Egypt's Avenue of Sphinxes to reopen

No Egypt tour would be complete without a trip to the city of Luxor, home to some of the country's most famous archaeological sites and ancient temples.

And now visitors to the region will be able to see one of Luxor's most important monuments, the Avenue of Sphinxes, which is due to reopen this month following the completion of a restoration project, reports Wanderlust.

The 2.7km path once linked the great temples of Luxor and Karnak temples and was lined with over 1,000 sphinx statues.

However, many of the statues were removed during the Roman period and Middle Ages and a large number are believed to be buried under the houses of modern Luxor, while a proportion of the remaining statues have been damaged through air pollution.

In 2004, the Egyptian government embarked on an $11 million (£7 million) project to restore the existing sphinxes and unearth some of those buried along the route.

Unfortunately, this meant closing the Avenue to tourists for several years, but the Ministry of Culture has now announced that 150m of the path will reopen in mid-March.

Built by the 30th Dynasty King Nectanebo I the Avenue of Sphinxes was the site of many important ancient ceremonies, such as the Beautiful Feast of Opet - an annual celebratory procession in Thebes, where statues of the gods Amun, Khonsu and Mut were carried down the passage from Karnak to Luxor.

During the excavation, ancient reliefs and cartouches of several kings and queens have been uncovered, including inscriptions of Queen Cleopatra's VII name.

Meanwhile, last month saw Egypt's Antiquities Minister announce the start of the final phase of construction of a major new museum in Cairo.

The Grand Egyptian Museum is scheduled for inauguration in 2015 and is being built on the Cairo-Alexandria Road, overlooking the Giza Pyramids.