Day 5: Karnak Temple

Our day was focused on the Karnak Temple, the largest sanctuary the world has ever seen. This is the temple at the other end of the 3 km-long road of sphinxes that leads from the Luxor Temple. Luckily, some pharoah-like transport had already been arranged.


Fortunately for archaeologists, the outer walls of the Karnak Temple were never finished (temples were always built from the inside out, beginning with the most sacred, inner chamber). This provided evidence of how Egyptians built large walls and many other structures: piling rocks and sand up, to erect the wall, and gradually taking it away, finishing and inscribing the wall from the top down.




The outer court was built to reflect a forest of palms. It is bewildering in scale, especially considering that it was built using only sand, water, mallets and man-power.


There are 134 "trees", which would have been covered by a roof of wood and stone.




The scarab, contrary to Hollywood depiction, is a symbol of fertility, fortune and survival. Walking around the statue 7 times, counter-clockwise, is meant to grant whatever wish is made. Yes, we did.


Our last stop of the day was a perfumery, which supplies all the major international perfume houses.