strong rule and Egypt thrived under his guidance, he was the father of Akhenaten, whose rule almost brought Egypt to the brink of disaster. Akhenaten closed all the Temples in Egypt, which drove a lot of people into poverty as they worked for the temples, but Akhenaten insisted there was only one God, The Aten, he left Waset (Luxor) and created a new capital in the desert at Armarna. After the death of Akhenaten his son Tutankhaten returned back to Weset, and reinstated the Egyptian Gods, he also changed his name to express his worship to the God Amun, and became Tutankhamun. He created a long hallway of columns leading to his Granfather's Festival Hall.

The Colossi of Memnon

Joseph named this painting 'Camels passing the Memnon'

Amenhotep 111 also built the Colossi of Memnon, which originally stood outside the front of his Mortuary Temple on the West bank, the temple was very large, and over the last twenty years archaeologists have uncovered many statues from beneath the sand. The Collosi of Memnon was famous in ancient times for singing at dawn, and people came from Greece and Rome to hear the colossi sing, The statues sitting on the Throne of Two Lands rise to a height of 66ft, and the left one is in a better condition than the right one, the decoration on the base of the throne shows Hapi the God of The Nile, he is an unusual God because although male he is represented with female breasts, and a flabby belly of a woman who has seen child birth, his presence on the colossi would be to guarantee the fertility of the cultivated fields when the Nile floods.

The Greeks named the right statue after the legend of Memnon who was the son of the Titan Goddess Eos. Memnon had been slain by Achilles during the Trojan War and the Greeks believed the sound that came from the statue in the morning was Memnon greeting his mother Eos who wept for the death of her son.  Graffiti carved on the foot of the Memnon translated reads ‘From Trebulla. Hearing the Holy voice of Memnon I missed you, O my mother, and I prayed that you might hear him too.’

The Roman Emperor Hadrian visited the Memnon with his wife the Empress Sabrina and his court, in their company was a poet and companion of the empress Julia Balbilla, she had her own graffiti carved onto the foot of the Memnon which translated  reads: ‘I Balbilla, when the rock spoke, heard the voice of the Divine Memnon or Phamenoth. I came here with the lovely Empress Sabina. The Course of the Sun was in its first hour, in the fifteenth year of Hadrian’s reign on the 24th day of the month of Hathor, I wrote this on the 25th day of the month of Hathor

Seti 1 Mortuary Temple

Joseph named this painting 'Rest in Gournah'  1876

In this painting you can see the remains of the Mortuary Temple of Seti 1, in the background behind the 'white camel'.  Seti 1 temple has few visitors as it is not as elaborate as the Rammessium or Hatshepsut's Temple that receive many tourists. Seti's mortuary temple sits in a quiet location not far from the Rammessium the mortuary temple of his son Ramses the Great.

Seti's mortuary temple is not complete, as most of the  East side of the temple is buried underneath the town of Gournah, and you can only see some of what remains of the original temple. Seti died before his Mortuary temple was complete, and so his son Ramses 11 finished his temple on his behalf. A mortuary temple was used during a king's lifetime for festivals, such as the 'Beautiful Feast of the Valley' when floral tributes would be brought from across the river from Karnack temple to the mortuary temples on the West Bank. After a king had died, the priests would say prayers for the king, and offer him food and wine for his afterlife, the ancient Egyptians believed that if your name is spoken, you will live again.

Seti had the largest tomb in the Valley of the Kings, it was discovered by Giovanni Belzoni in 1816, who found it to be wonderful, and spent a few months recording the reliefs, Seti was not in his sarcophagi as he had been moved in the 25th Dynasty by priests.

Seti also created the Amazing Hypostyle Hall in Karnack Temple, which is considered as the 'Reception area of the Gods' the enormous columns represent the first creation on the primeval mound, and once again his son Ramses finished the hall off after his death, but Seti is shown on the reliefs to be invited into the Hall by the Gods and is also shown celebrating his Sed Festival, which meant that he had ruled for 30 years.