located in Upper Egypt Luxor. It has been described as the world’s biggest open-air museum. Nowadays it has
been elevated to the status of Governorate, though it is still classified as being in the province of Qena. It has a
population of round about 230,000, most of who are employed in tourism somehow, though there are many who
are employed in agriculture and commerce. It is one of the most popular destinations in Egypt, being one of
those places that you must see. Because of this almost every tourist company has an office somewhere in the
town.
It has been estimated that Luxor contains about a third of the most valuable monuments and antiquities in the
whole world, which makes it one of this planet’s most important tourism sites. Monuments such as The Luxor
Temple, Karnak Temple, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, Deir El-Bahri (the Mortuary
Temple of Hatshepsut), the workers village at Deir El-Medina, the list goes on and on and on. Though most
visitors will stay for just a few days, it would take a substantial amount of time to visit everything in this
amazing town.
Once known as Thebes, Luxor’s importance in ancient Egyptian history cannot be denied. It was the religious
capital for almost all of the Pharaonic period which is why the town is dominated by the two temples; The
Temple of Luxor, and the immense Temple of Karnak; the world’s largest temple complex.
Most people know that Luxor was once Thebes, but “Thebes” was not what the ancient Egyptians called it.
Ancient texts show that it was called t-apt, which means “the shrine”, with the ancient Greeks calling it tea pie.
The Arabs had problems with pronunciation and so it became Thebes to them. The name vanished then as the
area submitted to the desert and then by the 10th century Arab travellers thought the ruins were of grand
buildings so started to call it Al-Oksour, or “site of the palaces” which slowly became Luxor.
