Old Photos of Luxor
Eight galleries and 121 early photographs of Karnak, Luxor Temple, the west bank and the Nile, made almost entirely between 1851 and 1898.
What this is. A picture archive of Thebes as the first photographers found it: temples half-buried in sand, a village built inside Luxor Temple, columns that have since fallen or been rebuilt, and monuments that no longer stand.
How it is organised. By place, not by photographer. Each gallery covers one monument or one stretch of the river. Every photograph has a short caption with its old title and photographer, and the holding collection wherever a catalogue record exists.
Where to start. For a wide view of the site, open Karnak in old photos. To compare a place then and now, pick its gallery and then the matching guide under “Plan a visit”.
The eight galleries
Choose a place. Each gallery shows every photograph at full size, with its old title, photographer and source.
Karnak in Old Photos
The starting point for Karnak: the sphinx avenue, gateways, Great Court and general views of the ruins.
Karnak’s Hypostyle Hall
The Great Hypostyle Hall before the 1899 collapse, in plates by Teynard, Frith and Bedford.
Karnak’s Pylons, Obelisks and Sanctuary
The numbered pylons, the obelisks of Thutmose I and Hatshepsut, the granite sanctuary and the Sacred Lake.
Luxor Temple
The pylon, obelisk, colonnades and courts, when a village filled the temple.
Luxor Town and the Nile
The river front, the flood, the boats and the people of Luxor.
Medinet Habu
The mortuary temple of Ramesses III: entrance, courts and ruined halls.
The Ramesseum and Colossi of Memnon
Two west-bank sites, and a guide to why old captions say “Memnonium”.
Esna, Armant and Deir el-Medina
Sites south of Luxor and on the west bank, some of them since lost.
Timeline, 1851 to 1899
When the pictures were made, and what happened to the sites afterwards.
- 1851–52
Félix Teynard photographs Karnak, Luxor, Medinet Habu and sites as far south as Esna on paper negatives. The Met’s prints were made in 1853–54, and the plates were published as Égypte et Nubie in about 1858.
- 1857
Francis Frith’s Nile series. Many of the albumen prints in these galleries are held by Royal Collection Trust, acquired by King Edward VII when Prince of Wales.
- 1860s
Views by Antonio Beato, dated 1860–1869 in the New York Public Library records; some exact dates are marked unverified.
- March 1862
Francis Bedford photographs the Prince of Wales’s tour of Egypt. Royal Collection Trust dates his Karnak view to 16 March and his Luxor and Medinet Habu views to 18 March.
- 1879–82
An album of the voyage of HMS Bacchante adds views of Luxor, including its dovecotes.
- 1898
An album records soldiers breakfasting at Luxor station.
- 3 October 1899
Eleven columns of the northern wing of the Karnak Hypostyle Hall fall. Every photograph of the hall in this archive was made before that collapse.
The photographers
Four photographers made 114 of the 121 pictures.
Félix Teynard
Photographed Egypt and Nubia on paper negatives and printed on salted paper. Titles with a letter, such as “Point C”, refer to the survey plan in his published atlas.
Francis Frith
Photographed the Nile in 1856–57 on glass negatives and printed on albumen paper. Royal Collection Trust catalogues 30 of the prints used here; the other 20 are matched by title and series.
Francis Bedford
Photographed the Prince of Wales’s tour. Royal Collection Trust catalogues 8 of the 17 prints used here; the others are matched by title and series.
Antonio Beato
Views by Beato in New York Public Library and other records. Dates are given as ranges, and some are marked unverified.
The other seven are by different or unknown hands. Six have no named photographer, including views from the Bacchante album and the 1898 station album. The seventh, a view of the ram avenue at Karnak, is credited to Underwood & Underwood and is undated; the catalogue suggests a stereograph of about 1910, which is not confirmed.
How to read the captions
Early photographs came with their own spellings, plan letters and uncertain provenance.
- Old titles
- Every caption keeps the old title in quotation marks. Early spellings differ from today’s: “Carnac” is Karnak, “Gournah” or “Goorneh” is Qurna, “Erment” is Armant, “Esneh” is Esna, “Dier-el-Medineh” is Deir el-Medina and “Assaseef” is the Asasif. Early titles also call Karnak a “palace”.
- “Memnonium”
- In these titles the “Memnonium” is usually the Ramesseum, not the Colossi of Memnon. The Ramesseum and Colossi gallery explains how to tell them apart.
- “Point C”, “Point Q”
- Teynard’s lettered titles mark places on the survey plan in his atlas. The headings here describe what each picture shows instead.
- Pylon numbers
- Teynard’s “First Pylon” at Karnak is today’s Tenth Pylon, according to the British Library. See the pylons gallery.
- Credits
- A credit to a holding institution, such as Royal Collection Trust, the Met or the British Library, means that institution has a record for the print. Where a photographer is named but no institution record is linked, the credit rests on matching the title and series.
- Dates
- “c.” means circa. “Per source caption; unverified” means the date comes from an old caption that catalogues do not confirm.
Index of all photographs
Every photograph by its heading. Open a gallery and select a title to go straight to that picture.
Karnak’s Hypostyle Hall 16 photographs
- Karnak: Exterior of the Great Hall, 1857
- Karnak: the Hall of Columns from the south-east, c. 1857
- Karnak: the Great Hall from the Sacred Lake, c. 1857
- Karnak: Hypostyle Hall, side galleries, first view, 1851–52
- Karnak: Hypostyle Hall, general view, 1851–52
- Karnak: Hypostyle Hall, central colonnade, 1851–52
- Karnak: Hypostyle Hall, central colonnade capitals, 1851–52
- Karnak: columns of the Great Hall, c. 1857
- Karnak: columns of the Great Hall, other side, c. 1857
- Karnak: interior of the Hall of Columns, c. 1857
- Karnak: inside the Hypostyle Hall, 1862
- Karnak: the Hall of Columns, side view, c. 1857
- Karnak: Hypostyle Hall, side galleries, second view, 1851–52
- Karnak: Hypostyle Hall, decoration of the inner wall, 1851–52
- Karnak: three of the smaller columns, c. 1857
- Karnak: rear of the temple, colonnade fragments, 1851–52
Karnak’s Pylons, Obelisks and Sanctuary 14 photographs
- Karnak: ruined gate and colossi at the Tenth Pylon, 1851–52
- Karnak: limestone colossus at the Eighth Pylon, 1851–52
- Karnak: the ruined Ninth Pylon, c. 1857
- Karnak: the two obelisks, c. 1857
- Karnak: the fallen obelisk, c. 1857
- Karnak: the granite sanctuary and an obelisk, c. 1857
- Karnak: fragments of the sanctuary and an obelisk, c. 1857
- Karnak: view towards the sanctuary, 1862
- Karnak: granite construction, carved and painted decoration, 1851–52
- Karnak: granite construction, carved pillar, 1851–52
- Karnak: the oldest portion of the ruins, 1857
- Karnak: sculptures of the inner wall of a ruined building, 1851–52
- Karnak: pylons from the Sacred Lake, c. 1857
- Karnak: the Sacred Lake with palms and camels
Karnak in Old Photos 22 photographs
- Karnak: Avenue of Ram-Headed Sphinxes
- Karnak: Avenue of Rams
- Karnak: Avenue of Sphinxes, c. 1857
- Karnak: Avenue of Sphinxes, 1851–52
- Karnak: sphinxes with human and ram heads, 1851–52
- Karnak: Ptolemaic Gate, 1860s
- Karnak: Great Northern Gate, 1851–52
- Karnak: Great Southern Gate, 1851–52
- Karnak: the first gateway, c. 1857
- Karnak: sculptured gateway and figures, first view, c. 1857
- Karnak: sculptured gateway and figures, second view, 1857
- Karnak: general view from the south, 1862
- Karnak: the Temple of Amun, 1862
- Karnak: general view, 1857
- Karnak: general view of the ruins, 1851–52
- Karnak: general view from the north-east, 1851–52
- Karnak: in front of the temple, 1851–52
- Karnak: in front of the temple, second view, 1851–52
- Karnak: courtyard of the temple, 1851–52
- Karnak: the Court of Shishak, c. 1857
- Karnak: a group of date palms, 1851–52
- Karnak: the village, 1860s
Luxor Temple 13 photographs
- Luxor: grand gateway of the temple, 1862
- Luxor: the pylon and obelisk, c. 1857
- Luxor: colossal pylon and obelisk, 1851–52
- Luxor: obelisk and pylon of Ramesses, c. 1860
- Luxor: propylon and obelisk, 1862
- Luxor: large colonnade, 1851–52
- Luxor: galleries of the later construction, 1851–52
- Luxor: columns of the portico, c. 1857
- Luxor: court of the temple, the government corn stores, 1857
- Luxor: general view of the ruins, 1851–52
- Luxor: view of the temple, 1860s
- Luxor: the temple
- Luxor: giant busts of Ramesses II, 1879–82
Luxor Town and the Nile 13 photographs
- Luxor: the landing place, 1857
- Luxor: during the Nile flood, 1860s
- Luxor: panoramic view
- Luxor: from the riverbank, 1860s
- Luxor: view from the north, 1860s
- Luxor: passenger boat
- Luxor: dovecotes
- Luxor: date palms and the garden of the Luxor Expedition, 1851–52
- The Nile: merchant boats
- Luxor: musicians
- Luxor: water carriers
- Luxor: Cameron Highlanders at the station, 1898
- Portrait of an unidentified man, 1862
Medinet Habu 19 photographs
- Medinet Habu: general view, 1862
- Medinet Habu: view with the Memnonium, 1857
- Medinet Habu: general view of the front structures, 1851–52
- Medinet Habu: main entrance, 1851–52
- Medinet Habu: entrance to the temple, c. 1857
- Medinet Habu: pylon gateway, c. 1857
- Medinet Habu: part of the royal pavilion, 1862
- Medinet Habu: palace window, c. 1857
- Medinet Habu: view in the first court, c. 1857
- Medinet Habu: colonnade of Osiride pillars
- Medinet Habu: the great court, 1862
- Medinet Habu: view in the second court, first view, c. 1857
- Medinet Habu: view in the second court, second view, c. 1857
- Medinet Habu: second courtyard, later additions, 1851–52
- Medinet Habu: second courtyard, north-west gallery, 1851–52
- Medinet Habu: fragment of sculptures on the north-east face, 1851–52
- Medinet Habu: remains of the hall of columns, c. 1857
- Medinet Habu: remains of the hall of columns, another view, 1857
- Medinet Habu: the propylon and portico, 1862
The Ramesseum and Colossi of Memnon 14 photographs
- Colossi of Memnon: upright view, 1857
- Colossi of Memnon: the pair of statues, 1857
- Colossi of Memnon: the Vocal Memnon
- Colossi of Memnon: the right-hand colossus, 1851–52
- The Ramesseum: the fallen colossus, c. 1857
- The Ramesseum: north portico and the fallen colossus, 1862
- The Ramesseum: general view from the south-east, 1862
- The Ramesseum: the second court, 1857
- The Ramesseum: Osiride pillars of the second court, 1851–52
- The Ramesseum: Osiride portico, first view, 1857
- The Ramesseum: Osiride portico, second view, c. 1857
- The Ramesseum: south portico, 1862
- Qurna: the portico, reverse view, c. 1857
- The Ramesseum: hall of columns, c. 1857
Esna, Armant and Deir el-Medina 10 photographs
- Esna: upper part of the great portico, 1862
- Esna: date palms, sycamore and café on the Nile bank, 1851–52
- Armant: general view of the ruins, temple and mammisi, 1851–52
- Armant: fragment of the temple, 1857
- Armant: a column, c. 1857
- Deir el-Medina: the temple, c. 1857
- Deir el-Medina: the temple and the rocks, c. 1857
- Asasif: entrance to the tombs, c. 1857
- Valley of the Kings: the valley of tombs, 1857
- Asasif: ancient mud-brick arch, c. 1857
Plan a visit
The galleries show the sites as they were. For tickets, routes and what to see today, use the site guides.
Sources
Photographs and catalogue details come from Royal Collection Trust, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Library, the New York Public Library and Cambridge University Library, among others. The credits at the foot of each gallery name and link the holding institution wherever a catalogue record exists; prints matched to a photographer by title and series carry no catalogue link. Thumbnails on this page are Teynard prints that also appear in the galleries.