History in the making, Luxor Temple gets a face lift

For the first time in hundreds of years if not thousands, Luxor temple facade gets an addition. Ramses II statue which was broken into pieces.

An Egyptian team of restorers and conservators managed to assemble the statue and re-erect it where it used to be.

The video below shows the different stages of work.

The video below shows the moment when the statue was revealed.

#Egypt #Luxor #Egyptology #WorldHeritageDay #Egyptology #RamsesII #LuxorTemple

Two reliefs are reported missing or maybe stolen from Luxor temple.

The two objects are 12cm height each. One of them is 14cm width and the other is 18cm width.

Different reports have been flying all over the place. Luxor Times will be giving you the facts and details later today.

Click HERE to the pictures Luxor Times published when the Open Air Museum at Luxor temple was first opened in March 2010.
 

Also there are videos were filmed few months ago shows the lack of security at the temple

http://youtu.be/7qgRRV7lhC4

 #Egypt #Luxor #LuxorTemple

Exclusive footage: Sphinx Avenue ongoing work and issues

The videos below were recorded on the 10th,16th and 21st of September showing the ongoing work on the Sphinx Avenue.

Installing the lighting system on the morning of 23rd of March 2012

This first videos shows two people carrying a water pipe that was broken during the digging work. 
(10th September 2013)

An argument over the broken water pipe as it worth according to the one who didn't get it between 100 to 150 Egyptian Pounds. (10th September 2013)

Children playing and hanging of a cable over the working area of the Sphinx Avenue while other at a further end were dumping rubbish down there.(16th September 2013)

The videos below were recorded on the 21st of September 2013.

How was it like a week before this work start? Check our exclusive footage for a walk down the Sphinx Avenue all the way from Karnak to Luxor temple (Here)

Exclusive footage: A walk down the Avenue of Sphinx, all the way!

First of all, we would like to thank you for all of your past support. You may have noticed that the Luxor Times profile on Facebook has gone through some changes in the last few days and we would like to explain what's going on. Facebook converted our profile into a page, causing every post to be (temporarily!) lost. We are now working to retrieve our old content and once again make it accessible to you, all while keeping everything as chronologically correct as possible. Because of this, you are going to see some old stories pop up in your feed once again.

Once this process is over, we will go right back to keeping you informed about what’s happening through up to date information, as well as exclusive photographs and videos.

So we would like to apologise for not publishing a couple of reports as we got the material and we will start with this exclusive footage of the Sphinx Avenue march from Karnak to Luxor temple

On September 3rd, this series of videos were recorded to cover the whole avenue walking south from Karnak Temple to Luxor temple.

This was all recorded in the same sequence below and the only seconds not shown are the few seconds it took to get to the main road again and to the other section of the Sphinx Avenue.

Five days later, there was ongoing work which we will publish more footage showing it tomorrow.

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New date for opening ceremony of the Sphinx Avenue. Will it happen this time?

For nearly 4 years few dates were set for the opening ceremonies of the Avenue of Sphinx. This time the Minister of Antiquities says the opening will be in the middle of December 2013 and it will be attended by the head of the World Tourism Organisation. Is it really going to be finished and open to public then? Will the Minister himself still be in office by December?
Time will tell and when it happens of course we will be there.

For more details and exclusive footage of the Sphinx Avenue including the only photos during the trials of the lighting system in one section, check the links below.

Sphinx Avenue story Part 1

Sphinx Avenue story Part 2

Sphinx Avenue story Part 3    The Avenue lit up for the first time

Minister said "Threats to vandalise Luxor & Karnak temples, Armoured vehicles stationed for security." Really?!

Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, Minister of Antiquities, said and confirmed that the armed forces have stationed armoured vehicles in different parts of the country to secure sites since Monday night including Luxor temple, Karnak temples, Abu Fana monastery in Mallawi, museum storage in Bahnsa and the Nubian museum in Aswan.
This happened after receiving threats from extremist groups to attack,rob and vandalise different sites. All the sites now are totally secured.

That was an official statement by the Minister of Antiquities, when we received it so we wanted to check in the ground and provide photos for our readers but what we found was completely different.

We went to Karnak temple first after an hour from receiving the Minister' statement, nearly 1:30pm. There were no army or armoured vehicles at all in sight unlike how it was in January 2011, security was as normal, a Police car at the entrance of the parking.
We walked towards the tickets window from the Corniche side to find it closed. Walked into the visitors centre and it was so quiet till we managed to find the ticket man who said there were only 52 visitors today including 5 Egyptians and 20 foreign primary school students beside one bus from Hurghada for the first time since last Wednesday.

We got a ticket and walked around the temple to the far ends in all directions and no one beside few inspectors were sitting at the entrance or the guards laying on the ground trying to get some rest other than that, we had the temple for ourselves and it was so quiet like a ghost town including the bag that gets blown by the mild wind and the birds flying at our sight as it is not so peaceful for them anymore.

We even walked though till we got into areas where there should be no entry as excavation work still going but the paths were not blocked and the blocks were everywhere. Also as what happens when a town get deserted over night, tools and equipment were left in situ unattended.

No one at all stopped us and if we wanted we could have even moved blocks or fragments around.

The videos below shows every second of our adventure which continued in Luxor temple where the guards were totally asleep that one of them were snoring and didn't even feel us and the other had the radio on the news of Cairo next to him. 
We need to mention here that we don't want the poor guards to get told off or an inspector or one of the staff to get a deduction of their wage.
We have no doubt that local Egyptian people are the true guards of their own history and even with no armoured vehicles in sight, they will stop anyone who would try to destroy their heritage because that's a part of the Egyptian people's identity.

The point is to tell Mr. Minister to check his facts before making a statement to the world and if there are threats so they have to be taken seriously.

 Karnak Temple videos

 Luxor Temple adventure

P.S: This post was meant to be published on Tuesday 20th but due to technical problems during uploading the videos, it was delayed. 

The latest photos of the working process in the Sphinx Avenue (26th January)

After our report of the state of the Sphinx Avenue and how it was used as a rubbish dump (Read Here) and the follow up in the last printed issue of Luxor Times (Here) and the latest announcements concerning the Avenue and the partial opening in March 2012 (More details Here), There was a slow work has been going on lately in one section of the avenue which the Minister State of Antiquities, Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim said it will be excavated and not included in the opening ceremony in March. 

Luxor Times shows the area as it is on January 26^th 2012.

 We hope to see more progress soon.

Sphinx Avenue or Sphinx rubbish dumps??? The current status of the Sphinx Avenue, Luxor

The press release from the Ministry state of Antiquities and the announcements were made by Governor of Luxor in the past few weeks about the Grand opening of the Sphinx Avenue after restoration.

During the reign of Dr. Samir Farag (Former governor of Luxor) hundreds of families were forced to leave their homes in order to start the excavation work to retrieve the Sphinx Avenue and few dates were set for the Grand opening starting when Hosni Mubarak (Former President) was on a visit to Luxor in December 2009 and said that he will come in March for the opening and the newspapers and media sources spread the news and the work was going on almost 24 hours a day in 3 sectors of the avenue that was divided into 5 phases. When the former President had to fly to Germany for medical treatment around the same time he was supposed to visit Luxor so the work stopped or slow down big time as the need to finish for the show was not there. Also another problem arose which Dr. Mansour Boraik talked about in his lecture about the ongoing work at the Mummification museum in December 2009/January 2010, when he said that Telecom Egypt was asking for 7 million Egyptian pounds to move the cables so the SCA could commence their work on the Sphinx Avenue in that sector. At that time many people couldn’t understand or see any sense that Telecom Egypt asking for that money and the SCA as Dr. Mansour Boraik couldn’t afford to pay them while they are moving premises anyway and Telecom Egypt is a national company which 80 % of its share owned by the Egyptian government (Check here)so it seemed like the Egyptian government asking the Egyptian government for money to be able to continue working on an Egyptian project on Egyptian soil that would benefit the Egyptian tourism industry as it was announced by the Egyptian officials. Does it make sense? Anyway,

Few months later the work was going on again as the former Prime Minister was coming to Luxor then slowed down again then it was announced that the President will visit Luxor for the Grand Opening of the massive project with the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi and dignitaries from all over the world in February 2011 so of course work was on again till the recent turmoil in Egypt.
Lately the new governor of Luxor announced in a couple of occasions in May 2011 that the Sphinx Avenue will be opened in September then he said October without any referring to the Ministry of Antiquities that is actually responsible for the work, of course in co-operation with Luxor governorate but the technical work is the MSA responsibility. Well, it doesn’t matter who announce what but wait a minute .... In their press release, the MSA stated that the grand opening will be in October by the current Egyptian Prime Minister, Esam Sharaf. There is supposed to be Parliamentary elections in Egypt in September and the majority will be obligated to form a new government so the current Prime Minister might not be in office but someone would say this is just a technicality and we shouldn’t stop at it.
Since the work started on the Avenue and the sector behind Mubarak Library is the base where all officials go to stand there and see the fine work that has been done on the Avenue in that area and the new discovery of the Greco-Roman wine making station and take the photos for the media coverage. Is this why the president of the Sound and Light Company of Egypt stated that “The company will use a new, advanced type of lighting to focus on the avenue and additional archaeological discoveries, such as workshops and wine factories dating to the Greco-Roman period.”
We are not against any person here or the idea of promoting for Luxor and commencing more archaeological projects all over Egypt ... But at least can the officials be reasonable and accurate in their announcements if there is a work plan with specific and defined objectives?
The other issue here is the status of the Sphinx Avenue as of Today. The pictures below and the video were taken only hours earlier will show the status of the Avenue and the non going work there.
Does this look like a project waiting for a Grand opening in 3 months time? Even so ... how it was left to get to that state? Children ride on top on the Sphinx (unfortunately, there is no picture here to prove it) and people dumping their rubbish there. Could anyone think about how families who used to live for years in their homes there would feel now seeing a historical site of over 4000 years old and what used to be their home location used as a rubbish dump?  Where is the security?
All that work and expenses while other sites needs immediate intervention to move a road few meters to allow the excavation work to complete or so.
One of the examples about the conflict in the ideas between different parties involved in such a project when the former governor’s idea to solve the problem of how people would get from one side to the other of the avenue by planning for bridges over the avenue with a circular shape and eye of Horus in the middle, an official from the SCA said in a different occasion that it is a silly idea without referring to whom idea it was.
Where are the site management master plans? Would it have been better if there was a plan with exact date for the work from beginning? If there was any so what happened to it? Who did put those plans?
Why the complete comprehensive master plans like KV masterplan which were produced by experts like Dr. Kent Weeks and Theban Mapping project team(Check Here), not to be considered as a base with other master plans and put together after discussions between different teams to put a master plan by people who have hands- on projects in the area not to pay to a foreign company to come and make a plan of an area they know nothing about and with no consideration of the potential threats(archaeologically and socially).

Waiting to hear from you ... please send us your comments and views