To display the excellence of this divine complex, included beneath (as in the concepts formation) are blueprints, drawings and photo plates from-site, with the intention to draw inspiration (and conclusions) of the harmony generated and transmitted in-site.
Temple of Man, Vol. II, Luxor Blueprints
Temple of Man, Vol. II, Luxor Photo Plates
Temple of Man, Vol. II, Luxor Drawings
Hymns of Luxor; Hymn to the Sun
Summary
Salute to Amun when he rises as Horus at the eastern horizon by Amun’s master of the works Suti, and by master of the works Hor. They say:
"Homage to you who is the perfect Ra of each day, who rises each morning without respite, and who is the Khepri burdened with work. We have your rays in our eyes and are not able to perceive them. The most pure gold is not comparable to your splendor. Carver whom you carved yourself, you have cast your own body. O sculptor who has never been sculpted. You who are done in your species, you who travel over the heights of eternity, and under whose Image are the ways of millions, such is your splendor, such is the splendor of the firmament; your colors are more brilliant than its colors.
When navigating you traverse the heavens, all men contemplate you; you continue (under the earth as well) hidden to their eyes. You present yourself in the morning as a daily task. The navigation of your barque is impeccable, under Your Majesty. In a short day you devour a space of millions of hundreds of thousands of miles. Each day is for you but a moment, and after traveling through it, you retire. In the same way you accomplish the hours of the night. You carry out this course without respite from your efforts.
All eyes see by your grace; and they cease to see when Your Majesty is retired. You put beings in movement in order to emerge. Your rays create the morning; they open the eyes that awaken. You lie down in the regions of Manu, and at the same instant they sleep as if they were dead.
Homage to you, Disk [Aten] of the day, who has created humans and who has given them life. Grand falcon of speckled plumage who has come in order to raise himself up by his own means, appearing of his own accord without being put in the world. Horus the elder who is in the middle of the celestial Nut, for whom gestures of joy are made at the rising as at the setting.
Founder of what produces the ground, Khnum. Amun of humans, who carries along with him the inhabitants of the Two Lands, from the greatest to the smallest. Beneficent mother of the Gods and of men, patient and untiring worker when he makes them in incalculable number. Valiant herdsman who leads his beasts; their shelter, he who gives them life.
He who hurries, he who runs, he who accomplishes his revolutions, Khepri of the illustrious birth, raising his perfection in the belly of celestial Nut, giving light to the Two Lands from his Disk [Aten], the primordial of the Two Lands, who created himself and who saw himself while he was creating himself.
Unique master, who reaches the extremity of the earths each day, viewved by those who circle on them, emerging as a figure who contemplates from on high what passes during the day. He composes the seasons with months, sets the atmosphere ablaze to his liking, makes the freshness of the air to his liking. He causes the human body to extend or to retract. The whole earth gesticulates like the monkeys who awaken at his rising each day to salute him."
The master of works, Suti, [or] the master of works, Hor, he says:
I am master in your Apit and director of works in your official sanctuary, which your son has made whom you love, the master of the Two Lands, Nebama’atre, gifted with life. My master has confided in the direction of your monuments, knowing my vigilance. I have been an energetic master in what concerns your monuments, having done things in conformity with your desires, because I know that you take pleasure in the observances of Ma’at. You make great he who practices it on earth; and, as I have practiced it, you have made me great. You have accorded me favors on earth in Karnak, because I take part in your retinue when you show yourself in public. I am an equitable man who has a horror of injustices. There is no man who prides himself on words of a liar, and in particular my brother, my double, with whom I share opinions, because he came of the belly (at the same time as me) on this blessed day.
The director of Amun’s works in Luxor, Suti [or] Hor [he says:]
WHereas I am the master in the west, he is tmaster in the east [and vice versa]. We are to direct great monuments in Apit, to the south of Thebes, city of Amun. Allow me to grow old in your city, to act bu ruling myself according to your perfection, to be at the west place of the heart’s peace. That I may be united with the favorites, continuing my way in peace. Give me a soft wind at the time of boarding, and may I receive the headbands of the day of the wag festival.
Temple of Man, Vol. II, General Views on Temple of Luxor, RA Schwaller de Lubicz.
Summary
The architectural or pictorial inscription of the pharaohs has no more an immediate, didactic goal than does the apple tree, the fruit of which is an apple and not a peach. The inscription is the description of the phases of knowledge, that is, of the cosmic geneses, expressed in radiant forms, speaking simultaneously of all aspects, from the physical to the spiritual.
At first glance, the architecture of the temple of Luxor is disconcerting. From the south sanctuary to the north pylon the axis continually deviates. Nearly every enclosure on the plan is irregular, what seems to be square has a rhomboidal form; the space between columns sometimes enlarges in the direction of the sanctuary, thus modifying the effect of perspective. Furthermore, the entire construction is executed in several phases. We could call the temple of Luxor a parthenon on the basis of its kinship in principle with the Parthenon of Athens. Its preferred designations is “theogamic” temple; but it is actually, in the profound sense of its consecration, the true Parthenon, that is, the temple dedicated to the spiritual conception of Man.
Even though they never acquiesced to aesthetic considerations, but only to the reality of the symbol, the pharaonic builders always adchieved masterpieces of harmony, even in the intentional deformities and distortions required to create symbolic and geometrical precision.
For them nothing was sensual, and this shocks our Western aesthetic sense. All becomes didactic, of an esoteric character, through the correct symbolique; it is a teaching for the understanding for the pure intellect, which no explicit word can describe.
We have a great many proofs that nothing in their work was the result of negligence, chance, or personal fantasy, enough to cause us to look for the hidden meaning under apparent disorder. To avoid this research would be miss the point of archaeology, which is to learn what the past to teach us, not to impose our own concepts on the Ancients.
The temple of Luxor can be compared with a Gothic cathedral. But in Christian architecture one must not confuse the basilica with the cathedral taken in the sense of the “high place of the teaching.” Karnak is the royal temple of synthesis, Luxor is the cathedral of high teaching.
The general plan is the cathedral corresponds to a precise canon: two towers, a narthex, a nave triple in principle with seven windows, and on the walls of which would later be drawn the Stations of the Cross. Then comes the transept and the entrance proper to the sanctuary.
The choir, separated from the transept by the rood screen, is itself divided according to the importance of the worship, with the altar being the table of daily sacrifice, and the repository carrying the Sacred Host in its silver, moon-shaped barque. In churches with the privilege to celebrate the papal mass, the bishop has his throne behind the altar, hidden from the public. It is there that he celebrates the sacrifice, as in the Holy of Holies (as in the case in Orthodox worship).
The arrange of the temple of Luxor is idnetical to that found in the canon of the Gothic cathedral. A double pylon here replaces the two towers; the court of Ramesses is the narthex; and the two rows of seven high columns with opened corollas together with the two side aisles, the walls of which are decorated with bas-refliefs depicting the procession of the barques, form the nave. After the nave with the two rows of seven columns comes the peristyle, jutting out to the east and west, forming a cross (the transept), then comes the covered temple and its striking parallel with the choir of the cathedral.
The high altar, here represented by the naos that contains the sacred barque (symbolizing the lunar crossing) is found in the choir proper, room VI, with rooms IV and VIII taking the place of the front choir. Originally, the room for the naos did not connect to the rooms to the south.
The side chambers, linked by room XII, recall the ambulatory around the choir; the twenty-seven small chapels opening onto the chambers indicated above would correspond to the “radiating chapels.” Finally, the central sanctuary room I, where the statue of Amun is found, is located in the place of the apsidal chapel.
The old tradition required the choir to be separated from the transept by a rood screen, and the ambulatory itself could be closed by decorative works such as wrought-iron grills, tombs, and so on. At Luxor there is no connection except for the central door opening into room VI, between what we call the “choir” and the rest of the temple; the chapels destined to receive the barques of Khonsu, Mut, and the king are only connected with the great hypostyle hall. It is thus these last chambers, along with room VII and the two small adjoining chambers, that would constitute the rood screen of the cathedral.