18/8/2007
Edfu
Edfu’s temple is one of the Ptolemy Dynasty’s most impressive feats of construction and due to its youth – built in the 2nd Century BC – it’s also one of Egypt’s best preserved temples. Here, the looming sandstone walls are covered in giant hieroglyphics and dazzling friezes that ape the patriotic decorations of earlier pharaohs. Within its vast chambers, strolling under colossal gateways and wandering ant-like through its hallways that seem to be have been created for giants, you really get a feel for the all-encompassing power of Egypt’s rulers
Luxor
The enormous Luxor Temple was one of the great constructions of the New Kingdom (dating from the 14th century BC) dedicated to the god Amun. It was known as the “Southern Sanctuary” and was the site of ceremonies aimed at encouraging the life-giving Nile floods. Once through the processional Avenue of Sphinxes you come to the First Pylon, which announces the phenomenal scale of the stonework here: statues, columns and obelisks all compete with each other in a race to the sky.
