From the Middle Ages, the population of Luxor had settled in and around the temple, at the southward end of the mount. Due to this, centuries of rubble had accumulated, to the point where there was an artificial hill some in height. The Luxor Temple had begun to be excavated by Professor Gaston Maspero after 1884, once he had been given permission to commence operations. The excavations were sporadic until 1960. Over time, accumulated rubbish of the ages had buried three quarters of the temple which contained the courts and colonnades which formed the nucleus of the Arab half of the modern village. Maspero had taken an interest earlier, and he had obtained the post of Mariette Pasha to complete the job in 1881. Not only was there rubbish, but there were also barracks, stores, houses, huts, pigeon towers, which needed to be removed in order to excavate the site. (There still exists a working mosque within the temple which was never removed.) Maspero received from the Egyptian minister of public works the authorization needed to obtain funds in order to negotiate compensation for the pieces of land covered by the houses and dependencies.
