Luxor Tourist Attractions

Luxor is one of the most important archaeological destinations in the world and the city with the highest concentration of ancient Egyptian monuments anywhere on earth. Built on top of ancient Thebes, the political and religious capital of Egypt during the New Kingdom period from around 1550 BCE to 1070 BCE, Luxor holds temples, tombs, museums, and ruins that span more than three thousand years of continuous Egyptian civilization. This guide section covers all major Luxor tourist attractions across both banks of the Nile, with individual pages for each site containing historical background, visitor information, entrance fees, opening hours, and practical tips to help you plan your time in Luxor. All of the attractions covered here are part of Luxor Tours, Luxor Day Tours, Luxor East Bank Tours, Luxor West Bank Tours, Dahabiya Nile River Cruises, and Luxor Aswan Nile River Cruises, all of which WOW Egypt Tours proudly offers to travelers from around the world. The Luxor attractions in this guide are also covered within Egypt Tours Packages, Egypt Travel Packages, and Safaga Shore Excursions.

The Luxor East Bank holds the city's two largest temple complexes. Luxor Temple stands directly on the Nile corniche and was built primarily under Amenhotep III and Ramesses II, dedicated to the god Amun and used for the annual Opet Festival. Karnak Temple is the largest religious building ever constructed, a complex of temples, pylons, obelisks, and sacred lakes built over more than two thousand years by successive pharaohs. The two temples were originally connected by the Avenue of Sphinxes, sections of which have been excavated and are now open to visitors. Also on the East Bank, Luxor Museum contains a carefully selected collection of statues, reliefs, and artifacts recovered from the Theban area, and the Luxor Mummification Museum is the only museum in Egypt dedicated entirely to the process and history of mummification, with actual mummies and embalming instruments on display.

The Luxor West Bank is where the ancient Egyptians buried their dead, and it contains the largest and most diverse grouping of royal and private tombs, mortuary temples, and workers' villages in Egypt. The Valley of the Kings is the royal burial ground used by the pharaohs of the New Kingdom, containing over 60 tombs including those of Tutankhamun, Ramesses II, Seti I, and Ramesses VI. Nearby, the Valley of the Queens holds the tombs of royal wives and princes, most notably the tomb of Queen Nefertari, considered one of the finest examples of ancient Egyptian wall painting anywhere. Hatshepsut Temple, known as Deir el-Bahari, is a three-tiered mortuary temple cut into the limestone cliffs of the Theban hills, built for one of ancient Egypt's most powerful female pharaohs. Medinet Habu is the mortuary temple of Ramesses III and one of the best-preserved temples on the West Bank, with detailed battle reliefs and painted interior halls. Deir el-Medina is the excavated village where the craftsmen and artisans who built the royal tombs lived and were buried, providing direct evidence of the daily lives of working Egyptians during the New Kingdom. The Valley of the Nobles, also called the Tombs of the Nobles, contains over 400 private tomb chapels belonging to the senior officials and administrators of the Theban court, decorated with detailed scenes of farming, feasting, hunting, and craftsmanship that give a different view of ancient Egyptian life than the royal tombs. The Ramesseum is the mortuary temple of Ramesses II, with a massive fallen granite colossus of the pharaoh that inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Ozymandias. The Colossi of Memnon are two 18-meter seated statues of Amenhotep III that stand at the entrance to his now largely destroyed mortuary temple and are among the most photographed monuments on the West Bank.

The overview page for Luxor the Ancient City covers the broader history of Thebes, how the city developed from the Old Kingdom through the New Kingdom and Late Period, and how the modern city of Luxor relates to its ancient foundations. Use these guides as a starting point for planning which sites to visit, how much time to allocate at each, what tickets cost, and when to visit based on your schedule and the time of year. All guides are written to give you practical, accurate information before your trip, not after.