The hieroglyphs are on the wall

REDUCED to ant-like proportions in a forest of 65ft-high, hieroglyph-carved columns, our group stood a mere arm’s length from 3,500 years of history. ‘Karnak was the holy shrine of ancient Egypt,’ my guide Mohammed explained of the vast temple-within-a-temple, crowned the largest surviving religious complex in the world. ‘Some pharaohs chiselled away pictures of their predecessors in an attempt to wipe out their memory,’ Mohammed continued, pointing to a gouged-out face in a sandstone wall.

Karnak is one of a rich cache of monuments that lure modern-day-pilgrims such as me to Egypt’s legendary city of Luxor, home to two-thirds of the ancient world’s antiquities. Many ornament the fertile banks