The Ramesseum and the Colossi of Memnon

UNESCO World Heritage Site: Ancient Thebes With Its Necropolis (1979). The Mortuary Temple Of Ramses II, Where The Fallen Colossus That Prompted Shelley'S Ozymandias Lies Broken In The Second Court, With Vaulted Mud Brick Storerooms Surviving Behind It And On The Road In, The Two Eighteen Metre Colossi Of Memnon That Everybody Photographs · Luxor, Luxor

Ramses II built his mortuary temple on the Theban west bank, floodwater undermined it, and the result is the most eloquent ruin in Egypt: the head and torso of a colossus that once stood eighteen metres high lie face-up in the second court, broken across the chest, which is the statue Shelley had in mind when he wrote Ozymandias without ever having seen it. Behind the temple the mud-brick storerooms survive with their barrel-vaulted roofs intact - the only place in Thebes where you can see how the economic machinery of a temple was actually built. On the road in sit the Colossi of Memnon, two seated figures of Amenhotep III left standing when their own temple washed away, and the northern one famously sang at dawn for two centuries after an earthquake cracked it, until a Roman emperor repaired it and the sound stopped. The Colossi take five minutes and everyone stops; the Ramesseum takes an hour and almost nobody does.

On the Theban west bank between the Colossi on the valley road and the cultivation edge, 3 km from Medinet Habu, Luxor, Luxor, Egypt

The Ramesseum opens daily from early morning to late afternoon with its own ticket, shorter in winter. Whether the vaulted mud-brick storerooms behind the temple are open varies with conservation work, so ask at the gate - they are the thing most worth seeing after the fallen colossus. The Colossi of Memnon stand beside the main valley road, are free, unfenced and open at any hour, and are a stop rather than a visit; coaches pull in constantly through the morning. Both sit on the standard west bank circuit, so the practical arrangement is a hired car or a bicycle from the ferry landing. Mornings are cooler and the light is better on the Colossi; the Ramesseum's courts are exposed and hot from mid-morning in any month after March.

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