Egypt - Luxor

Luxor

The ancient Egyptians called it simply “Niut”, “the City”. Homer named it the “City of a Hundred Gates”.

Luxor possesses undeniable charm. Here and there among the palace halls and gardens and on facades of nineteenth-century buildings with corbelled balconies there is a glimpse of the past and of a time of British colonials and Egyptian monarchs.

The ancient Egyptians called it simply “Niut”, “the City”. Homer named it the “City of a Hundred Gates”. Vivant Denon, who accompanied Napoleon’s troops, noted, “This city remained such a vast apparition for our imaginations to grasp, that on catching sight of the scattered ruins the Napoleonic army stopped unprompted and broke into spontaneous applause.”

Luxor, City of the Living

When Memphis was at its apogee, Thebes was no more than a small village. Mentuhotep (Middle Kingdom, 2060-2010 BC), King of Thebes who unified Upper and Lower Egypt, made Thebes the capital of the Empire. Thebes thus superseded the southern city of Memphis, then wracked by internal disputes. The new capital reached its high point under the New Kingdom and acquired imposing buildings. From the reign of Thutmose III (1484-1450 BC), Thebes extended its authority as far as the banks of the Euphrates to the north, to the border with Libya in the east and as far as Sudan in the south.

The right bank, site of modern-day Luxor, was the City of the Living dedicated to Amen, an obscure local divinity raised to the level of principal deity in place of Re. The priests of Amen eventually became so powerful that nothing escaped their political control. Amenhotep IV (1372-1354 BC) experienced this to his cost when he decided to abandon Amen and the pantheon of gods for the monotheistic cult of Aten; when the pharaoh died, Tell el-Amarna, the city dedicated to the new cult, was destroyed by the servants of Amen who at the same time set about restoring divine power as they saw it.

Aside from conquering and warring with enemy peoples such as the Hittites and Libyans, successive pharaohs – seen as divine incarnations and revered as such – were preoccupied with ensuring their own greatness and legacy. They were keen, therefore, to extend and embellish the two temples erected to the glory of Amen – the complex at Karnak and the more modest temple at Luxor – whilst endeavouring, sometimes aggressively, to erase the memory of preceding pharaohs’ prestige.

Luxor, tourist capital of Egypt

The decline and subsequent disappearance of the pharaonic civilisation dealt a serious blow to Luxor. Previously cared-for and revered monuments, which had been the exclusive domain of the highest dignitaries and priests serving omnipotent gods, now provided shelter for crude brick houses belonging to anyone who came along. Only the high, thick temple walls were able to afford effective protection against the bandits of the time.

In the earliest centuries of the Christian era, followers of the new faith built their churches within the confines of what had been sacred spaces for Egyptians at the time of the pharaohs. In temples such as those at Luxor and Karnak engraved crosses are still visible. Luxor was of no interest to the Arab armies arriving to spread the faith of Islam. Muslim leaders founded the city of Cairo and the splendour of Islamic civilisation developed hundreds of kilometres to the north of the former capital.

When Europeans rediscovered the pharaonic civilisation, as Napoleon did on a military expedition at the end of the eighteenth century bringing back the first ornaments in his luggage, Luxor was a city asleep. Drawings and watercolours of the period illustrate this. The temples are depicted filled with sand and flocks of domestic animals wander among columns buried up to their capitols in the ground. Europe was, however, being gripped at the time by Egyptomania and Orientalism. "La Description de l’Egypte" (A description of Egypt) compiled by scholars accompanying Napoleon’s armies, was written as a result. Exhibitions of antique objects, jewellery and mummies were common. From the second half of the nineteenth century, Luxor became a destination for tourists, but only for a sufficiently wealthy handful.