It Was Built By Two Of The Most Relevant Monarchs Of The New Kingdom. Amenophis III Planned It And Built A Great Colonnade, A Hypostyle Hall And The Sancta-Sanctorum. Later Ramesses II expanded it with an impressive Hypostyle Hall and an imposing Slope Wall (pylon) 65 meters wide, preceded by two colossal seated statues of the Pharaoh that flank the entrance and two red granite obelisks (only one remains in situ). The total length of the temple exceeds 250 m. And in front of this great pylon, on the north face of the temple, the Avenue of Sphinxes that linked Luxor with the Imperial Sanctuary of Karnak opens its way, along 2, 5 km. Dedicated to the God Amun-Ra, it was also relevant to the monarchical cult since it constituted the monumental setting for the deification of the sovereign.

It Was For Centuries The Religious Center Of The Country. The Sacred Complex is made up of three independent enclosures, each of them surrounded by an adobe wall. In the center stands the magnificent Temple of Amun, which occupies an area of ​​123 hectares. To the north and right next to it extends the enclosure of Montu, the ancient local deity of Thebes, of smaller dimensions. To the south is the Sanctuary of the Goddess Mut, which is linked to that of Amun through an avenue of sphinxes. The History Of Karnak Spans More Than 2,000 Years, From The Dawn Of The Middle Kingdom To The Greco-Roman Period. The grandeur of the complex depends largely on the enormous works carried out by the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom. Almost Everyone Wanted To Leave Their Mark In The Imperial Sanctuary Of Amun, In Honor Of Their Divine Father, Amun-Ra, The “King Of The Gods”.

With Thebes as the Capital of Egypt, the Monarchs of the 18th Dynasty, moved by the desire to protect their mummies and royal treasures, chose to give up the pyramids and look for a new location for their tombs, wishing to keep them secret and protected. The choice fell on a remote desert valley in the Western Tabana Mountain Range, located about 5 km from the Nile. The rock formations inside the valley allowed the tombs to be excavated in a hidden place and hidden from view by means of embankments once the bodies were buried. . There, -In Rock Tombs ("Hypogeums") Beautifully Decorated With Wall Paintings And Symbolic Stories Of The Journey Of The Dead To The Underworld, Made Up Of Descending Corridors, Drainage Wells, Funerary Chambers And The Sarcophagus Chamber, All The Kings Of The New Kingdom Received Burial From Tutmosis. The Wadi Biban El-Moluk, better known as the Valley of the Kings, is divided into two branches: the Eastern one occupies the central area and contains most of the tombs, while the Western one only houses the tombs of Amenophis III and Eye.

The Temple Known As Medinet Habu Was Built In The Southern Part Of The Tetana Necropolis. It is the best preserved in the entire necropolis and one of the most interesting temples in Egypt. It is surrounded by a thick wall that defines an area of ​​almost 66,150 m2. This majestic brick wall encompasses several monuments: the “small temple” of the 18th Dynasty, which has been the subject of several extensions, and the funerary chapels of three wives of the god (25th and 26th Dynasty), but the most well-known and important, without a doubt. , It is the Memorial Temple of Ramses III. The venue had two entrances. The East Gate Was The Processional Entrance, Known As The “High Gate” This Monumental Gate Is Unparalleled In Egyptian Religious Architecture And Is Inspired By The Fortresses Of The Near East.

The Funerary Temple of Amenophis III, the largest sanctuary erected in Egypt, marked the culmination of this monarch's construction activity. Of this Monumental Complex, a victim of earthquakes and the looting of its stones, only two enormous seated statues of the King remain today. They measure 18 m high and were carved from a monolithic block of quartzite. The name by which these colossi are known is due to a natural phenomenon. The North Statue Was Seriously Damaged Due To An Earthquake In 27 BC And It Started “Singing” In The Mornings. The Noises Probably Caused By The Differences In Temperatures Between Night And Day Were Interpreted In Antiquity As The Laments Of The Goddess Eos For Her Son Memnon, Who Died In Troy. The Statue fell silent forever when the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus ordered its restoration in 199 AD.

In Edfu, the Ancient Greek Apolinópolis, Ptolemy III began the construction of a majestic temple dedicated to Horus, the Falcon God, in the year 237 BC, completed 180 years later, in the time of Ptolemy XII, in the year 57 BC. Purest Ptolemaic Style Is Preserved In A Perfect Condition, Only The Colors Of Its Reliefs Have Disappeared. No other ancient Egyptian temple conveys a sensation of space and luminosity comparable to that of Edfu. Through its imposing pylon - only surpassed in dimensions by that of the Temple of Karnak - you access a large Hypetra Hall (a large porticoed courtyard on three sides) that gives way to the Hypostyle Halls - closed rooms - whose covers are Supported By Colossal Columns With Beautiful Capitals Of Different Types. And Behind Them, The Most Holy Place, The Sancta-Sanctorum. Reliefs and inscriptions embellish its walls and provide information about the tradition of the Edfu cult.

On a small promontory on the eastern bank of the Nile, about 40 km north of Aswan stands the Double Shrine of Kom Ombo. Its construction began in the 2nd century BC under the reign of Ptolemy VI, it continued under Ptolemy XIII and its decorative reliefs date back to the Roman Imperial era. The Temple was consecrated to two divinities: the right half to the crocodile-god Sobek, and the left half to the falcon-headed god Haroeris, which is why it has an unusual bilateral symmetrical plan that begins at the pylon that has two independent doors that open Two Parallel Axes. During the last 1,500 years the Nile has been moving towards the east so parts of the first pylon and several rooms of the temple were flooded and subsequently buried until the Antiquities Service rescued them in 1893. The Best Preserved Sector of the Temple is the Great Hypostyle Hall that can be seen in the distance from the Nile.

On the Western Shore of Lake Nasser, 40 km north of the border with Sudan, are the two Rock Temples of Abu Simbel. Originally excavated in the rocks on the banks of the Nile, today they rest in the Nubian Desert after having been rescued from the waters of the lake, created after the construction of the Pharaonic Aswan Dam. Both are funerary temples built under the reign of Ramses II (19th Dynasty, around 1260 BC). The Great Temple of Ramses II is dedicated to Amun-Ra, Ptah and the Deified Pharaoh Himself. Its Facade Is Dominated By Four Seated King's Colossi (20 Meters High) Flanking The Entrance. Next to their legs are the statues of princes, princesses, the Queen Mother and his first consort, Queen Nefertari, and under their feet, the peoples subject to the yoke of Egypt. Nearby is the so-called Minor Temple of Abu Simbel, consecrated to the Goddess Hathor and Queen Nefertari, whose sloped façade shows six colossal statues.

The Geological Formations of the Eastern and Western Deserts Have Offered Egypt a Wide Range of Rocks, Earning It the Name “Country of Stone” in Antiquity. Egyptian Civilization, with its powerful construction activity since the beginning of the 3rd Millennium BC, marked the beginning of an intense activity of prospecting and extraction of stone material to build pyramids, temples and statues, which affected even the most remote quarries. Aswan occupied a prominent place among the main quarries since the precious red granite was extracted from there, as well as other stones such as quartzite. The Most Important Testimony Of The Ancient Extractive Activity Is An Unfinished Obelisk That Did Not Separate From The Bedrock Due To A Material Defect. It was the largest obelisk ever projected, with a length of 42 m and an estimated weight of nearly 1,200 tons. It is believed to date back to the 18th Dynasty and was probably destined for the Imperial Sanctuary of Karnak.

It hosted a unique set of sacred buildings dedicated to the goddess Isis. The first known builder on the island is Nectanebo I (the first pharaoh of the XXX Dynasty, the last of Egyptian kings who ruled throughout the 4th century BC), but the main buildings that have survived to the present day are From the Greco-Roman Period. The Main Temple Of The Island Was The Temple Of Isis, The Great Mother Goddess. Its plan does not respond to the classic scheme of the Ptolemaic Sanctuaries, neither in its spatial arrangement nor in its axial orientation, undoubtedly to adapt to the topography of the island. This magnificent and enormous temple combines Greco-Roman and Egyptian elements with total harmony. Isis, The Great Mother Goddess, Was So Popular That Her Cult Survived In Philae For Centuries. The Sanctuary was not definitively closed until the 6th century by order of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, becoming a church consecrated to Saint Stephen. The Christian-Coptic History of Philae Lasted Until the 12th and 13th Centuries: The Island of Philae, In Order to Safeguard Its Heritage, Was Included in the International Campaign to Salvage Nubian Antiquities Sponsored by UNESCO. Its buildings were dismantled from their original location on the island of Philae and moved and erected again on the island of Agilika, located just 300 m away.