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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