Luxor Museum

Certainly a city like Luxor should have a museum. Can you imagine the city that has the largest and most various collection of ancient monuments in the world, how would the museum of the city look like?! Luxor is one of the destinations in the land of the Nile that welcomes hundreds of tourists who visit Egypt every month.

Luxor, or ancient Thebes was established during the ruling period of the 4th dynasty of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt in 2575 BC. The city then became the capital of Egypt during the reign of the 11th dynasty in the middle of the 22nd century BC and remained the capital of Egypt until the fall of the Pharaohs after the defeat of the 31st dynasty by the Persians in the 4th century BC.

This is the reason why the city of Luxor has the largest number of remarkable monuments that are visited by numerous tourists who spend their vacation in Egypt all around the year.

You will read in this article

The Geographical Location of the Luxor Museum

The Luxor Museum is located in the East Bank of the River Nile in Luxor. Overlooking the shores of the River Nile, the Luxor Museum has a distinctive location relatively in the middle of the way between the Karnak Temple and the Luxor Temple. The museum is situated only one kilometer to the North of the Temple of Luxor. Perhaps it would be nice to take a walk down the Nile and reach the museum after visiting the Temple of Luxor.

The History and the Establishment of the Luxor Museum

The Luxor Museum was established in 1975 during the ruling period of the former Egyptian president Anwar El Sadat. The museum building was designed by the Egyptian architect; Mohamed El Hakim.

The museum was actually founded to host many of the findings of the archeological missions who worked in the Temple of Luxor and the Karnak Temple.

In the 1990s, a vast underground floor was added to the Luxor Museum and many displays were put on exhibit the fact that contributed a lot to the value of this marvelous museum.

The Sections and the displays of the Luxor Museum

The small yet charming museum of Luxor has a wonderful collection of archeological finds that were unearthed in Luxor and the area around the city. Many travelers who spend their vacation in Egypt, especially those who are fond of the ancient Egyptian art and history would pay the museum a visit during their stay in Luxor.

The official name of the Museum is the Luxor Museum of ancient Egyptian art and it has a rectangular shape with two floors.

The upper floor hosts many remarkable displays including a huge head of the colossi of Tuthmosis III that was found in his mortuary temple situated near the Temple of Hatshepsut in the West Bank of Luxor.

The Luxor Museum also displays some of the tools the ancient Egyptians used in their construction works that include the tools they used to measure the different sections of their buildings. These were found in the necropolis of Deir El Madina in the West Bank of Luxor.

There are also some other notable sculptures of the king Tuthmosis III and the crocodile god; Sobek that were discovered in 1967 in the West Bank of the Nile in the city of Luxor.

In the upper floor of the museum, there are also some other very interesting displays including the granite head of the king Senusert II that was found in 1970 in the Karnak Temple . This is besides the statue of Amenhotep, the son of Hapu, an important governmental official in the ruling period of King Tuthmosis III. This statue was found in the Karnak Temple in 1913.

The most magnificent display of the upper floor of the Museum of Luxor is that wall of Akhenaton that is 17 meters long, about 3 meters high, and it consists of 283 blocks of sandstones.

The wall is interestingly decorated with colorful bas- relief and it was part of the constructions added by Akhenaton to the Karnak Temple. This wall is the only surviving example of the Temple of the sun god Aten that was constructed by Akhenaton and then destroyed by the kings and the pharaohs who supported the worship of the god Amun.

Moreover, this floor also hosts the 63 rosettes that were once part of a much larger collection that was put in the sarcophagus of the king Tut Ankh Amun. These findings were discovered in the Valley of the Kings, in the tomb of the king Tut that was unearthed in 1922.

This is besides the covers of some canopic jars with the features of the Queen Tuya, the mother of Ramses II that was found in the Valley of the Queen sin 1972.

Among the most notable displays of the Museum of Luxor is the limestone column of Osiris portraying the king Senusert I that was also unearthed at the Karnak Temple.

There is also this interesting statue of the king Amenhotep II riding his military wagon and shooting his goal with four arrows. Moreover, there is this statue of Hour Moheb kneeling in front the god Amun and offering him two cups of wine. There is also this interesting sculpture of crocodile god, Sobek that was made out of alabaster and discovered in 1967.

A set of stairs take the guests of the museum from the lower floor to the underground floor dedicated to the statues discovered in cache of the Luxor Temple in the year 1989.

To the back of this hall there is the most fascinating finding of the archeological mission of 1989. That is the huge statue of the king Tuthmosis III that is around 2.5 meters high.

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