October, 2022. While we were slammed as usual with our work at NEOM, it was approaching the end of the year, and if I didn’t spend some PTO, I knew much of it would not roll over. It was time for a long weekend and some short leave from the project.

The author in front of the Temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor Egypt.

A driver picked me up from NEOM Community 1 for the two-hour ride to Tabuk Airport, where I boarded a convenient, one-hour Nile Air flight to Cairo. It was my first time on the relatively new low-cost airline, backed by some Saudi investors. Compared to EgyptAir, the venerable, 90-year-old national carrier, the Nile Air Airbus A320 was a well-equipped, newer model.

Arriving around midnight at Cairo International Airport’s outdated Terminal 1, first opened in 1963, I quickly realized that navigating the airport would be both challenging and no-frills. I needed a tourist visa on arrival, which I assumed would be a straightforward process. Instead, after several failed ATM attempts, I finally extracted sufficient Egyptian pounds before making my way to a nearby bank teller window, as the visa process was handled there. The teller, however, refused my local currency.

“You need US dollars, pounds sterling, or Saudi riyals. Foreign currency only,” he insisted.

Annoyed and tired, I was slightly amused that Egypt wasn’t accepting its own currency for a tourist visa, but unfortunately, I had no foreign cash on me. Luckily, two Saudi men behind me in line graciously helped me out, paying the fee in riyals in exchange for my Egyptian pounds. I thanked them profusely and made my way through passport control, finally exiting the terminal.

A rush of taxi drivers greeted me, and I found a serene semblance of order in all of the chaos. My connecting flight was early the next morning, so I headed quickly to the airport Le Meridien Hotel, eager for some rest and a double shot of bourbon before calling it a night.

The next morning, I dozed for most of the hour and a half flight from Cairo to Luxor, suddenly waking as we began our final descent over the swaths of fertile agriculture that dominated the serpentine banks of the Nile River. Just north of the city, as we crossed the imaginary line from Qena Province into Luxor, the lush islands near Nagaa Al Uwaydat shimmered in the morning sunlight in a wide vee of the river. As we descended, I was struck by the number of lush farms and orchards that sprawled along the river banks.

Arriving at the simple but posh-looking Luxor terminal, my driver, Yasser, greeted me with a smile and a sharp-looking thobe. He drove an older Peugeot that wistfully reminded me of a trip to France with my ex-wife, Faith, back in the 1990s.

“Where to?” he smiled in the mirror.

“As Salam alaykum, good morning. King’s Island…Jolie Ville Resort.”

A Nile farmer with a cart of sugar cane, Luxor Egypt.

The drive was breathtaking, and I shoved my phone in my pocket, drawn to the unforgettable street scenes and landscapes unfolding before me. I saw young families of 2, 3, or even 4 riding a single motorcycle, a farmer on his donkey cart loaded with bales of sugar cane, and young Egyptian boys and girls dressed smartly in uniforms on their way to school.

The Colossi of Memnon, two massive stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, on the road to the Valley of the Kings.

In the middle of the Nile, two fishermen on a small wooden boat near a reed bed on the east bank threshed the water with palm fronds, urging fish into their nets. I felt like I was in a time machine.

We soon arrived at the island resort of Jolie Ville. Before the Revolution of 2011, it had been a Mövenpick resort, known through much of the 20th century as Crocodile Island. It was, however, formally known as Jazirat Al Awamiyah, or the King’s Island. The security guards did their job well, scanning the car for bombs and checking our IDs before letting Yasser proceed through the gate and drive across a small bridge over a narrow channel of the Nile. After carrying my bags into the hotel, I tipped him well, we fist-bumped, and said goodbye.

Crocodile Island (King’s Island), Jolie Ville Resort, Nile River.

The resort was an oasis of palm trees and gardens, complete with walking trails and birdwatching platforms. It was a perfect retreat and a remarkable wetlands habitat, with reed beds lining the shore on both sides of the bridge and surrounding the island. Egrets, herons, kestrels, and kingfishers spun in the mid-day sky while ducks paddled amidst the reeds.

After settling in to my villa overlooking the Nile, I wanted to explore. The concierge arranged a one-on-one guide for me, an Egyptologist. Excited, I eagerly anticipated my new adventure.

“As Salam alaykum, good afternoon,” I offered the stranger standing near the front desk after an interminably long call from work had delayed me. He was shorter than me, dressed in long khaki pants and a khaki long-sleeved shirt, wearing a white silk scarf and a grey denim ball cap. “My apologies, I had an urgent call from work.”

“Wa-Alaikum-Salaam,” the gentleman replied. “No problem, my friend. My name is Shazly.”

“I’m Doug. It is a pleasure to meet you, Shazly.”

“Are you ready to go?” he asked as we walked toward a new Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross SUV. A young man, well-dressed, held the door for me.

Egyptologist and archaeologist, Mujahid el Shazly.

“Salam, I’m Doug,” I smiled, shaking his hand.

“Nice to meet you. My name is Musa.”

“Musa — like Moses, right?” I nodded as Musa smiled. “I’m ready, Mr. Shazly. Where are we going?”

“Karnak closes at 6,” Shazly replied. “Let’s start there.”

“Sounds good to me,” I smiled as Musa drove off.

Musa navigated through the narrow streets of Luxor, dodging donkey carts, cars, motorcycles, and bicycles in a chaotic dance. Women in hijabs waited at bus stops or rode side-saddle on their husband’s motorcycle, while children and adults crossed the street randomly through heavy traffic.

As I rode in the back seat, the pair engaged in rapid-fire conversation in Arabic, planning my spontaneous afternoon adventure. I relaxed, watching a father speed past on a motorbike with his son, the boy’s head resting peacefully between his father’s shoulder blades.

After a scant 15-minute journey, we arrived at Karnak Temple. Guards again swept the vehicle for bombs and checked our IDs. Musa dropped us at the gate, spun the car around, and waved us off.

“Welcome to Karnak,” Shazly offered warmly, pointing at a subterranean aqueduct outside the gates.

“This is a 3,000-year-old water technology.”

With parts of the temple over 4,000 years old, Karnak’s construction dates from around 2055 BC to around 100 AD. Dedicated to the holy Triad of Amun Ra, Mut, and Khonsu, it is the largest religious structure ever built, once covering over 200 acres. The Great Temple could fit St. Peter’s in London, Notre Dame in Paris, and the Duomo in Milan within its original structure.

Karnak Temple, Luxor Egypt.

Inside the temple, Shazly beamed as he revealed its secrets. “The ancient Egyptians called it Ipet-Isu, the ‘most select of places,’” he shared.

“We’re in Hypostyle hall, the main sanctuary, over 16,000 square meters in size.”

“Incredible. That’s like 50,000 square feet, if my math is correct. How many columns?” I asked.

“134 columns. Twelve are 21 meters tall with a diameter of over three meters. The rest are 10 meters tall. You see those?” he pointed to the massive horizontal stones spanning several columns.

“Lintels?”

“Architraves…some weigh 70 tons.” We wandered amidst the columns. I pointed to a modern inscription. “Gordon, 1850,” I read.

“Travelers. Europeans,” Shazly shrugged, walking away.

19th century European graffiti, Karnak Temple.

We continued through the columns, gates, and portals. Soon, a massive obelisk appeared. “The obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut,” Shazly shared. “Carved from a single piece of pink granite, 97 feet tall, over 340 tons.”

“How old is it?”

“1457 BC, from the eighteenth dynasty. It’s the second largest of all the ancient Egyptian obelisks.”

“Where is the largest?”

“Rome,” he chuckled. “The Lateran Obelisk, 105 feet tall, over 500 tons. Moved from Karnak to Alexandria, then to the Circus Maximus in Rome in 357 CE.” The parallels to NEOM’s Line were clear to me. The skills of the ancient Egyptians in constructing such monumental structures were profound.

“The technological skills of the Egyptians are often overlooked,” Shazly said.

“Much more advanced than I imagined.”

“You see this inscription?” Shazly pointed to the obelisk’s base. “It says cutting this one piece of granite took seven months of labor.”

We continued our walk, reflecting on the temple’s intricate qualities, before heading back to the main gates as the sun set over the west bank.

“I am curious, Shazly,” I asked as we walked toward the car to continue our adventure over to Luxor Temple under the evening stars after Musa dropped us off. “When did you become such an incredible storyteller?”

“I am first an Egyptologist, then an archaeologist,” he began. “After high school and college, I worked with American, English, French, and Italian excavators for nearly five years, digging everywhere in my town.”

“Your town? Tell me more,” I urged as we waved to Musa for our ride to Luxor Temple.

“Luxor is my town,” Shazly continued as we entered through the visitor center turnstiles. “I was born in 1966.”

Luxor Temple.

“Like hell you were,” I laughed, admiring his youthful energy and appearance. “I was born in 1967. We’re right there, together.”

“I was born here at Luxor Temple. I used to play right over there,” he said, pointing to an area near the statue of Ramses II.

“You played in Luxor as a child?”

“There were no guards, no tourists. My mother hauled water 3 or 4 times a day. It was a town, yes, my town. We played amidst the stones. I’ll show you my graffiti.”

“Your graffiti?”

“We lived in a small apartment. Illegal structures were built all over the site within the temple.”

“We reused stones as construction material for apartment buildings,” Shazly continued. “Even then, we looked at them as idolatry.”

“Recycling,” I laughed. “At NEOM, we call that a circular economy. But the British and the French didn’t appreciate them for their value either, did they?”

“Well, they kept them in their museums. Hopefully, someday we will get our pieces back, like the Greeks.”

As we walked, Shazly reminisced more. “This was my playground. That is where I used to play.”

“This was your home,” I said quietly. “This is where you were born. I’d be honored if you would show me your town through your eyes.”

“Modern-day Luxor, once known as Waset or Thebes, is sometimes called “the world’s greatest open-air museum,” he began. “It was Egypt’s capital for nearly 900 years from around 2000 BCE until the 11th century BCE.”

As we passed the statues of Ramses II, Shazly pointed out, “Our house was over there. Those cutouts are where modern houses from the 1930s to the 1960s were anchored into the temple walls before being demolished in the 1980s and 1990s.”

Some houses had been crafted from mud-brick, a mixture of Nile mud, clay, and sand, often mixed with bits of straw and manure. Others were built from concrete. Many were self-built by the urban poor without any permits.

“They were all illegal houses,” Shazly said. “But they were home. My family’s home, too.”

These homes were part of a low-income community within and around Luxor's temple walls. Some foreign embassies were even located within the temple sites.

Although the mud-brick houses are long gone and the temples are restored, this urbanized period, when families like Shazly’s lived here, is an important part of the temple’s history.

The Egyptian Revolution, or Arab Spring, of January 2011 protested poverty, unemployment, government corruption, and President Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic rule. These were the first large-scale protests in the Middle East advocating for social equity and poverty reduction. At one time, at least 17 million people lived in poor urban centers like this bootleg neighborhood nestled within a historic temple.

“Let me show you the rest of the temple of Luxor, my friend,” Shazly smiled.

As the sky darkened and Luxor’s lights twinkled around us, Shazly led me around the temple, sharing stories of Egyptian rituals and traditions.

“The temple was built by Amenhotep III in the early 14th century BCE and completed by Tutankhamun and Horemheb, then added to by Rameses II.

“This wasn’t a funerary temple, was it?”

“Oh no, this was a festival temple for the Opet Festival,” he replied. “Come, let me show you.”

Taking me to an eastern wall of the Colonnade Hall, Shazly spread his arms in front of a long mural.

Shazly explaining the Procession of the Opet Festival. “Behold, the Procession of the Opet Festival,” he smiled. “Look, the sun god Amun Ra.”

The large relief depicted Egyptians gathering for the Nile festival of rebirth and renewal. The artwork, with Amun Ra, his wife Mut, and their son Khonsu, felt both historical and spiritual.

The annual Opet festivals celebrated the procession of Amun Ra and his family from Karnak to Luxor. The intricate relief showed priests carrying sacred barques along an avenue of sphinxes, stopping for rest and offerings.

“Look at the dancers, musicians…celebrating,” Shazly pointed. “And there, the butchers, cooks, and farmers preparing the feast.”

“These are your people,” I gasped. “This isn’t just mythical; it’s historical. These are real people.”

“My people,” Shazly smiled. “My town. Let us continue.”

He directed me to the temple court of Amenhotep III, with double rows of columns adorned with papyrus leaves. At the rear were small rooms and an antechamber, once the innermost sanctuary of Amun Ra.

“Did you know Alexander the Great only spent six months in Egypt?”

“Doesn’t surprise me at all. What is this place?” I asked, staring at a large relief of a pharaoh being crowned.

“This is the antechamber to the sanctuary of Amun Ra and the granite shrine of Alexander the Great.”

Relief carving of Ramses II and the Tree of Life.

The scene depicted Alexander being crowned the rightful Egyptian king by Amun-Ra, Mut, and Khonsu.

“What a conquest,” I replied.

“He was dead in 10 years,” Shazly countered.

We quickly made our way out of the temple court to the surrounding grounds, where numerous numbered and cataloged temple stones lay.

“Come here,” Shazly whispered, leading me to a specific stone. “Do you see those marks?”

“They look like cuts. Graffiti?”

“My graffiti. My mother sent me here with her precious knives. They were an expensive commodity in the early 1970s. This is where I sharpened them for her. This place is very precious to me.”

“Shazly,” I breathed, touching the stone. We stood in reverent silence for a brief moment.

“Thank you for sharing this,” I said, patting him on the back as we continued through the temple. A crowd had gathered near the courtyard of Ramses II, mainly Chinese and European tourists, looking at hieroglyphic reliefs and lotus petal capitals of massive columns.

“Look behind them. I don’t think they even see them,” Shazly whispered, pointing to a seated pair of statues of a man and woman. “It’s right there.”

“A husband and wife?”

“A pharaoh and his queen. These are the only known statues of King Tutankhamun and his wife, Ankesenamun.”

“Oh my god!” I exclaimed, studying the statues in the dim light of the temple’s darkness.

They were of equal size, unlike many pharaonic statues where the wife is reduced to a diminutive figure at the knee of the pharaoh. Off to the side of the bustling crowd, we seemed to be the only ones to notice these hidden figures.

I wistfully turned away from the statues. I had never considered Tutankhamun and Ankesenamun as a couple, or a family. These sculptures made me wonder about their lives and their daughters — both ancestors and neighbors of families like Shazly’s.

As we departed the temple into the evening lights of Luxor, we exited through gates past the colossal sculptures of King Ramses II and the tiny figure of Queen Nefertari at his knee.

“I have one more thing to show you,” Shazly whispered as we left the gates of Luxor and crossed a broad plaza of wooden timbers. Construction workers were busy installing more boards.

Temple court, with cataloged stones and monuments, Luxor Temple.

“Is this for an excavation?” I asked, noticing the rough boards across a large area.

“Oh no, these are for events — festivals, weddings, concerts. Who wouldn’t want their wedding here in front of the gates of Luxor?” Shazly smiled.

As we continued across the platform, a row of small sphinxes, about two meters tall, appeared along the edge of a wide pedestrian corridor. Another row of sphinxes mirrored them on the other side.

“It’s an avenue,” I observed. “Where does it go?”

The Avenue of the Sphinxes outside of Luxor Temple.

“You see that mosque?” Shazly pointed to a row of buildings about four city blocks to the north. “It has to be moved.”

He then pointed to the right. “That’s a Coptic Christian Church. It also has to be moved. UNESCO is excavating the entire Avenue of the Sphinxes, but moving historical churches and mosques is no small feat. They’ve discovered 1,057 sphinxes so far. It runs nearly 3 kilometers north, all the way to Karnak Temple.”

“Holy smoke, Shazly, it’s a Line,” I remarked, grinning.

The Avenue of Sphinxes, also known as the Rams Road, is a 2.7-kilometer-long avenue flanked by sphinxes and ram-headed statues. It was buried under sand for centuries, with buildings constructed on top. Archaeologist Mohammed Zakaria Ghoneim rediscovered it in 1949, and it re-opened to the public in November 2021 after decades of restoration. The modern Opet Festival marked the event, with locals dressed in ancient Egyptian attire and three golden pharaonic barques carried by men in gold and black robes. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi opened the event.

I could see that the redevelopment of the Avenue of the Sphinxes could be a game-changer for Luxor’s economic future. After the turbulence of the 2011 Revolution and the setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic, I could feel a palpable buzzing with renewed anticipation of this tourism-based economy. More than a facelift for an old pathway, revitalizing the Avenue of the Sphinxes could be a strategic move, transforming a pivotal economic and cultural gateway for this ancient city. From an urban planning perspective, I could already imagine the influx of tourists, the surge in local commerce, and the revitalization of community spirit by reconnecting the temples of Luxor and Karnak with this ancient and iconic pathway. Luxor was on the cusp of a new era, and the Avenue of the Sphinxes might just be a key to unlocking its potential.