Many festivals were celebrated in Thebes, the capital of Pharaonic Egypt comprised of what is today Luxor and Karnak. The Temple of Luxor was the center of the most important one, the festival of Opet. Built largely by AMENHOTEP III and Ramses II, it appears that the temple's purpose was for a suitable setting for the rituals of the festival. The festival itself was to reconcile the human aspect of the ruler with the divine office. The Avenue of the Sphinxes connects this temple with that of Karnak.

Luxor temple is the modern name for Theban religious site dedicated to the religious group of AMUN Kamutef, consisting of the ipet-resyt (temple of the southern private quarters or southern harim), which was founded in the reign of AMENHOTEP III (1390-1352 BC) and augmented by successive pharaohs, including RAMESES II (1279-1213 BC) and ALEXANDER THE GREAT (332-323 BC). The primary function of the original temple was as a setting for the FESTIVAL of Opet, in which the cult statue of the god Amun was carried annually along an avenue of sphinxes leading from the temple of the Amun at Karnak to Luxor. One of the purposes of the Opet festival was enable the human king to merge with his divine royal KA in the presence of Amun, and then to reappear with his royal and divine essence revived. The inscriptions in the temple describe emerges from the inner sanctuary.

The processional colonnade (row of pillars) at Luxor, constructed by AMENHOTEP III and later usurped by HOREMHEB (1323-1295 BC), is flanked by a wall painting depicting the celebration of the Festival of Opet, which is one of the few surviving examples of temple relief from the reign of TUTANKHAMUN (1336-1327 BC). The per style court, the pylon entrance and two OBELISKS were added by Ramses II. The pylon contained TALATAT BLOCKS deriving from a now-destroyed temple to the ATEN. Only one of the obelisks remains; the other, given to the French in 1819, now stands in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The main sanctuary of the temple, which had perhaps fallen into bad condition by the Late Period (747-332 BC), was reconstructed in the late fourth century BC by Alexander the Great, who claims to have restored it to its original state in the time of AMENHOTEB.

The temple was transformed into a shrine of the imperial cult in the Roman period and eventually partially overbuilt by the mosque of Abu Haggag. In 1989 a cachette of exquisitely carved stone statuary (similar to the KARNAK cachette) was excavated from beneath the floor of the court of AMENHOTEP III. The statues, dating mainly to the 18th Dynasty (1550-1295 BC), had perhaps been buried there by the priesthood in order to protect them from the raiding of invaders.

Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty) built a mortuary temple in Thebes that was guarded by two gigantic statues on the outer gates. All that remains now are the 19.5m statues of Amenhotep. Though damaged by nature and ancient tourists, the statues are still impressive. Long after Amenhotep the Greeks decided that the statue represented their hero, Memnon, son of Eos, who fought in defense of Troy and was slain by Achilles.