Luxor - Columns of Portico

View of the colonnade of Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC) at the temple of Amun-Kamutef at Luxor with three local men standing in the fore and middle grounds. The minaret of the Mosque of Abu al-Haggag is visible in the background. The temple was a religious site founded during the reign of Amenhotep III and enlarged by successive pharaohs, notably Rameses II (1279-1213 BC). The main function of the complex was to offer the setting for the Festival of Opet, centred on the annual ceremonial procession of the cult statue of the god Amun from his temple at Karnak to this at Luxor, linked by an avenue of sphinxes. The mosque was built on the remains of the Egyptian temple in the thirteenth century, on the site previously occupied by a church, and rebuilt several times, including in the nineteenth century. At the time, a whole village had been built on layers of sand and silt accumulated over the centuries which started to get removed in the 1880s by Gaston Maspero (1846-1916). The mosque, though, was left intact and still stands today.