Wednesday 26 March 2014

Two new statues of a Pharaoh found


Two colossal statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III were, on Sunday, unveiled in Egypt’s famed temple city of Luxor, adding to an existing famous pair of world-renowned tourist attractions.
Visitors the newly-displayed statue of Pharaoh Amenhotep III in Egypt's temple city of Luxor on March 23, 2014. PHOTO C/O AFP
Archaeologists raised the two monoliths in red quartzite at a site described as their original places in the funerary temple of the king, on the west bank of the Nile.
Hourig Sourouzian, the German-Armenian archaeologist who head the restoration project stated: “The statues had lain in pieces for centuries in the fields, damaged by destructive forces of nature like earthquake, and later by irrigation water, salt, encroachment and vandalism."

The new statues add ti the temple’s famous 3,400-year-old Memnon colossi — twin statues of Amenhotep III whose reign marked the political and cultural zenith of ancient Egyptian civilization.

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