Luxor Museum

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Luxor Museum
Luxor Museum 01.jpg
Entrance to the Luxor Museum
Data
place Luxor
Art
architect Mahmud el-Hakim
opening 1975

The Luxor Museum ( Arabic متحف الأقصر, DMG Matḥaf al-Uqṣur ) is a museum for ancient Egyptian art in the Upper Egyptian city ​​of Luxor . It is located on the Corniche el-Nil , the city's promenade along the Nile , roughly halfway between the Temple of Karnak and the Temple of Luxor , the main attractions of the city on the eastern side of the Nile. The two-storey museum building designed by the architect Mahmud el-Hakim was opened in 1975. Since March 2004 it has had a larger exhibition area thanks to an extension.

Collection exhibits

In the museum you can see finds of ancient Egyptian art from the royal metropolis Thebes and the vicinity of Luxor (East Thebes). These include some grave goods from the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings ( KV62 ), various statues from the time of the New Kingdom and the reconstruction of part of the wall of the Aton temple in Karnak , the Gem-pa-Aton , built in the 14th century v. By Akhenaten . The Aton Temple was destroyed by Akhenaten's successors and the building material was used for other buildings.

Part of a reconstructed part of the wall of the Gem-pa-Aton
Statue of King Amenhotep III

The wall of the Gem-pa-Aton on the upper floor of the museum is 18 meters long, made from 283 painted sandstone blocks, called talatat . The remains of the wall on display were found during restoration work in the filling of the ninth pylon of the Temple of Amun-Re within the temple complex of Karnak. Akhenaten and Nefertiti are depicted under the god Aton, represented as a sun disk with rays spreading like a fan, surrounded by temple servants working in magazines and sacrificial rooms, as well as craftsmen and field workers.

King Haremhab kneels before Atum
The gods Amun and Mut

The basement houses the museum's collection of statues, including 26 statues that were found in 1989 in a pit under the floor of the “sun courtyard” of the Temple of Luxor. Among them are the seat images of the goddesses Hathor and Junit from the reign of Amenhotep III. (14th century BC), Akhenaten's father, and the 2.5 meter high statue of Amenhotep III. made of reddish quartzite . The pharaoh is depicted on a sledge, a means of transport for heavy objects. The sculpture of the seated scribe and builder son of Hapu Amenophis also dates from this period . The group of statues of the kneeling King Haremhab before the enthroned god Atum is of a later date . Haremhab is considered to be the restorer of the old order in the post- Amarna period of Akhenaten.

Other interesting exhibits are the head of Senwosret III made of rose granite . from the 12th dynasty (19th century BC), which was found in the foundation in front of the fourth pylon of the Karnak temple, the statue of Thutmose III. from the 18th dynasty (15th century BC), found in the ground of the courtyard in front of the seventh pylon of the Karnak temple, and the 1.11 meter high top of a rose granite statue of his son and successor Amenophis, also from Karnak II. , Found in 1951 north of the chapel of Osiris Heqa-djed. In the garden in front of the museum there is another image of this king, shown here as an archer. Also a bust of Akhenaten, a pillar of Osiris Sesostris I and images of Amenhotep III. as a single head and together in a group of statues with the god Sobek are part of the collection.

The main exhibit of the Luxor Museum from Tutankhamun's tomb is a "holy cow", a head of a cattle carved from a block of wood, the appearance of the goddess Hathor. The head was covered with plaster and partly gilded. The horns, also made of wood, are clad with painted metal, the eyes inlaid in a glass frame are made of limestone crystal and obsidian. In addition, other small parts from the inside of the royal tomb are exhibited, such as two ushabtis , small painted statues representing the late Pharaoh.

In the extension of the Luxor Museum, the mummies of Kings Ahmose I (16th century BC) and Ramses I (13th century BC) have been on display since 2004 . These are the first two royal mummies to be publicly exhibited in Luxor, although the identity of the mummy of Ramses I has not yet been clarified beyond doubt. Both mummies come from the cachette of Deir el-Bahari in Thebes-West, a depot for embedded pharaoh mummies. While the mummy of Ahmose I was in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo until his return to Luxor , the mummy attributed to Ramses I came to the United States of America at the end of the 19th century . There it was in the Niagara Falls Museum for a long time until it was returned to Egypt in 2003 after it was closed and taken over by the Michael C. Carlos Museum near Atlanta . The handover of the two royal mummies on the occasion of the opening of the museum extension on March 9, 2004 was celebrated in Luxor.

literature

  • The Museum of Ancient Egyptian Art in Luxor. Catalog. von Zabern, Mainz 1981, ISBN 3-8053-0428-5 .
  • The Supreme Council of Antiquities: Guide to the Luxor Museum of Ancient Egypt Art. Dump Eurospan, 1996.
  • Abeer el-Shahawy, Farid Atiya: Luxor Museum: The Glory of Ancient Thebes. The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo 2006, ISBN 977-17-2352-9 .
  • Janice Kamrin: The Illustrated Guide to the Luxor Museum of Ancient Art and the Nubia Museum of Aswan. The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo 2010, ISBN 978-977-416-344-9 .

Web links

Commons : Luxor Museum  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Luxor Museum of Ancient Egyptian Art. Www.tripwolf.com, accessed April 9, 2010 .
  2. ↑ a b Luxor: Two kings returned. www.luxor-westbank.com, accessed April 9, 2010 .
  3. ^ Luxor Museum. (No longer available online.) Homepage.powerup.com.au, archived from the original on May 6, 2010 ; Retrieved April 9, 2010 .
  4. ↑ Giovanna Magi: Luxor. Translated by Renate Großrubatscher. Casa Editrice Bonechi, Florence 2005, ISBN 88-7009-619-X , p. 15.
  5. ↑ Luxor Museum Statues from the cachette of the Luxor Temple. www.aegyptologie.com, accessed April 10, 2010 .
  6. ↑ Amenhotep II - biography. www.nefershapiland.de, accessed on April 11, 2010 .

Coordinates: 25 ° 42 ′ 27 "  N , 32 ° 38 ′ 40.5"  E