Thebes
Thebes (Ancient Greek: Θῆβαι, Thēbai), known to the ancient Egyptians as Waset, was an ancient Egyptian urban landscape located along the Nile about 800 kilometers south of the Mediterranean. Many of its archaeological sites lie within the modern Egyptian city of Luxor and its environs on both the east and west banks of the Nile. Thebes was the main city of the fourth Upper Egyptian nome and was the capital of Egypt for during much of the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom eras. It grew to become the main cult center of Egypt during the city’s heyday with especial attention to the cult of the sun-god Amun-Ra. The site of Thebes includes areas on both the eastern bank of the Nile, where the temples of Karnak and Luxor stand and where the city proper was situated; and the western bank, where a necropolis of large private and royal cemeteries and funerary complexes can be found. Further into the Theban hills of the West bank are found the royal and noble tombs of the so-called Valleys of the Kings and Queens, the location of the famous Tomb of Tutankhamun discovered in 1922, one of many other amazing mortuary complexes. The archaeology of Thebes and its surroundings has attracted huge numbers of tourists and scholars since the advent of Egypt’s opening to this emerging heritage industry in the mid-nineteenth century.
