Luxor

A temple at Luxor

Luxor is a city in Upper (southern) Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. It is among the oldest inhabited cities in the world.

Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-air museum," as the ruins of the Egyptian temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor stand within the modern city.

Name

The city was regarded in the ancient Egyptian texts as wAs.t, which meant "city of the sceptre," and later in Demotic Egyptian as ta jpt, which the ancient Greeks adapted as Thebai and the Romans after them as Thebae. Thebes was also known as "the city of the 100 gates," sometimes being called "southern Heliopolis" to distinguish it from the city of Iunu or Heliopolis, the main place of worship for the god Ra in the north.

History

Luxor was the ancient city of Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt during the New Kingdom, and the city of Amun, later to become the god Amun-Ra.

The importance of Luxor started as early as the 11th Dynasty, when the town grew into a thriving city. Montuhotep II, who united Egypt after the troubles of the First Intermediate Period, brought stability to the lands as the city grew in stature. The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom in their expeditions to Kush, in today's northern Sudan, and to the lands of Canaan, Phoenicia and Syria saw the city accumulate great wealth and rose to prominence, even on a world scale. Thebes played a major role in expelling the invading forces of the Hyksos from Upper Egypt, and from the time of the 18th Dynasty to the 20th Dynasty, the city had risen as the political, religious and military capital of Ancient Egypt.

The city attracted peoples such as the Babylonians, the Mitanni, the Hittites of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), the Canaanites of Ugarit, the Phoenicians of Byblos and Tyre, the Minoans from the island of Crete. A Hittite prince from Anatolia even came to marry with the widow of Tutankhamun, Ankhesenamun. The political and military importance of the city, however, faded during the Late Period, with Thebes being replaced as political capital by several cities in Northern Egypt, such as Bubastis, Sais and finally Alexandria.

Later, the city was attacked by Assyrian emperor Ashurbanipal who installed a new prince on the throne, Psamtik I. The city of Thebes was in ruins and fell in significance. However, Alexander the Great did arrive at the temple of Amun, where the statue of the god was transferred from Karnak during the Opet Festival, the great religious feast. Thebes remained a site of spirituality up to the Christian era, and attracted numerous Christian monks of the Roman Empire who established monasteries amidst several ancient monuments including the temple of Hatshepsut, now called Deir el-Bahri ("the northern monastery").

Following the Muslim conquest of Egypt, part of the Luxor Temple was converted from a church to a mosque. This mosque is currently known as the Abu Haggag Mosque today.

Religion

As the city of the god Amun-Ra, Thebes remained the religious capital of Egypt until the Greek period. The main god of the city was Amun, who was worshipped together with his wife, the Goddess Mut, and their son Khonsu, the God of the moon. With the rise of Thebes as the foremost city of Egypt, the local god Amun rose in importance as well and became linked to the sun god Ra, thus creating the new 'king of gods' Amun-Ra. His great temple at Karnak, just north of Thebes, was the most important temple of Egypt right until the end of antiquity.

Modern city

The modern city includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Waset, also known as Nut and to the Greeks as Thebes or Diospolis. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the world's greatest open-air museum, as the ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor stand within the modern city. Immediately opposite, across the River Nile, lie the monuments, temples and tombs of the west bank Necropolis, which includes the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.

The population of Luxor is 422,407 (2021), an area of approximately 417 square kilometers (161 sq mi).