LUXEMBURG, or Lützelburg (i.e. the little fortress or town), the capital of the grand-duchy of the same name (see above), situated on the Alzette, a tributary of the Sûre. Pop. (1905) 20,984. The situation is romantic, steep cliffs overhanging the winding river, and the principal portion of the town with the palace and public buildings covering a central plateau. The more densely populated parishes of Clausen, Pfaffenthal and Grund lie in the valley. As a fortress Luxemburg was considered the strongest in Europe after Gibraltar, which it was supposed to resemble because many of its casemates were cut into the rock. It was dismantled in 1867. Two colossal viaducts carry the railway and the approach from the railway station to the town. Since the place ceased to be a fortress the population has more than doubled, and the Alzette is lined with tanneries, breweries and distilleries. The Hôtel de Ville dates from 1844 and contains a collection of antiquities. The church of Notre Dame was built in 1613, and that of St Michael, with parts dating from 1320, contains the tomb of blind John of Luxemburg, king of Bohemia, slain at Crécy. There are two annual fête days, one in honour of Our Lady of Luxemburg, patroness of the city, held on the Sunday before Ascension Day, and the other the annual fair or Schobermesse (tent fair), instituted in 1340 and held each year on the 24th of August.
LUXEUIL-LES-BAINS, a town of eastern France, in the department of Haute-Saône, 18 m. N.E. of Vesoul. Pop. (1906) 5195. It is situated in a region of forests on the right bank of the Breuchin. It has an abbey-church dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, containing a curious 17th-century organ loft in the form of an immense bracket supported by a colossal figure of Hercules. The abbot’s palace (16th and 18th centuries) serves as presbytery and town hall. A cloister of the 15th century and other buildings of the 17th century also remain. There are several mansions and houses dating from various periods from the 14th to the 16th century. The Maison Carrée, once the town hall, an interesting specimen of 15th-century architecture, was built by Perrin Jouffroy, father of Cardinal Jouffroy. The cardinal, who was born at Luxeuil in 1412, built the house with a graceful balcony and turret which faces the Maison Carrée. The Maison de la Baille and the Maison François I. are of the Renaissance period. The fine modern Grammont Hospital is in the style of Louis XIII. Luxeuil is renowned for its mineral springs, of which there are seventeen, two being ferruginous, and the rest charged with chloride of sodium; their temperatures range from 70° to 158° F. The water is employed for drinking and for baths. The bathing establishment contains a museum of Gallo-Roman antiquities and there are also remains of Roman baths and aqueducts to be seen in or near it. Luxeuil has a communal college. Copper-founding, the spinning and weaving of cotton, lace-making, dyeing and the distilling of kirsch are carried on.
Luxeuil was the Roman Lixovium and contained many fine buildings at the time of its destruction by the Huns under Attila in 451. In 590 St Columban here founded a monastery, afterwards one of the most famous in Franche Comté. In the 8th century it was destroyed by the Saracens; afterwards rebuilt, monastery and town were devastated by the Normans in the 9th century and plllaged on several occasions afterwards. The abbey schools were celebrated in the middle ages and the abbots had great influence; but their power was curtailed by the emperor Charles V. and the abbey was suppressed at the Revolution.
See H. Beaumont, Étude hist. sur l’abbaye de Luxeuil, 590-1790 (Lux. 1895); Grandmongin and A. Garnier, Hist. de la ville et des thermes de Luxeuil (Paris, 1866), with 16 plates.
LUXOR, more properly El-Aksur, “The Castles” (plur. of kasr), a town of Upper Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile 450 m. above Cairo by river and 418 by rail. Pop. (1907 census) 12,644. It is the centre for visitors to the ruins of and about Thebes, and is frequented by travellers and invalids in the winter season, several fine hotels having been built for their accommodation. There are Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, and a hospital for natives, opened in 1891. The district is the seat of an extensive manufacture of forged antiques.
The temple of Luxor is one of the greatest of the monuments of Thebes (q.v.). It stands near the river bank on the S.W. side of the town and measures nearly 300 yds. from back to front. There may have been an earlier temple here, but the present structure, dedicated to the Theban triad of Ammon, Mut and Khons, was erected by Amenophis III. The great colonnade, which is its most striking feature, was apparently intended for the nave of a hypostyle hall like that of Karnak, but had to be hastily finished without the aisles. After the heresy of Amenophis IV. (Akhenaton), the decoration of this incomplete work was taken in hand by Tutenkhamun and Haremhib. The axis of the temple ran from S.W. to N.E.; a long paved road bordered by recumbent rams led from the façade to the temples of Karnak (q.v.) in a somewhat more easterly direction, and Rameses II. adopted the line of this avenue in adding an extensive court to the work of Amenophis, producing a curious change of axis. He embellished the walls and pylons of his court with scenes from his victories over Hittites and Syrians, and placed a number of colossal statues within it. In front of the pylon Rameses set up colossi and a pair of obelisks (one of which was taken to Paris in 1831 and re-erected in the Place de la Concorde). A few scenes and inscriptions were added by later kings, but the above is practically the history of the temple until Alexander the Great rebuilt the sanctuary itself. The chief religious festival of Thebes was that of “Southern Opi,” the ancient name of Luxor. The sacred barks of the divinities preserved in the sanctuary of Karnak were then conveyed in procession by water to Luxor and back again; a representation of the festal scenes is given on the walls of the great colonnade. The Christians built churches within the temple. The greater part of the old village of Luxor lay inside the courts: it was known also as Abu ‘l Haggag from a Moslem saint of the 7th century, whose tomb-mosque, mentioned by Ibn Batuta, stands on a high heap of débris in the court of Rameses. This is the last of the buildings and rubbish which encumbered the temple before the expropriation and clearances by the Service des Antiquités began in 1885. The principal street of Luxor follows the line of the ancient avenue.
See G. Daressy, Notice explicative des ruines du temple de Louxor (Cairo, 1803); Baedeker’s Egypt.
(F. Ll. G.)