Ten photographs of Esna, Armant, Deir el-Medina and the Asasif, with one view of the Valley of the Kings, dated between 1851 and 1862.
Beyond Luxor’s great temples, 19th-century photographers also recorded smaller and more distant sites, some reached by boat along the Nile. They show the temple at Esna, the ruins of Armant, the small temple of Deir el-Medina, the Asasif tombs and, in one view, the Valley of the Kings. The great west-bank temples have their own galleries: Medinet Habu in old photos and the Ramesseum and Colossi of Memnon in old photos. To plan a visit, see our Deir el-Medina guide and Temple of Khnum guide.
Two views from Esna, south of Luxor: the temple portico and the river bank.
The upper section of the great portico of the Temple of Khnum at Esna, south of Luxor, photographed by Bedford in 1862. See the tops of the columns, which are all this view shows. The temple is dedicated chiefly to Khnum and lies in a hollow below the modern town.
Date palms, a sycamore and a café on the bank of the Nile at Esna, photographed by Teynard in 1851–52 and printed in 1853–54. The French title names a café (“café”); the British Library’s English title is “Date palms, sycamore and café on the bank of the Nile, Esna”. Observe the greenery along the water.
Three views of the ruins at Armant, south of Luxor.
A general view of the temple ruins and mammisi at Armant, south of Luxor, photographed by Teynard in 1851–52. A mammisi is a “birth house”, a small temple that celebrates the birth of a child god. Note the ruins spread across the site. Armant was the cult centre of the war god Montu. The Ptolemaic birth house (mammisi) of Cleopatra VII was dismantled in the early 1860s to supply stone for a sugar factory, and the main temple was largely destroyed in the nineteenth century, so these early views record buildings that no longer stand.
A ruined fragment of wall at Armant, its outer face covered in carved hieroglyphs, with fallen masonry in the foreground, in Frith’s 1857 series. Royal Collection Trust says the wall belongs to the temple of Montu. See the single piece of structure, and at how little of the temple it represents.
A column at Armant, south of Luxor, around 1857, from Frith’s series. See how the column stands alone among the ruins of the successive temple buildings.
Five views away from the great mortuary temples: the small temple of Deir el-Medina, the Asasif tombs, the Valley of the Kings and an ancient mud-brick arch.
Frith’s frontal view of the temple of Hathor at Deir el-Medina, around 1857, with the remains of a birth house on the left and the brick enclosure wall behind. Royal Collection Trust notes that the temple, begun under Amenhotep III, was almost completely rebuilt under Ptolemy IV. Deir el-Medina was also the village of the artisans who built and decorated the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
The temple at Deir el-Medina with the rocky hillside behind it, around 1857. Compare it with the previous picture to see how the cliff frames the building.
The entrance to the tombs at Asasif, around 1857, from Frith’s series. Observe the entrance and the ground around it. The Asasif necropolis holds large elite tombs and later funerary monuments cut into the west-bank hills.
The Valley of the Kings, the New Kingdom royal burial ground cut into the limestone hills of the west bank, in Frith’s 1857 series. The view looks down a rugged, barren valley with a path along the bottom, where two local men and a donkey walk. Our Valley of the Kings guide covers tickets and opening times.
An ancient crude-brick arch at Asasif on the Theban west bank, around 1857, from Frith’s series. Notice how the arch is built of brick rather than stone; tomb and temple complexes here combined unbaked brick with stone.
Who and when. Seven of these pictures are from Francis Frith’s 1857 Nile series. Three are catalogued by Royal Collection Trust, which holds the prints; four are matched by title and series. Félix Teynard’s two plates were made in 1851–52 and published as Égypte et Nubie in about 1858. One Esna view is by Francis Bedford in 1862.
Reading the photographs. Old titles use “Esneh”, “Erment”, “Dier-el-Medineh” and “Assaseef”; the headings here use Esna, Armant, Deir el-Medina and Asasif. Notice what is left standing in each place, and what has been lost since.
Medium, size and old title for each picture appear under the photograph itself. Links go to the holding institution’s record where one is available.