مدينة المائة باب وأهميتها – -انظر حولك

The title of the City of a Hundred Gates is given to a historical Egyptian city, and the one who gave it this title was one of the Greek historians called “Homer” because of its many large gates. In this topic, we will learn about the City of a Hundred Gates and its importance.

The city of a hundred doors

• The city of Luxor is called the City of a Hundred Gates, because it has buildings with huge and many gates. It also has some other names such as East and Thebes during Roman times, and the city of Thebes served as the official capital of the ancient state of Egypt.
• It was also called the City of the Sun, the City of Light, and the City of the Scepter, but its official name currently is the City of Luxor.
• The Arabs called it the city of Luxor because of its ancient palaces, which were founded in 2575 BC, during the reign of Amenhotep I of the Fourth Dynasty.
• The city was officially the country’s capital until 332 BC, when the Thirty-First Dynasty was overthrown by Persia.
• Because of the importance of this city, it was chosen as the Capital of Arab Culture in 2017 AD, as it contains 1/6 of the world’s monuments, and it is considered one of the prominent tourist attractions in Egypt.
• Because it depends on tourism activities as a source of national income, despite this, the residents of Luxor work in agricultural fields, especially cane cultivation, in addition to working in some industrial activities such as ceramics, pottery, and furniture.

See also: Where is the Valley of the Kings located?

The ancient city of Luxor

• The world has many great civilizations, which are reflected in the prominent landmarks that indicate them, and their landmarks have been discovered over the years, and Egypt is one of the places where the great Pharaonic monuments abound.
• As it contains the largest museums in the world, which is the Luxor City Museum, which includes many different Egyptian antiquities, left by the ancient Pharaohs over the years.

Geography and climate of Luxor

• The City of Hundred Babs “Luxor City” is located in the southern side of Egypt, and it is the official capital of Luxor Governorate, which is approximately 670 kilometers away from Cairo, “the current capital of the Arab Republic of Egypt.”
• The distance between it and Aswan is 220 km, the distance between it and Qena Governorate is 56 km, and it is 280 km away from the city of Hurghada.
• The city of Hundred Babs is a hot and dry area. It is a city in which the air temperature is very high. The climate of this city has been classified as a desert climate. The Nile River also divides the city of Luxor into two parts due to its passage through it, and they are:

Part of the eastern region

• It is known as the City of the Living, and it was full of various aspects of life during the Pharaonic rule, such as palaces, houses, and religious temples.

Part of the western region

• It is dotted with many other landmarks, such as cemeteries and funeral temples, and this part is known as the City of the Dead.

Luxor Museum

• The Luxor Museum was opened in 1975 AD on the Nile Corniche. One of its most important characteristics is that it is small and contains distinctive archaeological pieces in a limited number that may not exceed one hundred pieces. The museum contains some pieces that were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
• The museum also displays the statue of Tuthmosis III, discovered in 1965 AD.
• The museum is interested in displaying some pictures that show some important information about the statue next to it, including the method and time of discovery, along with an explanation of the damage it sustained in 2003 AD.
• After thirty-eight years of neglect, Egyptian Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass decided to restore the statue of Tuthmosis III, under his supervision, until he was able to return it to how it was before.

Archaeological monuments in the city of Hundred Babs

There are many archaeological monuments in the city of Luxor, which is called the City of Hundred Gates, and among its most prominent monuments are the following:

Karnak temples

• Which was built in approximately 2134 BC, during the rule of the 11th Dynasty, and every king had an artistic touch in these temples, as they worked hard to build their own temples and work to decorate them.
• Every king competed to make his temple better than the other temples of the kings who preceded him.
• Therefore, the tourist visiting these temples sees the aspects of splendor and beauty in this temple from the engineering and artistic aspect of the ancient Egyptian Pharaonic civilization.
• It is worth mentioning that the most visited Pharaonic place for tourism in the eastern part of the region is the Karnak Temple.

Luxor temple

• The purpose of building the Luxor Temple was worship, from the beginning of the Pharaonic rule until the Islamic era. It was built with the aim of worshiping the god Amun-Ra, his wife, and their son Khonsu, during the 18th and 19th Dynasties. There are many wonderful buildings in the Luxor Temple, such as the one built by Amenhotep III and Ramses II.
• Where Ramses II built the entrance to the temple with two adult statues placed in it, and there is a tripartite chapel in the Luxor Temple that was built during the reign of the Queen of Ancient Egypt.”
• Hatshepsut” was reconstructed during the reign of Ramesses II. As for the two obelisks located outside the temple to decorate them, they are now one obelisk in the Luxor Temple and the second in the French State in the Place de la Concorde.

See also: The tourist and coastal city of Oran

Valley of the Kings

• It is the valley that was built with the intention of preserving the bodies of kings and queens after death in the belief that they will return to life again. It consists of many and large tombs, and each tomb includes a room to place the king or king’s belongings of gold, statues, and weapons.
• It consists of sixty cemeteries, and the largest number of these cemeteries are located in the eastern part of the region. It is the part that tourists tend to visit most, compared to the part of the western region in which there are only two cemeteries, the first cemetery belonging to Amenhotep III, and the second cemetery belonging to Ay.

Statue of Memnon

• They are among the prominent archaeological monuments in Luxor in the West Bank. They are the two remaining statues from the funerary temple that was built by Amenhotep III, and on them are written some names of historians and rulers.

Ramesseum Temple

• It is a funerary temple belonging to King Ramses II, and the Ramesseum Temple contains inscriptions indicating the battle known as Kadesh.

Famous tombs in Luxor

Although the city of Luxor, known as the City of Hundred Gates, is distinguished by its archaeological monuments, it is distinguished by other monuments represented by cemeteries, and these cemeteries are for:

• Horemheb’s tomb.
• The private tomb of Seti I.
• The private tomb of Tutankhamun.
• The tomb of Ramesses III.
• The tomb of Ramesses VI.
• The tomb of Tuthmosis III.

What did the travelers say about Luxor?

• After the travelers visited Luxor and learned about its attractive landmarks, they talked a lot about it, including Brice Davin, who explained in his writings how the obelisk of Luxor was transferred to French lands, and the traveler Amber, who wrote about Luxor and compared its landmarks to the landmarks in his homeland.
• He compared the Rams Percent Gate Road to the corridors of the Champs-Élysées. He also talked about the Karnak Temple, which he compared to the Place de l’Etoile in France.
• Some of them expressed their admiration for the city of Luxor and its archaeological monuments, and they mentioned it in their books, such as the traveler Champollion, the Englishman Wilkinson, and the Germans Lesson.

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