Luxor

Luxor was the ancient city of Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt during the New Kingdom, and the city of Amun, later to become the god Amun-Ra. The city was regarded in the ancient Egyptian texts as wAs.t, which meant “city of the sceptre”, and later in Demotic Egyptian as ta jpt , which the ancient Greeks adapted as Thebai and the Romans after them as Thebae.

Thebes was also known as “the city of the 100 gates”, sometimes being called “southern Heliopolis”, to distinguish it from the city of Iunu or Heliopolis, the main place of worship for the god Ra in the north. It was also often referred to as niw.t, which simply means “city”, and was one of only three cities in Egypt for which this noun was used; it was also called niw.t rst, “southern city”, as the southernmost of them.