LUXOR, Egypt – Egyptian authorities on Thursday opened a restored 3,000-year-old ancient waterfront in the city of Luxor, the latest government project undertaken to showcase the country’s archaeological treasures.
Egypt is struggling to revive its tourism industry, hit by years of political turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak and more recently the coronavirus pandemic.
An ancient alley known as the Avenue of the Sphinxes, but also known as the Way of the Sheep and the Way of the Gods, connects the famous temples of Karnak and Luxor in the city of Thebes, which was the ancient capital of Egypt. … It is believed that this was the path that pilgrims walked to visit temples and pay tribute to their deities.
The restored Avenue of the Sphinxes during the opening ceremony in Luxor, Egypt. Photo by Mohamed Abd El Ghani / Reuters
The ancient road in Luxor, located on the banks of the Nile River and located about 650 km south of Cairo, with statues of rams and sphinxes on pedestals, stretches for several miles and is currently being excavated. over 50 years.
President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi, along with other high-ranking officials, attended an event created for television, a late evening ceremony celebrating an ancient fall holiday.
Mohamed Abd el-Baday, a senior Egyptian archeology official, said the oldest ruins along the way are six structures built by Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt’s only female pharaoh, dating back to 1400 BC.
He said that according to the hieroglyphics on the walls of one of the temples, the ancient festival was known as “Opet” and was celebrated with parades and dancers in honor of the bounty that the annual flooding of the Nile brought to the fields. According to the transcriptions, a flotilla of sacred boats was also heading to the temple.
Thursday’s event is the second brilliant ceremony this year to celebrate the heritage of Egypt. In April, the government organized a procession to commemorate the transfer of some of the famous mummies from the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo to the newly built museum south of the Egyptian capital.
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