Egypt The Temple Of Luxor example essay topic

Ancient Egypt's pyramids are the oldest and largest stone structure in the world. Along the Nile 35 major pyramids still stand. The three largest pyramids at Giza rank as one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World. It was on the list of notable things to see which was made up by the travelers during ancient times. The ancient Egyptians also built temples of limestone. They designed parts of the temples to resemble plants.

Moreover, many of ancient Egypt's finest paintings and other works of art were produced for tombs and temples. Ancient Egyptian sculptors decorated temples with carvings showing festivals, military victories, and other important events. Sculptors also carved large stone sphinxes. These statutes were supposed to represent Egyptian Kings or Gods and were used to Guard temples and tombs.

The Temples were houses of worship. The word temple most often refers to Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, Taoist, and ancient Near Eastern and European places of worship. Most Temples are built to honor god, a God, or many Gods. Many of these buildings are considered the homes of gods. Back then and still today worship at temples often involves traditional ceremonies and may include sacrifices. Certain temples stood on sacred sites.

The design of numerous temples was symbolic. Luxor has often been called the "worlds greatest open air museum", as indeed it is and much more. The number and safeguarding of the monuments in the Luxor area is said to be unparalleled then in any other part of the world. Actually, Luxor is really comprised of three different areas, consisting of the City of Luxor on the East side of the Nile, the town of Karnak just north of Luxor and Thebes, which the ancient Egyptians called Was et, which is on the west side of the Nile across from Luxor.

The modern town of Luxor is home to 170,000 people in Egypt today. Luxor is the site of the ancient city of Thebes, which was the capital of Egypt from the 12th dynasty (1991 BC) and achieved its peak during the New Kingdom (1539 BC to around 700 BC). Although the mud brick palaces of Thebes have long disappeared, the stone temples have survived. The temple remained buried beneath the town of Luxor for thousands of years, and was not uncovered until a mosque was built on top of it. Now, the mosque remains an important part of the entire temple.

Leading up to the temple is an avenue of sphinxes running about 2 kilometers long. The temple, like the neighboring Karnak temple, is a collection of styles and additions from different pharaohs, each desiring to modify the structure with their signature. The temple of Luxor was the center of a very important festival known as Open. The thrust of the festivities was to reconcile the human element of the then ruler with the gods. The temple of Luxor was built largely by the King Amenhotep (who at that time was the ninth Pharaoh to rule Egypt) and Ramesses II.

It appears that the temples main purpose was to establish a suitable setting for conducting rituals of various festivals. During the 18th dynasty the festival usually lasted eleven days, but had grown to twenty-seven days by the reign of Ramesses in the 20th dynasty. At that time the festival included the distribution of over 11,000 loaves of bread, 85 cakes and 385 jars of beer. Each god or goddess was carried in a separate barge that was towed by smaller boats. Large crowds consisting of soldiers, dancers, musicians and high-ranking officials accompanied the barge by walking along the banks of the river.

During the festival the people were allowed to ask favors of the statues of the kings or to the images of the gods that were on the barges. Once at the temple, the king and his priests entered the back chambers. There, the king and his ka (the divine essence of each king, created at his birth) were merged, the king being transformed into a divine being. The crowd outside, anxiously awaiting the transformed king, would cheer wildly at his re-emergence. This solidified the ritual and made the king a god. The festival was the backbone of the pharaoh's government.

In this way could a usurper or one not have the same bloodline become ruler over Egypt? Overall, Egypt is a land of history and the Temple of Luxor is part of Egypt's History in the upper part of Egypt. The Temple of Luxor is a gorgeous monumental architecture from Egypt. When visitors go to Egypt the Temple of Luxor is one of the museums in there must see list would like to see. The walls in the Temple are where you can see carved pictures showing the kings interacting with gods, or their military exploits.

There are a row of sphinx statues at the Luxor Temple. This row of statues stands in a line covering 2 miles to the Luxor Temple, and has a buddy with a similar row of ram headed statues. The temple has many columns surrounding different parts of the temple. This temple is filled with so much history. This temple is about life and that's what Egypt is all about.

So many events were occurring during those times and the artist expressed himself or herself by building different types of sculptures and monuments. By having a title or position, a contextualist would have many questions about this temple. I am amazed as to how this temple look it took more than a century itself to build without the tools that we have today to build certain types of buildings. How did these two men Amenhotep and Ramesses II put this temple together? Research does not show whether they had any assistance, but slaves were primarily responsible for constructing assisted majority of the sculptures and monuments in Egypt during those times. Moreover, the Temple of Luxor represents more than history it represents life.

Work Cited Page The World Book Encyclopedia 2004 World Book, Inc. World Book Inc. 233 North Michigan Avenue Chicago, IL 60601 web.