Ancient Thebes, Egypt: where it is and what survives today

Luxor stands at 89 m above sea level, about 220 km north of Aswan³. From Cairo, a direct flight takes about 1 hour and the train about 10 hours⁵; the guide to reaching Luxor by air, rail and road has the details.

• Religion: UNESCO calls Thebes the city of the god Amun¹, and Wikipedia describes it as the most venerated city during many periods² of Egyptian history.
• Size: historian Ian Morris estimates that by 1500 BC² Thebes may have been the largest city in the world.
• People: UNESCO puts the town’s population at about 50,000 in the centuries after 1500 BCE¹.
• Karnak: Seti I began the Hypostyle Hall and Ramses II finished it; its roof rests on 134 columns¹.
• The royal tombs: the Valley of the Kings is one of the most famous archaeological sites in Egypt⁵.

Egypt’s official tourism site calls Luxor and Karnak Temples the most revered sites in Luxor⁶. UNESCO’s World Heritage listing, Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis, has three parts¹: the Karnak and Luxor temples on the East Bank and a large archaeological area on the West Bank.

A necropolis is a large, designed cemetery of an ancient city⁷, set apart from where people lived. The Theban one holds several sites you’ll want to know by name:

• Valley of the Kings: royal tombs dated 1500–1000 BCE¹, Tutankhamun’s among them.
• Valley of the Queens: where Nefertari, wife of Ramses II¹, is buried.
• El Qurn: the peak in the Theban Hills above, at 420–450 m⁸.

The tombs still spark debate. In 2015 Nicholas Reeves proposed that voids behind the walls of Tutankhamun’s tomb hid Nefertiti’s burial chamber, but later radar scans showed no hidden chambers⁹.

If you’d rather go with a guide, a guided day tour of the West Bank takes in both valleys.

People have long lived among the tombs. Kurna (Qurna) is a group of three closely related villages on the West Bank, where families built their houses on top of the tombs they chose¹¹.

That made Qurna a long-running flashpoint. Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy built New Qurna between 1946 and 1952¹¹, and Luxor’s governor said in 2006 that 3,500 families¹² would leave Qurna. What followed:

• Daily News Egypt reported in December 2006 that residents would move to New Qurna-Taref¹³, built in the desert further north.
• Smithsonian Magazine reported in December 2017 that bulldozers razed scores of houses between 2006 and 2009¹⁴, some tagged as heritage sites in their own right.
• The same report says only Qurnat Marei, reportedly kept as a film set, and a few holdouts remain, with former residents scattered among at least five or six¹⁴ other villages.
• Qurna’s people still provide most of the labour on many dig sites¹⁴.

The site is run by the Supreme Council of Antiquities through the Antiquities inspectorate of Luxor¹, working with Luxor Governorate. UNESCO says local communities are involved in maintenance and conservation projects¹.

Seeing Thebes today

Ready to turn the history into a plan? Start here:

• Browse the temples and tombs worth your time on both banks.
• Choose the best hotel area for your stay before you book.
• Compare Cairo to Luxor Nile sailing options if you’d rather arrive by river.