Modern authors have styled the site of Thebes Luxor, a name which is not in my journal taken on the spot, nor does my memory retain a trace of such an appellation, not to mention that the word is not Arabic. Some write Aksor, which convinces me that both are corruptions of El Kussûr, the real term, which is still applied to the ruins by the Arabs. Norden is very imperfect in his Arabic names, as well as his topography.
In describing the ruins, we shall begin with the most considerable, which are on the East of the Nile. The chief is the Great Temple, an oblong square building of vast extent, with a double colonnade, one at each extremity. The massy columns and walls are covered with hieroglyphics, a labour truly stupendous. 1. The Great Temple stands in the district called Karnac.
2. Next in importance is the temple at Abu-Hadjadj.
3. Numerous ruins, avenues marked with remains of Sphinxes, &c. On the West side of the Nile appear,
1. Two colossal figures, apparently of a man and woman, formed of a calcareous stone like the rest of the ruins.
2. Remains of a large temple, with caverns excavated in the rock.
3. The magnificent edifice styled the palace of Memnon. Some of the columns are about forty feet high, and about nine and a half in diameter. The columns and walls are covered with hieroglyphics. This stands at Kourna.
4. Behind the palace is the passage styled Bibân-el-Molûk, leading up the mountain. At the extremity of this passage, in the sides of the rock, are the celebrated caverns known as the sepulchres of the antient kings.
Several of these sepulchres have been described by Pococke with sufficient minuteness; he has even given plans of them. But in conversation with persons at Assiût and in other parts of Egypt, I was always informed that they had not been discovered till within the last thirty years, when a son of Shech Hamâm, a very powerful chief of the Arabs, who governed all the South of Egypt from Achmîm to Nubia, caused four of them to be opened, in expectation of finding treasure.
They had probably been rifled in very antient times; but how the memory of them should have been lost remains to be explained. One of those which I visited exactly answers Dr. Pococke’s description; but the other three appear materially different from any of his plans. It is therefore possible that some of those which he saw have been gradually closed up by the sand, and that the son of Hamâm had discovered others.