Stand at the gates of Karnak Temple as the morning sun catches the sandstone, and a road lined with sphinxes stretches out ahead of you — silent watchers that have stood here for close to 2,400 years. This is the Avenue of Sphinxes, also known as El-Kebbash Road: a 2.7-kilometer ceremonial route linking Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple. Buried under sand and city streets for centuries, it reopened to the public in 2021, and today you can walk the same route pharaohs, priests, and citizens once processed along during ancient Thebes’s most important religious festival.
What Is the Avenue of Sphinxes?
The Avenue of Sphinxes is a processional road connecting two of Thebes‘s most important temples: Karnak, the vast complex dedicated to Amun-Ra, and Luxor Temple, the center of kingship and renewal rituals.
The route runs roughly 2.7 kilometers long and 76 meters wide. Egyptologists estimate it once held around 1,350 statues; of those, about 1,057 have been located and restored — roughly 807 human-headed sphinxes and 250 ram-headed figures — making it one of the largest concentrations of monumental statuary anywhere in Egypt.
Two statue types line the route:
- Human-headed sphinxes — lion bodies with royal human faces, representing kingship and divine protection. These make up most of the avenue, especially the stretch closer to Luxor Temple.
- Ram-headed figures — some full rams, others lion-bodied with a ram’s head cradling a small royal statue between the paws. These cluster nearer the Karnak end and are linked to Amun-Ra as a symbol of strength and fertility.
For ancient Egyptians, walking this road wasn’t incidental to visiting the temples — it was itself a spiritual act, a passage between the earthly and divine realms used for royal ceremony and, above all, one great annual festival.
A Road Built Across Centuries
The avenue took its final form gradually, with several rulers adding to it over roughly a thousand years:
- Hatshepsut (15th century BCE) is credited with establishing an early processional way along this same route, though little of her original work survives.
- Amenhotep III and, later, Tutankhamun‘s reign (14th century BCE) are associated with the ram-headed and ram-figure statues near the Karnak end, some originally built elsewhere and later moved into place.
- Ramses II added his own touches near Karnak, including small statues of himself tucked between the paws of several ram-headed figures.
- Nectanebo I (30th Dynasty, 4th century BCE) built the paved sandstone road largely as it survives today and commissioned most of the human-headed sphinxes that line the majority of the route toward Luxor Temple — most inscribed with his name.
That layered history is part of what makes the avenue remarkable: it’s a single road that eight centuries of pharaohs kept adding to, each reinforcing Thebes’s status as Egypt’s religious capital.
The Opet Festival: Why the Avenue Mattered
The avenue’s central purpose was the Opet Festival, one of ancient Egypt’s largest annual celebrations, held during the Nile’s flood season to mark fertility, renewal, and the pharaoh’s divine right to rule.
Buried, Rediscovered, Restored
For centuries the avenue lay hidden beneath sand, rubble, and the modern city, with houses and streets built directly over it.
Egyptian archaeologist Mohammed Zakaria Ghoneim uncovered the first traces near Luxor Temple in 1949, followed by further finds through the early 1960s. Between 1984 and 2000, archaeologists mapped the full course of the route, and excavation of the buried sections — including the relocation of some modern buildings — continued for years afterward. On November 25, 2021, Egypt reopened the avenue in a large public ceremony with music, lighting, and a reenactment of the Opet procession, presenting it as a centerpiece of the country’s cultural heritage push.
Today, walking the avenue means retracing a route that was hidden from view for nearly two thousand years.
Visiting the Avenue of Sphinxes Today
Access points: The two ends are visible from within Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple respectively, and much of the route in between runs alongside the modern city and can be walked along the public promenade without a temple ticket — see our guide to free things to do in Luxor.
Best times to visit:
- Early morning — cooler temperatures, fewer people
- Late afternoon — the best light for photography
- Evening — sections are illuminated after dark, especially near Luxor Temple; see our guide to Luxor at night
Duration: Walking the full 2.7 km takes about an hour; shorter stretches from either end are worthwhile on their own if you’re short on time.
Comfort and practicalities: The route is long, flat, and largely without shade — bring water, sunscreen, and comfortable shoes regardless of when you visit. It’s one of the more accessible sites in Luxor thanks to its paved, level surface, though the length and heat are worth factoring in if you’re sensitive to either — see our notes on Luxor wheelchair accessibility for more detail.