LUXOR TEMPLE

• Several festivals were celebrated in Thebes. The Temple of Luxor was the center of the most important one, the festival of Opet.
• This temple was built mainly by the two Kings Amenhotep III and Ramesses II, and its main purpose was to be an appropriate setting for the rituals of the festival.
• The festival itself was to merge the human aspect of the sovereign with the divine organization. This festival lasted for eleven days then, and was stretched to be twenty-seven days after wards.
• One of the episodes of the festival included the distribution of over 11,000 loaves of bread, 85 cakes and 385 jars of beer to the ancient Egyptians of the public who came to participate in this celebration.
• Another episode of that festival was a journey being made by barge, on the Nile River. Each god or goddess was carried in a separate barge that was towed by smaller boats. Large crowds consisting of soldiers, dancers, musicians and high ranking officials accompanied the barge by walking along the banks of the river.
• The temple is entered through an outer huge courtyard that houses a huge siiting statue of the King Ramses II, as well  as a great obelisk standing daring the time.
• Through the entrance is a great pylon, then an open court, then a colonnade, then to another open court which opens to a hypostyle hall leading to a birth room and an offering hall, thus all that ending with the Naos.
• The most amazing feature of that temple is the presence of an ancient Mousque (dating to the beginning of the 19th century) called Abou El-Hagag Mosque at the northeast corner of the first open court inside the temple.