Ovedc · File:By ovedc - Karnak temple complex - 45.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:By_ovedc_-_Karnak_temple_complex_-_45.jpg
Attraction · Luxor
Karnak
Not a temple but a walled precinct that pharaohs kept adding to for two thousand years, until it stopped being a building and became a record of who wanted to be remembered.
Time needed2 – 3 hours
Best timeLate afternoon
WhereEast bank, 3 km north of town
Builtc. 2000 BC onward
GuideStrongly recommended
ShadeVery little — carry water
About
Karnak
Karnak is the largest religious complex ever built and it is not one thing. Successive pharaohs across roughly two thousand years each added a court, a pylon, a hall or an obelisk, usually in front of what the last one had done, so that walking in from the west is walking backwards through the New Kingdom. The Precinct of Amun-Re is the part visitors see and it alone covers an area that would hold several cathedrals. Its centrepiece, the great hypostyle hall, contains a hundred and thirty-four columns, the tallest of them about twenty-one metres, standing close enough together that the space reads as a stone forest rather than a room — and every surface of it was once painted. Nothing else in Egypt gives the same physical sense of accumulated time.
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What to See
What to see at Karnak
The complex is large enough that a route matters. This is the one most guides use, west to east.
The approach
- The avenue of ram-headed sphinxes leading to the first pylon, which is the unfinished one — its mudbrick construction ramp is still in place behind it.
- The great court beyond, with the standing column of the Kiosk of Taharqa and the small temple of Ramesses III off to one side.
- The colossus of Ramesses II with his daughter at his feet, at the entrance to the hypostyle hall.
The hypostyle hall
- A hundred and thirty-four columns in sixteen rows, the twelve central ones about twenty-one metres high with open papyrus capitals; the rest are shorter with closed buds.
- The clerestory windows above the central aisle, which lit the hall exactly as they do a Gothic nave, two and a half thousand years earlier.
- The reliefs on the north and south walls — battle scenes on the outside, ritual on the inside — with original colour surviving high up where the sun has not reached.
Beyond the hall
- The obelisk of Hatshepsut, nearly thirty metres of single-piece granite and the tallest still standing in Egypt, quarried at Aswan and floated down the river.
- The sacred lake, and the fallen top section of a second Hatshepsut obelisk beside it, which is the only chance most people get to look at an obelisk’s tip at eye level.
- The Festival Hall of Thutmose III at the far east end, with its tent-pole columns, and the botanical reliefs behind it recording plants brought back from Syria.
Getting There
Getting there
Three kilometres north of Luxor Temple on the same bank, which makes it the easiest major site in Egypt to reach.
From Luxor town
- Ten to fifteen minutes by car from anywhere on the east-bank corniche, and the standard arrangement is a driver who waits.
- The re-excavated avenue of sphinxes runs the whole way between Luxor Temple and Karnak and can be walked, which is a pleasure in the cool of the evening and a mistake at midday.
- Caleches will take you for an agreed fare. Look at the horse first.
Tickets and timing
- A single ticket covers the Precinct of Amun-Re, which is what everyone means by Karnak; the neighbouring precincts of Mut and Montu are largely closed.
- The open-air museum inside the enclosure is separately ticketed and holds reconstructed chapels, including Hatshepsut’s red chapel, that most visitors walk past without noticing.
- A sound-and-light programme runs in the evening where it is operating. It lights the hypostyle hall in a way daylight never does and it is a different experience from the day visit rather than a substitute for it.
On the day
- Late afternoon is the best light and the coolest usable hour; the complex faces west, so the sun comes down the main axis at the end of the day.
- There is almost no shade once you are past the first court. Water, a hat and sunglasses are not optional between April and October.
- Allow two to three hours. An hour covers the hypostyle hall and nothing else, which is the mistake most cruise schedules make.
Best Time
When to visit
The light and the heat pull in opposite directions here, and the afternoon wins on both.
Time of day
- Late afternoon for the light down the main axis and for the lowest temperatures of the usable day.
- Early morning is cooler still and quieter, but the sun is behind the pylons and the hall photographs flat.
- The middle of the day is the worst of both — hardest light, highest heat, most people. Between May and September it is genuinely to be avoided.
Time of year
- October to April is comfortable throughout, with December and January cool enough to want a layer at dusk.
- May to September is above forty degrees and the visit compresses into the last two hours before closing.
- March and April can bring the khamsin, when blown sand takes the distance out of every photograph for a day or two.
How long
- Two hours is a proper first visit. Three lets you reach the Festival Hall at the east end, which many people never see.
- A cruise stop typically allows an hour and a half, which covers the approach and the hypostyle hall.
- Anyone genuinely interested should plan a second, shorter visit for the open-air museum and the sacred lake alone.
Visitor Intelligence
Visitor intelligence
The four things that most change how much you get out of a Karnak afternoon.
A guide
- This is the site in Egypt where the difference is largest. Unguided, Karnak is an enormous amount of stone with no sequence to it.
- Egyptian tour guides hold a formal licence and Egyptology qualification — it is not a self-description — and asking for a licensed guide is a normal request.
- The useful thing to ask for is chronology: who built what, in what order, and over whose work.
Photography
- The hypostyle hall is dim and contrasty; a fast lens does more than a tripod, which is generally not permitted inside.
- Colour survives on the column tops and the underside of the architraves where the sun has never reached. Look up.
- Rules on photography vary by area and change. Ask at the ticket office rather than at the door.
Comfort and access
- The ground is uneven stone and sand throughout and there are steps and thresholds in most of the enclosure. It is not a smooth-surface site.
- Water is sold inside but at a mark-up; carry your own from town.
- Toilets are near the entrance and effectively nowhere else, which matters given the size of the enclosure.
Families
- Older children take to the scale of it; the hypostyle hall does the work without any explanation.
- Under-eights struggle with the heat and the length. Late afternoon and a shorter route through the hall and back is the version that works.
- The sacred lake and the scarab beside it are the standard place to let everyone stop, and the walk around it is flat.
Nearby
Nearby
Everything below is on the same bank and within twenty minutes.
Luxor Temple
Three kilometres south in the town centre, joined by the avenue of sphinxes. Best after dark.
The Valley of the Kings
Across the river and a first-light start — the other half of a Luxor stay.
Luxor
The town itself — corniche, souq and museum, all on this bank.
The Luxor Museum
Small, superbly lit and open into the evening. It has no page of its own.
Good to Know
Frequently asked
Two hours for a proper first visit and three if you want to reach the Festival Hall of Thutmose III at the far east end, which most visitors never get to. An hour — which is what a tight cruise schedule allows — covers the approach, the great court and the hypostyle hall and then turns you round. Given that the complex covers an area that would hold several cathedrals, an hour is a decision to see one room of it.
Karnak is a walled precinct three kilometres north of the town, built up piece by piece across roughly two thousand years by many pharaohs; Luxor Temple is a single coherent building in the middle of the modern town, largely the work of Amenhotep III and Ramesses II. Karnak is bigger, older, more confusing and more overwhelming. Luxor Temple is smaller, far more legible, and much better after dark. They were connected by the avenue of sphinxes and were two ends of the same festival procession.
It is a different thing from the daytime visit rather than a replacement for it, and whether it is worth an evening depends on the traveller. It lights the hypostyle hall and the sacred lake in a way daylight never does, which is genuinely striking; the narration is grander than it needs to be. Programmes and languages vary by night and it does not always run, so it is confirmed for your dates rather than assumed.
More than at any other site in Egypt. The complex has no single plan and no obvious sequence, and what makes it extraordinary — that each pharaoh built in front of, on top of or out of what the last one did — is invisible unless somebody tells you the order. Egyptian guides hold a formal Egyptology licence, so a licensed guide is a specific and reasonable thing to ask for.
Partly. The main axis from the first pylon through the hypostyle hall is broadly level, though the surface is uneven stone and sand and there are thresholds. Beyond the hall the ground becomes rougher and there are steps. A shortened visit that goes in as far as the hypostyle hall and returns the same way covers the most impressive part of the site and is manageable for most people; the far eastern end is not.
Late afternoon. The complex faces west, so the light comes down the main axis at the end of the day and the columns take colour; it is also the coolest usable hour, which matters a great deal from April onward. Early morning is quieter and cooler still but the sun is behind the pylons and the hall photographs flat. Midday is the worst of every variable at once.
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