Across the Nile from Luxor, the Theban Necropolis testifies to the same obsession with death and resurrection that produced the pyramids. The Necropolis straddled the lands of the living and the dead - verdant flood plain giving way to boundless desert, echoing the path of the dead "going west" to meet Osiris as the sun set over the mountains and descended into the underworld.

Though stripped of its treasures over thousands of years, the Necropolis keeps a peerless array of funerary monuments. The grandest of its tombs are in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, but there's also a wealth of detail in the smaller Tombs of the Nobles. Equally amazing are the mortuary temples which enshrined the deceased pharaoh's cult - among these, Deir el-Bahri is timelessly magnificent and Medinet Habu rivals Karnak for grandeur, while the shattered Ramesseum and Colossi of Memnon mock the pretensions of their founders.

The Colossi of Memnon

The main road passes the Colossi of Memnon, rearing nearly 18 metres above the fields. This gigantic pair of enthroned statues originally fronted the mortuary temple of Amenophis III, which later pharaohs plundered for masonry until nothing remained but the king's colossi. Both have lost their faces and crowns and the northern one was cracked at the waist by an earthquake in 27BC. This colossus was heard to "sing" at dawn - a sound probably caused by particles breaking off as the stone expanded, or wind reverberating through the cracks.

Previously, the sound had been attributed to the legendary Memnon, whom Achilles killed outside the walls of Troy, greeting his mother, Eos, the Dawn, with a sigh. The colossi had been identified with Amenhotep, Steward of Amenophis III, whom posterity honoured as a demigod long after his master was forgotten.

Medinet Habu

The entire Temple of Ramesses III, palace and town is enclosed within a defensive wall. Entry is through the Highgate, or Migdol, which, in appearance resembles an Asiatic fort. Just inside the Highgate, to the south, are the chapels of Amenirdis I, Shepenwepet II and Nitoket, wives of the god Amun. To the north side is the chapel of Amun. These chapels were a later addition dating to the 18th Dynasties, by Hatsepsut and Tutmose II. Later renovations were done by the Ptolemaic kings of the XXV Dynasty.

To the west is the temple itself, which was styled after the Ramesseum. On the north wall of the temple are reliefs depicting the victory of Ramesses with the Sardinians, Cretans, Philistines and the Danu. This was perhaps the greatest victory in ancient Egypt. Pharaoh watched as the invaders crossed the plains, destroying everything in their path.