the Avenue of the Sphinxes

karnak sound and light show in luxor 2

A well preserved sphinx
In Ancient times, religious processions moved between the Karnak Temple complex and Luxor Temple along a 2.
5–kilometer-long paved Avenue of Sphinxes.
processions moved overland or on the Nile.

The Avenue of the Sphinxes was begun in the New Kingdom, but took its final form only in the 30th Dynasty reign of Nectanebo I.
Only a few short stretches of the Avenue of Sphinxes have been excavated.
The best-preserved of them extends a few hundred meters northward in front of the Luxor Temple, and about thirty-five sphinxes are exposed on each side of a paved roadway.

Six bark shrines, similar to those now in Karnak’s Open-Air Museum, were built at intervals along its length.
The structures in which allowed priests carry the statue of

Amun

from the one Temple to the other could pause for rest and ceremonies.
The northernmost of these shrines lay just outside the Bab al-Amara at Karnak; the southernmost lay in the First Court of
Before the Avenue of Sphinxes was built, a water-filled canal apparently ran here and sacred barks sailed on it between Karnak and Luxor.
By the later New Kingdom, however, as lunar-dated festivals progressed through the calendar and began to fall outside the season of the annual flood, there was too little water to float the barks and the canal was filled in and paved over.

Trees and broad strips of grass line the avenue, flowers bloom in season.
It is worth walking along the processional way to admire the Ancient construction and to enjoy the fine view it offers of the temple’s First Pylon.

There has been talk of exposing the entire length of the Avenue of the Sphinxes, clearing the Ancient city around Luxor Temple and making the area an open-air museum.
But that would cut the modern city of Luxor in half and require turning the highly valuable land between the causeway and the Nile into a park or pedestrian mall.
Because of costs and politics and uncertain conservation requirements, the proposal is unlikely to be implemented any time soon.