Tours in Karnak Temple

Karnak is not one temple. It is a walled complex that some thirty pharaohs kept adding to, over roughly two thousand years. No other religious site of the ancient world was built on this scale.

What is inside the walls

The main axis belongs to Amun, and it is the part everyone walks. Two smaller precincts sit beside it. Most of the complex is not open.

• The Hypostyle Hall. A forest of 134 columns, the tallest of them around twenty-one metres, still carrying roof slabs.
• The obelisks. Hatshepsut's standing one is the tallest left in Egypt; her second lies broken beside the lake.
• The sacred lake. Cut for the priests, still holding water, and the quietest corner of the site.
• The Avenue of Sphinxes. The processional road to Luxor Temple, reopened in 2021.

How it is visited

Half-day tours pair it with Luxor Temple as the east-bank morning. Full-day tours reach it after the west bank. The sound and light show runs it in the dark instead.

Practical

• Time needed. Ninety minutes minimum with a guide, and it is easy to spend three hours.
• Heat. The hall is shaded, the rest of the site is not. Go early or come for the evening show.
• Sound and light. Fixed showtimes, and the commentary language changes by session. Check which one you are booked on.
• Underfoot. Uneven stone and loose sand throughout. Sandals are the wrong shoe.