Karnak Temple (Luxor)

Thursday, September 27
This morning I watched the sun rise in the Egyptian sky – it was a big red-orange ball of fire – very pretty. After breakfast we all got in horse-drawn carriages and were taken to the Karnak Temple. At the entrance there is an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes - a symbol of the god Amon. He protects the pharaoh, shown between his front paws.

The Karnak Temple is one of the two temples found in present day Luxor which contains sphinxes, pharonic statues, obelisks, etc., but the scale of the structures with their immense pillars (4,5,6 feet and more in diameter, 20 feet+ in height) is awesome. An online source states it is the mother of all religious buildings, the largest ever made, covering about 200 acres, and has been a place of pilgrimage for nearly 4,000 years. The progression from public to more and more restricted areas (for the priest only) and from lower to higher elevations is of great interest, as is the surviving relief carvings on both pillars and flat surfaces. Much history and braggadoccio is depicted and a surprising amount of color survives, especially on upper walls and the underside of lintels bridging between columns and/or walls.


The Hypostyle Hall contains a forest of 134 columns covering 54,000 square feet. The columns were built a section at a time, then the hall floor was filled in with sand so they could roll another section on top, etc., repeating this process until the columns reached their full height. They then dug out all the sand, plastered the columns, and then carved their reliefs on all sides of each column telling a story of the people and their history, battles, etc.