EGYPT  2001:

After visiting the monastery, we drove back to Cairo and arrived at our hotel very late.  We once again woke up very early, 3:00 in the morning this time, ate a breakfast roll, (I was finally able to eat something), and headed to the Cairo Airport to depart for Luxor.  The flight was only an hour long and we arrived as the sun came up.  Sightseeing began immediately this day and the first stop was the Karnak temple.

Out of all the sights I have seen in Egypt, it is very hard to pick a favorite.  If I had to pick a favorite temple, it would probably be the Karnak Temple.  As you can see, I have dedicated 39 pictures alone to this temple, mainly because it is so big and fascinating.  The main reason why the Temple of Karnak is so great, is because over many generations of Pharaohs, each king added something to the temple.  Each Pharaoh tried to out construct the other by building magnificent additions to the temple.

The pictures below start with the avenue of ram headed Sphinxes which used to extend for two miles until reaching Luxor temple.  After walking down the Avenue of the Sphinx, I entered inside the colossal outer walls and into a large courtyard of stone.  Beyond the courtyard was a large cluster of enormous columns placed very close together in a room.  I walked through the pillar room and into the next area.  I noticed now that this place seems to go on forever.  Everything in this place is huge and made out of stone.  The next area had all sorts of statues and obelisks.  Obelisks are tall, four sided stone structures with a point on top representing a pyramid.   The Karnak even has its own man made lake inside its walls.  The lake is called the sacred lake and it was used to float the golden Solar Boat.  It is hard to describe the temple in words so please enjoy the pictures below.

The fourth and fifth pictures from the end show how the ancient Egyptians constructed the walls of the temple.  They used bricks made from mud and straw to build a ramp to raise the large stone walls in place.  The wall in the picture was never completed because the Pharaoh died during its construction.  As the wall is completed, artists carve pictures and disassemble the ramp as they go.  This is the only evidence of how the walls were constructed in ancient Egyptian time.