Thebes: the east bank · New Kingdom
Ancient name: Ipet-resyt, "the southern sanctuary"
Amenhotep III's temple for the Opet festival, with the pylon and obelisk of Ramesses II.
Luxor Temple was built mainly by Amenhotep III: a sun court, a tall colonnade of papyrus columns and the inner rooms. Tutankhamun decorated the colonnade with scenes of the Opet festival, when the statues of Amun, Mut and Khonsu were carried by boat from Karnak to Luxor and back, a celebration of the god and of the king's power. Ramesses II added the front court and the great pylon with colossal statues and a pair of obelisks.
Later rulers left their mark too: Alexander the Great rebuilt the boat shrine inside, the Romans turned part of the temple into a chapel for their emperors' cult inside a military camp, and the mosque of Abu al-Haggag still sits on top of one corner.
The temple is well preserved. Of Ramesses II's two obelisks, one still stands at the pylon; the other was given to France and has stood in the Place de la Concorde in Paris since 1836.
The avenue of sphinxes that linked Luxor to Karnak, almost 3 km long, was cleared and opened again in 2021.
3 short, well-known texts from Luxor Temple, each with its transliteration (the Egyptian sounds in Latin letters) and a translation. Tap Sign by sign to see what each sign is and how it is read. Royal names are drawn in their cartouches.
Where: On the columns and architraves of the colonnade and the sun court.
Amenhotep III's throne name, written with the sun disk first out of honor, then Maat, and the basket nb "lord" at the bottom, read in the middle.
Reading: The standard reading (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (3rd ed., 1957), Excursus A on the royal titulary); the Wikipedia article "Amenhotep III".
Where: Beside his throne name throughout his parts of the temple.
His birth name; in his cartouche it continues with ḥqꜣ wꜣst, "ruler of Thebes". Akhenaten was born with the same name and gave it up.
Simplified: Shown without the title "ruler of Thebes" that follows the name in his cartouche.
Reading: The standard reading (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (3rd ed., 1957), Excursus A on the royal titulary).
Where: In the columns of text on the standing obelisk in front of the pylon (and on its twin in Paris).
Ramesses II carved his names on everything he built and on much that he didn't. In Greek, wsr-mꜣꜥt-rꜥ became Ozymandias.
Reading: The standard reading (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (3rd ed., 1957), Excursus A on the royal titulary); the Wikipedia article "Ramesses II".
Dates follow Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000); before 664 BC they are approximate. Readings are the standard ones in the sources named under each inscription; translations are Teddy Rook Book's own. The hieroglyphs are drawn in the site's font, TRB Hieroglyphs, so their shapes are simplified; where an inscription's arrangement or signs can't be shown faithfully, the card says so.