Wall decoration displaying the king's ritual interaction with gods. Luxor, Egypt

"Simultaneously, the temples depicted the world of gods. The walls and columns teem with gods who are standing, marching, sitting, communing with the king. The coinciding of these two levels of meaning signifies that Egypt's world was a sacred world. This visual cosmographic exposition was drawn into temple ritual so that the cultic performances interacted with the architectural features and the carved texts and reliefs. Architecture and decoration were integfral to the cultic proceedings." [Lanny Bell, 1997: The New Kingdom 'Divine' Temple: The Example of Luxor. Temples of Ancient Egypt. Cornell University Press]. "With the village of Karnak, Luxor (Al Uqsur) is on the site of ancient Thebes (capital of the New Kingdom). When Thebes declined, Luxor remained the more heavily populated part of the ancient city and grew into a modern market town." [The J.P.Getty Fund: Thesaurus of Geographic Names]. This photograph was taken when Eliot Elisofon was working on "The Nile" project and traveled to Africa from March 14, 1961 to March 31, 1961, visiting Egypt.