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The Sofitel Winter Palace Hotel, also known as the Old Winter Palace Hotel, is a historic British colonial-era 5-star luxury resort hotel located on the banks of the River Nile in Luxor, Egypt, just south of Luxor Temple, with 86 rooms and 6 suites.
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The Sofitel Winter Palace Hotel, also known as the Old Winter Palace Hotel, is a historic British colonial-era 5-star luxury resort hotel located on the banks of the River Nile in Luxor, Egypt, just south of Luxor Temple, with 86 rooms and 6 suites.
The hotel was built by the Upper Egypt Hotels Co, an enterprise founded in 1905 by Cairo hoteliers Charles Baehler and George Nungovich in collaboration with Thomas Cook & Son (Egypt). It was inaugurated on Saturday 19 January 1907, [1] with a picnic at the Valley of the Kings followed by dinner at the hotel and speeches. [2]
The architect was Leon Stienon, the Italian construction company G.GAROZZO & Figli Costruzioni in Cemento Armato, Sistema SIACCI brevettato.
During World War I the hotel was temporarily closed to paying guests and employed as a hospice for convalescing soldiers. A regular guest at the hotel from 1907 on was George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, better known simply as Lord Carnarvon. Carnarvon was the patron of Egyptologist Howard Carter, who in 1922 discovered the intact tomb of Tutankhamun. After the discovery was announced the Winter Palace played host to the international press corps and foreign visitors there to follow the story. Carter used the hotel's noticeboard to deliver occasional news and information on the discovery.
In 1975 the complex was expanded with the construction of the New Winter Palace. The addition, classified as a 3-star hotel, was joined by corridors to the original. It was demolished in 2008.
In 1996, the Pavillon, a 4-star annex with 116 rooms, was built in the rear garden of the Winter Palace, close to the swimming pool. The Pavillon shares many amenities with the Winter Palace, including the gardens, pools, tennis courts, terraces and restaurants.
The hotel is owned by the Egyptian General Company for Tourism & Hotels ("EGOTH") of Egypt and managed by Accor, a French Hotel company, where it is part of the prime division Sofitel.
The Hotel is featured on the exclusive Palace Hotels of the World.
The Winter Palace has 5 restaurants. The 1886 Restaurant, which serves French cuisine, is named after the date the hotel inaccurately advertises that it was founded. It and the la Corniche Restaurant (international cuisine) are both located in the historic Palace wing. The Bougainvilliers (international cuisine) is in the Pavilion wing, while the Palmetto (Italian cuisine and snacks) and the El Tarboush (Egyptian cuisine) are in the garden close to the swimming pool.
In 2004, it was used as a filming location for Death on the Nile , an episode of the popular ITV TV series Agatha Christie's Poirot . [3] [4]
Howard Carter was a British archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922, the best-preserved pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings.
Tutankhamun, Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen, commonly referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the 18th Dynasty during the New Kingdom of Egyptian history. His father is believed to be the pharaoh Akhenaten, identified as the mummy found in the tomb KV55. His mother is his father's sister, identified through DNA testing as an unknown mummy referred to as "The Younger Lady" who was found in KV35.
George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon,, styled Lord Porchester until 1890, was an English peer and aristocrat best known as the financial backer of the search for and excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. His country house, Highclere Castle, served as the filming location of the ITV/PBS television series Downton Abbey.
Egypt has had a legendary image in the Western world through the Greek and Hebrew traditions. Egypt was already ancient to outsiders, and the idea of Egypt has continued to be at least as influential in the history of ideas as the actual historical Egypt itself. All Egyptian culture was transmitted to Roman and post-Roman European culture through the lens of Hellenistic conceptions of it, until the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics by Jean-François Champollion in the 1820s rendered Egyptian texts legible, finally enabling an understanding of Egypt as the Egyptians themselves understood it.
Arthur Edward Pearse Brome Weigall was an English Egyptologist, stage designer, journalist and author whose works span the whole range from histories of Ancient Egypt through historical biographies, guide-books, popular novels, screenplays and lyrics.
Egypt is a BBC television docudrama serial portraying events in the history of Egyptology from the 18th through early 20th centuries. It originally aired on Sunday nights at 9 pm on BBC1 in 2005. The first two episodes explored the work of Howard Carter and his archaeological quest in Egypt in the early part of the twentieth century. The next two episodes focused on the eccentric explorer "The Great Belzoni" played here by Matthew Kelly. The final two episodes dramatise the discovery and deciphering of the Rosetta Stone by Jean-François Champollion.
Herbert Eustis Winlock was an American Egyptologist and archaeologist, employed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for his entire career. Between 1906 and 1931 he took part in excavations at El-Lisht, Kharga Oasis and around Luxor, before serving as director of the Metropolitan Museum from 1932 to 1939.
Theodore M. Davis was an American lawyer and businessman. He is best known for his excavations in Egypt's Valley of the Kings between 1902 and 1913.
Death on the Nile is a 1978 British mystery film based on Agatha Christie's 1937 novel of the same name, directed by John Guillermin and adapted by Anthony Shaffer. The film features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, played by Peter Ustinov for the first time, plus an all-star supporting cast that includes Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, Jane Birkin, David Niven, George Kennedy, and Jack Warden. The film is a follow-up to the 1974 film Murder on the Orient Express.
Pierre Lacau was a French Egyptologist and philologist. He served as Egypt's director of antiquities from 1914 until 1936, and oversaw the 1922 discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings by Howard Carter.
The curse of the pharaohs or the mummy's curse is a curse alleged to be cast upon anyone who disturbs the mummy of an ancient Egyptian, especially a pharaoh. This curse, which does not differentiate between thieves and archaeologists, is claimed to cause bad luck, illness, or death. Since the mid-20th century, many authors and documentaries have argued that the curse is 'real' in the sense of having scientifically explicable causes such as bacteria or radiation. However, the modern origins of Egyptian mummy curse tales, their development primarily in European cultures, the shift from magic to science to explain curses, and their changing uses—from condemning disturbance of the dead to entertaining horror film audiences—suggest that Egyptian curses are primarily a cultural, not scientific, phenomenon.
Tutankhamun's mummy was discovered by English Egyptologist Howard Carter and his team on October 28, 1925 in tomb KV62 of Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Tutankhamun was the 13th pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom of Egypt, making his mummy over 3,300 years old.
PS Sudan is a passenger-carrying side-wheel paddle steamer on the River Nile in Egypt. Along with PS Arabia, she was one of the largest river steamers in Thomas Cook's Nile fleet. Some scenes of the ITV television film of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile were filmed aboard Sudan.
Arthur Cruttenden Mace was a Tasmanian-born English archaeologist and Egyptologist. He is best known for his work for the New York Metropolitan Museum, and as a part of Howard Carter's team during the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb.
The Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan Hotel, commonly known as the Old Cataract Hotel, is a historic British colonial-era 5-star luxury resort hotel located on the banks of the River Nile in Aswan, Egypt. It was built in 1899 by Thomas Cook and opened under the name Cataract Hotel. In 1961 the hotel was expanded with the addition of a new tower wing, operating as the budget wing of the hotel. From 2008 to 2011 the hotel was closed and underwent a complete restoration, reopening in October 2011 as the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan Hotel.
Lists of adaptations of the works of Agatha Christie:
Lady Evelyn Leonora Almina Beauchamp was the daughter of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon. In November 1922, she, her father and the archaeologist Howard Carter were the first people in modern times to enter the tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun. She later married Sir Brograve Beauchamp and had a daughter. Lady Evelyn died in 1980, at the age of 78.
Albert Morton Lythgoe was an American archaeologist and Egyptologist. He is best known for his work for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, and for the support he gave to the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb, he releasing several key Metropolitan Museum staff to assist Howard Carter.
Aten, properly called The Dazzling Aten though dubbed initially by archaeologists the Rise of Aten, is the remains of an ancient Egyptian city on the west bank of the Nile in the Theban Necropolis near Luxor. Named after Egyptian sun god Aten, the city appears to have remained relatively intact for over two millennia. Since excavation began in late 2020, it is emerging as the largest city of its kind in ancient Egypt, with a remarkable degree of preservation, leading to comparisons with Pompeii.
The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 by excavators led by the Egyptologist Howard Carter. Whereas the tombs of most pharaohs were plundered in ancient times, Tutankhamun's tomb was hidden by debris for most of its existence and therefore not extensively robbed. It thus became the first known largely intact royal burial from ancient Egypt.
Landmarks of Luxor | ||
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