LUXOR AND ITS NECROPOLIS: a journey in the Egyptians life after death

Luxor rises on the ruins of the ancient Thebes, which was the capital of Egypt. From Thebes began the reunion of the Egyptian Kingdom by King Ahmosi, and it always had a special rule as the sacred town of Amon-King. Its cyclopean monumental works were famous allover the world: the temples of the Karnak area, the Temple of Luxor, the Colossus of Memnone, the Tombs of the Kings and of the Queens and their funerary temples. The actual monuments are only the shadow of the ones they were when Thebes was on its magnificence age. On 672 BC the Egypt was invaded by the Assyrians and Thebes was conquered and destroyed. Around 30 B, at the beginning of the Roman age, Thebes was as a mass of ruins which, at that time already, the Greek and Roman travellers went to visit.
Nowadays tourists have different comforts and possibilities than once! Luxor is a modern town and its grand hotels receive every year thousands of guests. Anyway, in center alleys and at the market is still possible to savour the genuine local day-life.
Ancient Thebes was divided in two separated parts: on the East side of the Nile river, there was the “Town of the living”, where people worked and Gods were honored: here are the Temple of Luxor and the Karnak area. The “Town of the death” was on the West side of the Nile river, where there is the sunset : here were built the tombs of the Kings and their funerary temples.
The Tombs of the Kings and the ones of the Queens are located in different and distant places, called “King Valley” and “Queen Valley”. The long passages of the tombs are decorated by figures painted or engraved on the walls and columns. They are hieroglyphs and drawing showing day-life scenes, as the fields work, the hunting, the fishing, the dances, the music and the feasts, but also mysterious and disquieting drawings related with the life after the death.

To know more:
http://www.touregypt.net/luxor/

Reportage: 80 photos on CD-Rom