Luxor Museum
All You Need to Know
For those who like museums but find large collections such as that of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo both bewildering and tiring then Luxor Museum of Ancient Egyptian Art is the place to see. The museum was opened in 1975 and contains a modest collection of the highest quality artworks dating from the Predynastic Period right through to the Islamic era. The modern building is extremely spacious with plenty of room to move around and view beautifully displayed objects and sculpture in peaceful low-lit surroundings. The perfect place to spend a hot morning in Luxor.
The museum is built on two levels with a ramp leading from the ground floor to the upper floor and contains artefacts from around the Theban area. Many of the free-standing granite statues depict kings, queens, and high-status officials who left their images in the Theban temples. Tutankhamun of course is well-represented by some of the objects from his tomb in the Valley of the Kings which are not currently on display in the Cairo Museum. Included among these is the famous majestic head of a cow goddess, of resin and gilded wood, which is one of the first items the visitor will see when entering the museum. There are exhibits of funerary stelae, offering tables, papyri, tomb furniture, a cartonage mummy-case and many small statuettes and shabtis. In glass cases in the centre of the upper floor are smaller objects such as jewellery, funerary and ritual items and artefacts from daily life.
The museum was conceived by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, which hired Dr. Mahmud El Hakim, a top Egyptian architect, to create the plans in 1962. The installation of the museum art works came later and was finished between 1972 and 1975.
Inside Luxor Museum
One of the main features on the upper floor is a reconstructed wall from a temple of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten). The small decorated sandstone blocks were discovered when the ninth pylon at Karnak Temple was dismantled for reconstruction work, where they had been used as infill in the original building of the pylon. Individual talatat blocks on which the famous reliefs were carved can be seen in many museums, but here the ‘Talatat Wall’ represents the only successful attempt at reconstructing a whole wall of the blocks. Over 40,000 decorated blocks from Amenhotep IV’s early Karnak building works have been found, but only those from the ninth pylon are well-preserved enough to allow their accurate reconstruction. Next to the talatat, mounted on the wall, is a sandstone head from a colossal Osirid statue of Amenhotep IV from Karnak.
Luxor Tours & Activities
Looking to save some costs on your travel? Why not join a shared group tour to explore Luxor, Egypt? Here are some activities you might be interested in:
An extension built a few years ago houses a collection of statues found in the ‘Luxor Cachette’. These beautiful sculptures were unearthed when a colonnade at Luxor Temple was dismantled for reconstruction in 1989. They had been buried (for reasons unknown) in the floor of the courtyard where they lay forgotten for over 2000 years. Many of these statues today look as though they have just come out of a sculptor’s workshop. Another long-awaited new annex to Luxor Museum has now been completed and this spacious addition houses many artefacts new to the museum, as well as some of the artworks from the original galleries. The main section of the extension has a military theme and is partly devoted to Egypt’s glorious empire. The long hall has two glass-covered niches which are the new resting places for the mummies of two great warrior kings – Ahmose, founder of the New Kingdom and the recently repatriated Ramesses I. The main gallery also includes weaponry and a hunting chariot of Tutankhamun. The upper level contains some superb statues, several old favourites relocated from other areas of the museum, as well as many fascinating objects related to technology and the arts. The new facilities include a visitor center, bookshop and cafeteria. Set in a beautifully lit and temperature-controlled environment, Luxor Museum is a dramatic showpiece for ancient Egyptian cultural heritage for which the people of Egypt should be very proud.
Moving back the ramp to the first floor of the old building, you come face to face with a seated granite figure of the legendary scribe Amenhotep (No 4), son of Hapu, the great official eventually deified in Ptolemaic times who, as overseer of all the pharaoh’s works under Amenhotep III (1390–1352 BC), was responsible for many of Thebes’ greatest buildings. The Wall of Akhenaten, a series of small sandstone blocks named talatat (threes) by workmen – probably because their height and length were about three hand lengths – that came from Amenhotep IV’s contribution at Karnak before he changed his name to Akhenaten and left Thebes for Tell Al Amarna, is one of the most interesting exhibits. In the late 1960s, 40,000 stones meant to fill in Karnak’s ninth pylon were discovered and largely reconstructed here, after his edifice was dismantled. The images depicting Akhenaten, his wife Nefertiti, and temple life are a unique example of Aten temple decoration. Tutankhamun’s burial treasures, such as shabti (servant) figurines, model boats, sandals, arrows, and a sequence of gilded bronze rosettes from his funeral pall, are also on display.
A ramp leads back to the ground level, where you’ll find a black-and-gold wooden head of the cow goddess Mehit-Weret, an aspect of the goddess Hathor, which was also discovered in Tutankhamun’s tomb. A little chamber on the left, immediately before the exit, has 16 of the 22 sculptures discovered in Luxor Temple in 1989. All are superb specimens of ancient Egyptian sculpture, but a 2.45m-tall quartzite statue of a strong Amenhotep III wearing a pleated kilt takes center stage at the end of the hall.
F.A.Q
9:00 AM-4:00 PM, 5:00-10:00 PM Every Day
50 EGP for students and 100 EGP for adult
The Luxor Museum’s outstanding collection of Egyptian antiquities will appeal to art and history enthusiasts alike. Several recent visitors praised the museum’s easy-to-navigate layout and educational displays (in English and Arabic).
On the East Bank of the Nile River(Kornish Al Nile), the Luxor Museum is roughly midway between the Karnak Temple Complex and the Temple of Luxor.
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