Day three
Another day in this beautiful vibe city started, birds tweeting, calm wind breezing and my sense of adventure kicked in, I decided that I would go try this amazing spot on the rooftop that Taha showed me yesterday night (in case you missed it here is a link on where to find it), and as I expected it is even more beautiful in the morning, the view of the Nile River from up is just magnificent!
I had my breakfast there with my friend while we planned how we would spend the last day in Luxor city, and today it is going to be all about tombs, going to be tomb riders, so exciting! We called Ahmed (The horse wagon “Hantoor” Driver that we met on day one), we agreed on a spot and time to meet, and off we went to another adventure.
We met at the same spot that we did yesterday, taking the fairy and meeting at the landing spot. With the company of Ahmed and Bob, hoofs clicking through the streets of Luxor city creating this unique rhythm, we reached our first destination, The Karnak Temples.
This place is huge, it is 1500m by 800m and is considered the largest religious building ever constructed! developed more than 2000 years ago, dating from around 2055 BC to around 100 AD, I took a picture for you of the map of Karnak Temple, you can see it down here.
There are too many sections as you can see in the map of Karnak Temples, I mean after all, it is the largest religious temple that was ever made, but the highlights of that temple are The Great Court, Ramesses III Chapel, Hypostyle Hall, Tuthmosis III Hall, The Sacred Lake, Thutmose III Pylon, Temple of Ramses III, Temple of Ramses II, Temple of Khonsu, and multiple other small temples.
When you first walk in, there is this hall that has most of the historical facts about this temple and a 3D design of it. How it generally looks and is constructed, I also read some of their god’s beliefs at that time, and since they had many I will tell you about the one that I personally liked, The Goddess Maat.
The Goddess Maat represents the ethical and moral principle that every Egyptian citizen at that time was expected to follow throughout their daily lives. They were expected to act with honor and truth in matters that involved family, the community, the nation, the environment, and the gods.
Maat as a principle was formed to meet the complex needs of the emergent Egyptian state that embraced diverse peoples with conflicting interests. The development of such rules sought to avert chaos and it became the basis of Egyptian law. From an early period, the king would describe himself as the “Lord of Maat” who decreed with his mouth the Maat he conceived in his heart.
Then you start your tour in this huge temple complex, the amount of statues temples and hieroglyphic that you will see there is just on another level, actually most of the temples in Luxor city is within The Karnak Temples complex, and it also have paths made by the ancient Egyptians that leads to other temples around Luxor city such as Mut Temple, and through Sphinx Avenue you reach to Luxor Temple, and so we took those paths to visit the other temples as well.
The Sphinx Avenue (in Arabic: طريق الكباش) extends for 2.7km to Luxor temple, am telling you it was a long walk, but worth every step, along the road you have all these statues lined up till Luxor temple, it is amazing how many statues they made for their gods and kings.
After all of this tomb ride adventure that we had, we got tired and yea time flew by without being noticed again, we got back to the guest house had a wonderful dinner and some drinks on the rooftop, saying goodbye to the magnificent Nile River as this was our last night in the city.
Finally, my inner child adventurer was a bit satisfied, he wanted more, but it was enough for him… for now that is, and there will be many more adventures around the world yet to come for him to satisfy him.