What the tourists were looking at....

Yesterday, I posted a photo of a group of tourists staring at the Colossi of Memnon. So today, I photographed the same Colossi

The Colossi of Memnon originally stood in front of the temple of Amenhotep III - the largest temple on the West Bank of Luxor. Unfortunately, after an earthquake in 27 BC, most of the temple collapsed, damaging rhe statues, and blocks from it were used by later pharaohs - Merenptah and his father, Rameses II.

It's one of my favourite places on the West Bank of Luxor, and excavations in the actual temple is shining light on this great pharaoh, who has been compared with Louis XIV, as the Egyptian empire was at the greatest during his reign. His son Amenhotep IV succeded him, but is better known as Akhenaten, the 'heretic Pharoah'.