The Cool Confines of the Luxor Museum

Whether you need a break from exploring the temples of Luxor and Karnak to escape the heat or just want to take a virtual tour, the Luxor Museum is filled with amazing statues and reliefs of King Tut, Akhenaten and other famous pharaohs, as well as Egyptian gods including Amun, Sobek and Sekhmet.

Not too many travelers bother with the Luxor Museum — but that’s a mistake.

A processional route over a mile and a half long once connected the temples of Luxor and Karnak. There’s talk of renovating and reopening this roadway, and it would be an impressive sight, lined with noble sphinxes, with the glittering water of the River Nile twinkling off to one side. To be honest, though, I can’t imagine that long of a walk, with no shelter from the sun god Ra’s blazing heat. 

After you’ve explored Luxor or Karnak Temples, though, you can escape the intense sun with a visit to the Luxor Museum. Even though it’s situated about a 20-minute walk from Luxor Temple, partway to Karnak, it seems as if not too many tourists add this to their itinerary. 

When we suggested it to our guide, Mamduh, he looked a bit surprised, as if we might have been the first people he’s had make the request.

“If you want to see a lot of the statues that once filled the temples of Ancient Egypt, you’ll have to visit a museum.”

The interior is a cool, sleek white space with angles that give it a surprisingly modern feel. It’s not too large of a space, which means you can see the entire collection in an hour or so. 

Guides aren’t allowed to lecture about the various exhibits. So Mamduh, who had been with us all week, educating us on Ancient Egyptian culture and archeology, from Aswan up to Luxor, had to shift his role. He was no longer our teacher; he became a friend exploring the museum with us. Judging from the sparkle in his eye and his childlike sense of wonder, he hadn’t spent much time in the museum and looked at this as an opportunity to increase his education.

The mummified remains of Ramesses I have a colorful past, including a stint at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Unlike at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, you can actually photograph this mummy.

Where Are the Statues of Ancient Egypt?

The temples of Ancient Egypt, once packed with statues, are now sadly bereft of these works of art. I often remarked to Duke how much I wished the niches, sanctuaries and pedestals were still home to the statues that once adorned them. If you want to see these statues, you’ll have to visit a museum — and the one in Luxor fittingly houses numerous carvings that were unearthed at the nearby temples of Karnak and Luxor.

Before we started wandering the museum, we stopped into an auditorium to watch a short documentary about Thebes (the ancient city where Luxor now stands). The fim had a grainy, bootlegged quality that revealed how woefully outdated it is. It reminded Duke and me of the film reels we used to watch in elementary school. To be honest, I don’t recall much about it. If time is limited, this is definitely something you could skip.

Here’s a brief tour of the Luxor Museum, showcasing some of our favorite artifacts.

Senusret I (circa 1971-1926 BCE)

Limestone 

Part of the colossal pillar of Pharaoh Senusret I from the White Chapel at Karnak, the structure was built to commemorate the first anniversary of the Sed Festival, held during the 30th year of his reign. Senusret is depicted in the traditional form of the god of the afterlife, Osiris, with arms folded across his chest and holding an ankh, the symbol of life, in each hand. 

Senusret III (1878-1840 BCE) 

Quartz 

This quartz head, found at Karnak, sporting the double crown and false beard, captures the humanity of the great Twelfth Dynasty ruler. His heavy-lidded eyes and supposed slight smile (I don’t really see it) represent  a break in the sculptural tradition of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom. 

Amenenhat III (1841-1792 BCE)

Black granite

Check out that look of disgust! Stern features like this were typical of the Middle Kingdom statuary.

Ramesses III (1550-1532 BCE)

Graywacke

This cult statue of Ramesses III, the last great warrior king of the New Kingdom, wears a short wig surmounted by the double crown. One part of the sculpture, which decorated the Precinct of Mut at Karnak, was discovered in the 1930s by the Oriental Institute of Chicago. The other was unearthed in 2002 by an expedition team from Johns Hopkins University. 

Thutmose III (1490-1436 BCE)

Graywacke

Shown eternally youthful, Thutmose III is wearing a belt with his cartouche, an oval carving with the pharaoh’s name in hieroglyphics.

Amun-Min relief (1490-1436 BCE)

Limestone

Look at those colors, still so bright after thousands of years! The chief deity Amun is merged with the fertility god Min. The relief, from Deir el-Bahari, was destroyed during the Amarna period and restored by a later pharaoh.

Unknown officer (1440-1400 BCE)

Sandstone 

This uninscribed Eighteenth Dynasty painted statue depicts an officer wearing a shebyu collar. While these necklaces were often worn by New Kingdom pharaohs, they were also given as a reward for valor or distinguished service.

Amenhotep II relief (circa 1426-1400 BCE)

Red granite

Amenhotep II was particularly proud of his prowess as an athlete and warrior. He’s shown shooting arrows through a target. In the inscription, he boasts of being so much stronger than normal men that he uses copper for target practice rather than wood, through which his arrows pass like papyrus.

Sobek and Amenhotep III (circa 1386-1353 BCE)

Calcite, Egyptian alabaster

The crocodile-headed deity holds an ankh to bestow life to the youthful ruler. The statue was usurped by Ramesses II.

Iwnit (1405-1367 BCE)

Diorite, possibly

This statue of Iwnit, a minor goddess from the Amduat and consort to the god Montu, was created during the reign of Amenhotep III. With dimples at the corner of her mouth, which give the impression of a fleeting smile, some call this the Mona Lisa of Karnak.

Amenhotep III (circa 1386-1353 BCE)

Quartzite

This New Kingdom figure of Amenhotep III was originally adorned with gold that was removed in antiquity, leaving some rough spots visible where armlets once were. 

Sekhmet

Gray granite  

The war goddess Sekhmet personified the fierce protective aspects of women and was known as the Mistress of Dread (coolest nickname ever?). In the New Kingdom she belonged to a group of goddesses known as the Eye of Ra. Here she’s shown with a broken sun disk above her head.

Amenhotep, son of Hapu (1400 BCE) 

Granite 

This statue of a seated scribe with stylized fat folds represents Amenhotep, son of Hapu, an important official under Pharaoh Amenhotep III. A palette with two inkwells, one for red and one for black, hangs over his left shoulder. As overseer of all the king’s works, a post he reached later in life, he was responsible for many of Amenhotep’s ambitious building projects. Like Imhotep, he became deified after death. 

Wall painting of Amenhotep III (circa 1386-1353 BCE)

Painted stucco

Sadly, all that’s left of this wall painting from the tomb of an official are fragments. The image shows Pharaoh Amenhotep III seated under a canopy, with his mother behind him and his enemies beneath him, a position of power. If you want to see what this would have looked like in full, the facsimile painted in 1914 by Egyptologist Nina de Garis Davies can be viewed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 

Amenhotep III (circa 1386-1353 BCE)

Granodiorite 

This sculpture from north Karnak depicts the kneeling figure of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, a popular figure at the Luxor Museum. Holding a pair of flails, the king is kneeling during his coronation by the god Amun-Ra, whose now-missing hand would have originally rested upon Amenhotep’s crown. 

Temple wall of Amenhotep IV aka Akhenaten (circa 1380-1335 BCE)

Sandstone

This partially restored wall from a razed temple dates from the first five years of Amenhotep IV’s reign. The fragments,  known as talatat, were used as filling material and removed from the interior of the ninth pylon at Karnak. This scene depicts the so-called Heretic King and his wife Queen Nefertiti worshipping the multi-armed Aten, with images of daily life associated with the temple storehouses, workshops and breweries.

Akhenaten (circa 1380-1335 BCE)

Sandstone 

These are the remains of a colossal statue in the easily identifiable Amarna style (which we both love) found east of the Amun-Ra temple precinct, in an open court dedicated to the solar god Aten, built by Akhenaten in the third year of his reign. The colossi were knocked down and left in situ during the reign of Horemheb. During an excavation in 1925, Henri Chevrier, chief inspector of antiquities at Karnak, uncovered 25 fragments.

Tutankhamun sphinx (1347-1336 BCE)

Calcite

The face of this sphinx from Karnak Temple appears to bear the features of King Tut — most noticeably in the eyes and chin. This likeness wears a nemes headdress and originally had human arms that held a vase. 

Tutankhamun as Amun (1347-1336 BCE)

Limestone

Amun, the patron deity of Thebes, is depicted in the form of the legendary Boy King. Tutankhamun restored the cult of Amun (and the other gods) after the death of monotheistic, monomaniacal Akhenaten.

Atum and Horemheb (circa 1300-1292 BCE)

Diorite

The militaristic Pharaoh Horemheb kneels before the solar deity Atum, offering two nw jars. Atum is seated on a throne, holds an ankh and wears a long wig and a curved false beard, topped with the double crown of Egypt. Carved into the side of the throne is the sema tawny, lung and windpipe, symbolizing the union of the two lands (Lower and Upper Egypt). The well-preserved artwork was discovered in 1989, buried beneath the solar court of Amenhotep III at Luxor Temple. 

Seti I (1323-1279 BCE)

Alabaster

Wally thinks the spot where his penis would be was a light switch. Seti I was a warrior king like his father Ramesses I before him. He was the husband of Queen Tuya and the father of Ramesses II also known as Ramesses the Great. A passionate builder, he’s responsible for the hypostyle hall at Karnak. 

Nebre (circa 1292-1189 BCE)

Sandstone

This work was discovered at a fortress that protected the western border of Egypt from the Libyans. Nebre served as a commander under Ramesses II and held multiple titles, including troop commander, charioteer of the king, overseer of foreign lands and chief of the Medjay, an elite police force. He holds the staff of office, topped by the lion head of Sehkmet, goddess of war. –Wally

 

Lesser-Known Egyptian Gods

Nut, Geb, Bes and Ptah, oh my! A who’s who of Egyptian deities.

Even if you’re familiar with the stars of the Ancient Egyptian pantheon like Osiris and Re, you probably don’t know some of their colorful cohorts. Meet the less well-known but still batshit crazy gods and goddesses who sport the head of a lion, crocodile, dung beetle and other creatures.

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RELATED: The Major Egyptian Gods

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Aten

Aka: Aton

Domain: The sun

Description: The sun with a uraeus (the sacred asp) at its base, with rays of light that each end in outstretched hands, some of which hold ankhs when shining upon anyone in the royal family.

Strange story: Historians believe that Pharaoh Akhenaten’s decree to abandon the old gods and worship only the Aten is the first instance of monotheism — and could very well have influenced the Jewish religion.

Bes

Aka: Aha

Domain: Protector of children and pregnant women

Description: A dwarf with a large head featuring bulging eyes, a protruding tongue, a beard and a lion’s mane. Sometimes depicted with a large belly and sagging breasts

Consort: Beset 

Strange story: Pilgrims would spend the night in incubation chambers covered with images of Bes and Beset to cure themselves of infertility or impotence.

Geb

Domain: Personification of the Earth, healing — colds, fevers and scorpion stings in particular

Description: A man lying on his side, one arm supporting himself, beneath his spouse, Nut, the personified sky. Grain sprouts from his ribs and vegetation from his back.

Consort: Nut

Strange story: His laughter is what causes earthquakes.

Hapi

Aka: Hapy

Domain: The yearly flooding of the Nile

Description: A man with a swollen belly, long hair and pendulous female breasts, sometimes with a cluster of papyrus on his head

Strange story: One ancient text relates that 1,089 goats were sacrificed to Hapi in a fertility rite.

Khepri

Domain: The sun

Description: A black scarab, or dung beetle, or a man with one for his head.

Strange story: Male scarabs push around small balls of dung. Ancient Egyptians believed that the sun, in turn, was pushed through the sky every day by Khepri.

Min

Aka: Amun-Min

Domain: Male virility

Description: A black mummified man who holds his wrappings in his right hand and his hard-on in his left, though he’s often shown with only one arm and one leg

Strange story: Offerings to Min depicted lettuce, a symbol of sex due to its semen-like milky sap.

Neith

Domain: War, creation, motherhood and the funerary process

Description: One of the oldest of the Egyptian pantheon, Neith’s iconography shifted through the centuries. She’s sometimes shown as a woman holding an ankh and was scepter or wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt. She’s also depicted holding a bow and arrow or a harpoon. As the mother of Sobek, she’s shown suckling a small crocodile at each breast. The goddess could also appear in the guise of a serpent or fish.

Strange story: She’s so wise that even the sun god Re comes to her for counsel. But if you don’t follow her advice, she gets so angry she’ll make the sky fall. 

Nut

Domain: The sky

Description: A naked woman bending over to form the heavens, her feet and hands on the horizon below. She’s sometimes depicted as a cow or sow.

Strange story: Every night, she swallows the sun, giving birth to it in the morning.

Ptah

Aka: Ptah-Nun

Domain: Creation and craftsmanship

Description: A mummified man with a long, thin erection, wearing a skull cap and false beard and carrying a scepter

Consort: Sekhmet

Strange story: While some believed that Ptah created the world on his potter’s wheel, others credited him with thinking or speaking the world into existence.

Sekhmet

Domain: Violence and healing

Description: A lion-headed woman

Consort: Ptah

Strange story: When the sun god Re grew old, his subjects plotted against him. To punish them, Re sent Sekhmet, who, in a destructive frenzy, went on a rampage, breathing fire and nearly wiping out the entire human race.

Sobek

Domain: Water

Description: A man with a crocodile head, sometimes wearing a headdress with tall feathers, horns and the sun

Strange story: Watch out, ladies! Sobek’s nickname is the Raging One because he’s known to “take women from their husbands whenever he wishes according to his desire.”

Taweret

Aka: Tawaret

Domain: Motherhood

Description: A grimacing hippo with sagging tits and a pregnant belly

Consort: Seth or Bes

Strange story: Containers made of faience were shaped like Taweret to hold breast milk. Two holes in the nipples allowed the milk to be poured out for magic rituals. –Wally

Kom Ombo: The Dual Temple of Horus and Sobek

Who is the Egyptian crocodile god? Explore a symmetrical ruin and see reptilian mummies at the Crocodile Museum.

Kom Ombo’s distinctive floral flourishes at the top of the columns are what first appealed to Wally

There was something about Kom Ombo that instantly called to me. Perhaps I could sense its Greco-Roman influence. My whole life, I’ve been downright obsessed with Greek myths, and poor Duke has had to watch way too many shows about Ancient Rome.

But, for some reason, I wasn’t that interested in Egypt. That is, not until we decided to visit. Since then, I’ve been devouring books on its vast history and reading its insane mythology. (Case in point: a young god getting buggered by the uncle who killed his father, and then sneakily feeding him his sperm on lettuce leaves — aww, you just have to read it to believe it.)

“Sobek is known as “the raging one” who “takes women from their husbands whenever he wishes, according to his desires.””

These twin temples have been around for a couple of thousands of years

Horus, the falcon-headed god, shares the temple with Sobek, the crocodile god

Duke peeks from behind a column in the forecourt of Kom Ombo

Wally loved exploring this off-the-beaten-path temple

We hired a driver and guide from Egypt Sunset Tours to travel by car from Aswan up to Luxor, stopping at Kom Ombo and Edfu along the way.

Admission to Kom Ombo costs 100 Egyptian pounds, or about $6, and includes the Crocodile Museum next door.

Crocodile-headed Sobek, seen in the middle, is a complicated god of water and fertility

Meet Sobek, the Crocodile God

Part of the appeal of Kom Ombo is its unique setup: It’s actually two temples, divided right down the middle, each a symmetrical mirror of the other. The north side honors Horus, the falcon-headed youthful god of the sun that so many pharaohs associated themselves with; the south is devoted to another figure we didn’t see much in hieroglyphs: Sobek, the local crocodile-headed deity. (His name, in fact, was simply the Ancient Egyptian word for crocodile.)

This part of the Nile, about an hour north of Aswan, was once home to larger numbers of crocodiles. And if there was one thing Nile boaters hated more than hippos, it was crocodiles. Both of these animals made navigating a craft on the river a dangerous prospect. You’ll see quite a few sites with relief carvings of these dangers, though Kom Ombo was the only one we visited that depicted Sobek himself.

Sobek was often depicted as having a crocodile head, ram’s horns and an elaborate crown, as seen on this statue in the Crocodile Museum next to Kom Ombo

Sobek was a complicated figure, swinging back and forth between good and evil.

Sometimes he was associated with Set, the god of chaos whom Horus battled over the rulership of Egypt. Set’s allies turned themselves into crocodiles to escape. In the Pyramid Texts, Sobek is known as “the raging one” who “takes women from their husbands whenever he wishes, according to his desires.”

Then again, some sects believed it was Sobek who created the world, rising out of the dark primordial water to shape the universe. Because he was associated with the River Nile — which flowed from his sweat — and all its life-giving power, Sobek was also a god of fertility.

Pharaohs wanted to imbue themselves with the strength and speed of crocodiles; the hieroglyphic for “sovereign” was a crocodile.

A votive offering from the reign of Amenhotep III

Locals at Kom Ombo believed (hoped?) that if they worshipped crocodiles, treating them as sacred, they would be protected from these ferocious beasts. Many an ancient tomb included a mummified crocodile corpse to extend that protection into the afterlife.

From a safety standpoint, I’m happy to report that nowadays the crocs are long gone. The closest you’ll get to one today are the mummified corpses at the adjacent Crocodile Museum.

Be sure to see the mummified crocs after wandering the ruins of Kom Ombo. Mummies like these were put into tombs so the ferocious beasts could protect the dead in the afterlife

Construction of the temple at Kom Ombo began early during the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor, about 186 BCE. The hypostyle halls of columns are credited to Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator, who ruled from 51-47 BCE. And during the Roman period, the Emperor Augustus added the entrance pylon around 30 BCE.

The inner part of the temple is filled with crypts and hidden passageways

With the construction of the Aswan Dam, many Nubians and Sudanese were relocated to the Kom Ombo area

Rocks taken from the temple in 1955 were used to build a local sugar factory!

A temple guard in one of Kom Ombo’s galleries

On one side of the temple’s exterior, a lion bites a hand

Kom Ombo: What’s in a Name?

The name of this temple is undeniably fun to say; it sort of bounces right out of the mouth. It’s interesting in that it’s a mishmash of Arabic and Ancient Egyptian: Kom is Arabic for hill, while Ombo is a corruption of the Egyptian word meaning gold. So Kom Ombo was known as the Hill of Gold.

The site was a popular commercial hub, including, one imagines, for the gold mined down in Nubia to the south.

The Ancient Egyptians were the first to create a 365-day calendar

The Ancient Egyptian Calendar: A Date With Destiny

Those Ancient Egyptians were undeniably clever. In addition to all the architectural marvels you can still tour, they also devised the first 365-day calendar (granted, it started with 360 days, but eventually they figured out they needed to add on five days). There were 12 months of 30 days throughout the three seasons (flooding, growing and harvest, all tied to the annual Nile inundation), with the extra days added to the end of harvest to provide a time for feasting. Of course, the 365-day calendar, which we still use, is flawed, and eventually seasons get off schedule. So Ptolemy III added a day every four years — the beginning of our leap year.

Ancient Egyptians only had three seasons, all tied to the Nile’s flooding and the nutrient-rich soil it left in its wake

Off to the right, as you walk through the temple, there’s a wall of hieroglyphics that show the Egyptian calendar. Our guide, Mamduh (pronounced “Mom-doo”), made a great teacher. He’d show us what certain symbols meant, had us decipher some and would quiz us when the glyph appeared at another location, proud when we got the answer right.

Various rulers of the Ptolemaic dynasty depicted themselves at Kom Ombo

Roman Emperors on Parade

The temple is a bit of a who’s who of Roman emperors. The pylon wall out front shows Domitian wearing the crown of Upper Egypt, while the forecourt colonnade depicts Tiberius making an offering to the local gods. Elsewhere, Horus and the ibis-headed Thoth are pouring holy water over Ptolemy XII, while Sobek looks on. On the other side of the temple, the relief swaps the positions of Sobek and Horus.

Behind this family, you can see Ptolemy XII anointed with holy water by the gods Thoth and Horus

Kom Ombo also houses clinics. A sample treatment was to squeeze onion juice into the eye to treat irritations

Priests would hide in a subterranean tunnel behind the sanctuaries and act as oracles to pilgrims

Notice the dripping penises: Mamduh told us this was a symbol of STDs, which were treated here

Out back, walls rise up in a narrow passageway, depicting not only Emperor Trajan making offerings to the gods but an array of surgical instruments as well.

The temple stands on the banks of the Nile, and teams are now working to protect it from erosion

This well is known as a nilometer and was used to predict Nile floods

Kom Ombo’s Nilometer

Off to the left, if you’re facing the entrance, are the remains of a nilometer, a structure somewhat reminiscent of the stepwells of India, used to predict the flooding of the Nile. I peeked my head over the edge, but even with my feet firmly planted and my body secure on the stone edge, vertigo made my head spin.

Decades of irrigation in what was once the desert have eroded the foundation of Kom Ombo. A U.S.-funded team is working to create a 30-foot-deep trench around the site to divert groundwater back into the Nile.

A large part of Kom Ombo’s appeal is its remoteness. Situated right on the bank of the Nile in a small town miles from Aswan, the site is surrounded by sugarcane fields. In fact, about 50 years ago, before the site was under preservation, a sugarcane magnate pillaged stones from Kom Ombo to build his sugar factory nearby. Can you imagine ancient hieroglyphics mixed in with modern materials to build a factory?! Thank Sobek that Kom Ombo is now under protection, its importance once again realized and respected. –Wally

The symmetry of the temple, half devoted to Sobek, half to Horus, is a large part of Kom Ombo’s appeal

 

Temple of Kom Ombo
Nagoa Ash Shatb
Markaz Deraw
Aswan Governorate
Egypt