Egypt plans spectacular reopening for Avenue of Sphinxes
Conservationists at work on Luxor’s Avenue of Sphinxes are preparing for a grand reopening ceremony at the site this month.
The avenue, known as El Kebbash Road and famed for the sphinx heads along both sides, has been restored as part of the effort to reinvigorate Egypt’s tourism sector, which has suffered during the coronavirus pandemic.
A procession involving hundreds of performers in period costume is planned from the Luxor Temple for Karnak Temple – Egypt’s most-visited heritage site after the Giza Pyramids.
“This procession will be nothing short of spectacular,” said Mostafa El Soghayar, who supervises the site.
“We expect it to surpass the grandeur of the Royal Mummies Parade,” he told The National, referring to the procession through Cairo in April of 22 mummies that were taken by road from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation.
The avenue, along with the two temples it connects, will become part of an open-air museum after years of excavations and restorations.
“Karnak is one of the oldest and most beautiful sites in the world. We are happy that it is finally getting the care it deserves,” Mr El Soghayar said. “Hundreds of the locals have been working day and night to bring the procession up to a level that will impress everyone.
“We want to pay our respect to ancient Egyptian culture, and there’s no better place to do that than Luxor.”
Details of the ceremony are being kept secret.
Nevine El Aref, a media adviser for the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, said the ceremony was “intended to be a complete surprise for everyone watching”.
The date for the reopening was originally chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the discovery on November 4, 1922, of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings, which is celebrated each year as an official holiday in Luxor province, but it has now been moved to later this month.
This year’s ceremony will also acknowledge the ancient Egyptian Opet Festival, which was predominantly celebrated in Thebes – as Luxor was known in the ancient world – and especially during the New Kingdom of 1550BC to 1069 BC.
The festival involved priests, civilians and noblemen making a processional walk from Luxor Temple to Karnak down the avenue during the second month of the Nile flooding season.
The ritual was a tribute to the god Amun-Ra, who was the principal deity of Thebes.
The 2.7-kilometre avenue that connects the temples is about 3,000 years old. Karnak is believed to have been built in tribute to Amun-Ra.
Unlike the sphinx at the Giza plateau, which has a human head, many of Karnak’s sphinxes have ram’s heads and lion’s bodies and serve as guardians to the ancient temple.
But at the other end of the avenue, closer to Luxor Temple, there are also several human-headed sphinxes.
Most of the surviving sphinxes date to the time of King Nectanebo, who reigned between 380 BC and 362 BC.
Over the centuries, many of the ancient Egyptian relics were damaged or buried. People even built homes on the avenue.
Structures that had to be taken down to make way for the excavations included a 115-yearold church and a 350-year-old mosque.
In its heyday, the avenue is believed to have been lined with 1,350 sphinxes.
Of these, 650 have been unearthed. Many others were believed to have been taken and repurposed during the Roman period and Middle Ages.
This procession will be nothing short of spectacular. We expect it to surpass the Royal Mummies Parade MOSTAFA EL SOGHAYAR
Luxor site supervisor