Hotels in Luxor
Numerous tourists like to have vacations in the city of Luxor. Some may want to see the culture, the history, the tourist attractions, the society and the scenery of the city. Some tourists may want to see the amazing historical landmarks of the region. Some tourists may want to stay at a hotel in the city or the region. Some tourists may want to see the culture, the history, the tourist attractions, the society and scenery of the city. Some tourists may want to see the architecture of the city. Some tourists may want to stay at a luxury hotel in the city or near the city. Some may want to stay at a cheap hotel. Numerous tourists may want to stay at a large hotel or a small hotel.
Luxor is a city in Upper (southern) Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. As the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", the ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor standing within the modern city. Immediately opposite, across the Nile River, lie the monuments, temples and tombs on the West Bank Necropolis, which include the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. Thousands of international tourists arrive each year to visit these monuments, and their presence represents a large part of the economic basis for the modern city. As a result, Luxor represents an excellent base for touring Upper Egypt, and is a popular holiday destination, both in its own right and as a starting or finishing point for Nile cruises.
History of Luxor: Luxor was the ancient city of Thebes, the great capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom, and the glorious city of the God Amon-Ra. The city was regarded in the Ancient Egyptian texts as WST (Pronounced "Waset"), which meant the foremost or city of the sceptre and also as T-IPT (probably pronounced as "ta ipet" and meaning "the shrine") and then, in a later period, the Greeks called it Thebai and the Romans after them Thebae. The importance of the city started as early as the 11th Dynasty, with king Montuhotep II who united Egypt after the troubles of the first intermediate period. The city of Thebes was situated in the fourth Nome of Upper Egypt, but, despite its importance, wasn't the capital of that province. That was the city of Per-Montu (nowadays called Armant), situated to the south of Thebes. The main local god was Amon, 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 Amon rose in importance as well and became linked to the sun god Ra, thus creating the new 'king of gods' Amon-Ra. His great temple, at Karnak just north of Thebes, was the most important temple of Egypt right until the end of antiquity. Thebes was also known as "the city of the 100 gates", sometimes being called the southern city of the sun ('Iunu-shemaa' in Ancient Eyptian), to distinguish it from the city of Iunu or Heliopolis, the main place of worship for the god Ra in the north. Thebes also played a major role in expelling the invading forces of the Hyksos from Upper Egypt and it was another family from Thebes, the 17th Dynasty that again united Egypt and started the New Kingdom as the 18th Dynasty. From the time of this 18th Dynasty, through to the 20th Dynasty, the importance of the city had risen as the major political, religious and military capital of Ancient Egypt. The political and military importance faded during the Late Period, with Thebes being replaced as political capital by several cities in Northern Egypt, like Bubastis, Sais and finally Alexandria, but as the city of the god Amon-Ra Thebes remained the religious capital of Egypt until the Greek period.
Thebes (, The-bai) was a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile ( [show location on an interactive map] 25°4200N 32°3842E / 25.7, 32.645). It was the capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian nome. (Waset was also a name for the city.) It was the capital of Egypt during part of the 11th Dynasty (Middle Kingdom) and most of the 18th Dynasty (New Kingdom), though the administration probably remained at Memphis for much of this time. With the 19th Dynasty the seat of government moved to the Delta. The archaeological remains of Thebes offer a striking testimony to Egyptian civilization at its height. The Greek poet Homer extolled the wealth of Thebes in the Iliad, Book 9 (c. 8th Century BC): ... in Egyptian Thebes the heaps of precious ingots gleam, the hundred-gated Thebes.
The name Thebai is the Greek designation of the ancient Egyptian niwt "(The) City" and niwt-rst "(The) Southern City". At the seat of the Theban triad of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu, Thebes was known in the Egyptian language from the end of the New Kingdom as niwt-imn, "The City of Amun." This found its way into the Hebrew Bible as no- a-môn (Nahum 3:8),"no" in Hebrew meaning city with no amon or City of Amon referring to the Egyptian deity Amon-Re, most likely it is also the same as ("No") (Ezekiel 30:14). In Greek this name was rendered Diospolis, City of Zeus, as Zeus was the god whom the Greeks identified with Amun, see interpretatio graeca. The Greeks surnamed the city megale, "the Great", to differentiate it from numerous other cities called Diospolis. The Romans rendered the name Diospolis Magna.
Luxor International Airport is the main airport serving the city of Luxor, Egypt. It is located four miles east of the city.
Sights of modern-day Luxor include
or have included ; East Bank, Luxor Temple, Luxor International Airport, Karnak
Temple, Luxor Museum, Mummification Museum, Winter Palace Hotel, West Bank, Valley
of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Medinet Habu (memorial temple of Ramesses
III), The Ramesseum (memorial temple of Ramesses II), Deir al-Madinah (workers'
village), Tombs of the Nobles, Deir el-Bahri (Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, etc.),
Malkata (palace of Amenophis III), Colossi of Memnon (memorial temple of Amenophis
III)
Luxor Temple is a large Ancient Egyptian temple complex located on the east bank of the River Nile in the city today known as Luxor (ancient Thebes) and was founded in 1400 BC. Known in the Egyptian language as ipet resyt, or "the southern harem", the temple was dedicated to the Theban Triad of Amun, Mut, and Chons and was built during the New Kingdom, the focus of the annual Opet Festival, in which a cult statue of Amun was paraded down the Nile from nearby Karnak Temple (ipet-isut) to stay there for a while, with his consort Mut, in a celebration of fertility – whence its name.
The Valley of the Kings (Arabic: Wadi Biban el-Muluk; "Gates of the King") is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, tombs were constructed for the kings and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom (the Eighteenth through Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt). The valley stands on the west bank of the Nile, across from Thebes (modern Luxor), within the heart of the Theban Necropolis. The wadi consists of two valleys, East Valley (where the majority of the royal tombs situated) and West Valley. The types of soil where the Valley of Kings is located are an alternating sandwich of dense limestone and other sedimentary rock (which form the cliffs in the valley and the nearby Deir el-Bahri) and soft layers of marl.
The Valley of the Queens, also known as Biban el-Harim Biban el-Sultanat and Wadi el-Melikat is a place in Egypt where wives of Pharaohs were buried in ancient times. In ancient times, it was known as Ta-Set-Neferu, meaning –‘the place of the Children of the Pharaoh’, because along with the Queens of the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties (1550–1070 BCE) many princes and princesses were also buried with various members of the nobility. The tombs of these individuals were maintained by mortuary priests who performed daily rituals and provided offerings and prayers for the deceased nobility.
The valley is located near the better known Valley of the Kings, on the west bank of the Nile across from Thebes (modern Luxor) . This barren area in the western hills was chosen due to its relative isolation and proximity to the capital. The kings of the 18th dynasty, instead of the traditional building of pyramids as burial chambers (perhaps because of their vulnerability to tomb robbers), now chose to be buried in rock-cut tombs.
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