LUXOR, more properly El-Aksur, "The Castles" (plur. of kasr), a town of Upper Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile 45omi. above Cairo by river and 418 by rail. It is the centre for visitors to the ruins of and about Thebes, and has several fine hotels. There are Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, and a hospital opened in 1891. The district is the seat of an extensive manufac ture of forged antiques.
The temple of Luxor is one of the greatest of the monuments of Thebes (q.v.). It stands near the river bank on the S.W. side of the town and measures nearly 3ooyd. from back to front. There may have been an earlier temple here, but the present structure, dedicated to the Theban triad of Amen, Mut and Khansu, was erected by Amenhotep III. The great colonnade, which is its most striking feature, was apparently intended for the nave of a hypustyle hall like that of Karnak, but had to be hastily finished without the aisles. After the heresy of Amenhotep IV. (Akhenaton), the decoration of this incomplete work was taken in hand by Tutenkhamen 2nd Horemheb. The axis of the temple ran from south-west to north-east; a long paved road bordered by recumbent rams led from the facade to the temples of Karnak in a somewhat more easterly direction, and Rameses II. adopted the line of this avenue in adding an extensive court
to the work of Amenhotep, producing a curious change of axis. He embellished the walls and pylons of his court with scenes from his victories over Hittites and Syrians, and placed a number of colossal statues within it. In front of the pylon Rameses set up colossi and a pair of obelisks (one of which was taken to Paris in 1831 and re-erected in the Place de la Concorde). Alexander the Great rebuilt the sanctuary. The chief religious festival of Thebes was that of "Southern Opi," the ancient name of Luxor. The sacred barks of the divinities preserved in the sanctuary of Karnak were then conveyed in procession by water to Luxor and back again; a representation of the festal scenes is given on the walls of the great colonnade. The Christians built churches within the temple, and a mosque used to cover its western end. Clearance and restoration was begun by the Service des Antiquites in 1885, and has been vigorously pursued since. The principal street of Luxor follows the line of the ancient avenue.