Opening of Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor

On 25 Nov 2021 at 07:30 PM Cairo local time

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"Everything in the heart of the action suggests that a rare legendary event is approaching."

Everything is going in full swing, and no sound rises above the sound of the great tourist celebration of the opening of the Pharaonic Avenue of Sphinxes after its renovation today November 25, 2021, at 07:30 PM, in Luxor, Egypt.

Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor

The Egyptian archaeological governorate is adorned in preparation for the global event, with the opening of the Avenue of Sphinxes, which is one of the most important tourist attractions in the world, and the largest open museum on earth.

Details of the opening of the new Avenue of Sphinxes

Luxor Temple

The idea of this date to celebrate the opening of the Avenue of Sphinxes is the anniversary of the marriage of the god "Amon" with the goddess "Amont", and the procession comes out of the Karnak temples with special sacred boats that include statues of deities, in the direction of Luxor Temple, carried on the shoulders of the priests.

The special sacred boats

These celebrations are accompanied by manifestations of joy such as music, dancing, singing, military ceremonies, sacrificing sacrifices, offering perfumes and gifts, and during the ceremony, a simulation of this exceptional scene will be implemented.

Information on Avenue of Sphinxes after renovation

The Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor

The fun did not stop there. On both sides of the road, dazzling night lights have been added, so that the tourists can see the antiquities in an atmosphere that introduces them to the fragrant history and the past while paving the road with sandstone tiles and restoring some of its parts to remain in the same archaeological condition that it was in since The dawn of history so far.

The Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor

What is the Avenue of Sphinxes?

The Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor

The Avenue of Sphinxes connects Luxor Temple in the south and Karnak Temple in the north, with a length of 2,750 meters and a width of 76 meters, on its sides there are statues dating back more than 3,500 years, numbering 1,059 statues, separated by 4 meters.

All you need to know about the Avenue of Sphinxes

Five thousand years ago, an "Avenue of Sphinxes" was established for the processions of sacred kings. The king leads the procession and is followed by people such as ministers, senior priests and statesmen.. in addition to sacred boats loaded with statues of symbols of pharaonic religious beliefs. The road was witnessing the celebrations of "Opet" and feasts and the coronation of kings with a festive procession between Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple annually.

Sphinxes and Rams

The Pharaonic Avenue of Sphinxes is a charm from the history of the Pharaonic civilization located in the heart of Luxor to this day for thousands of years. It is through historical celebrations that include statues of the Sphinx or Rams with a length of 2,700 meters from Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple, and in Pharaonic times the number of Rams in the two rows 1300 Rams, between each Ram and Ram 4 meters, and the length of each Ram is about 2.50 meters. The road between each Ram and the last was decorated with a circle planted with flowers and connected to water channels to irrigate the flowers. Currently, of all those 1,300 Rams, there are no more than 300 of the original Rams, and the rest of the Rams are remnants that were destroyed in the eras that followed the Pharaonic eras.

The construction of this road began at the hands of King Amenhotep III, who started the construction of the Luxor Temple, but the largest share of the implementation is due to King Nectanebo I, founder of the Pharaonic Thirty Dynasty, the last dynasty of the era of the Pharaohs. The road is 2.72 km long, 700 meters wide, and lined on both sides. 1300 statues, each carved from a single block of sandstone, and erected in two forms, The first took the shape of the body of a lion and the head of a person, considering the lion as one of the symbols of the sun god. The second body was in the form of Ram’s body and Ram’s head, a symbol of the god Khnum, the god of fertility in the ancient Egyptian religion, whom they sanctified as the creator god of all humanity.

In the Pharaonic eras, the "Avenue of Sphinxes" was a grand procession of the kings of the pharaohs, and various feasts were celebrated inside it, including the "Opet Festival", the coronation feast of the king and various national holidays coming out of it, and in the past, there was a huge stone dam that protected the road from the western side from Luxor, the political capital in the modern state (18th dynasty) and the religious capital until Roman times, explaining that the Avenue of Sphinxes or the way of the god, was the one that extended in ancient pharaonic times from the temple of Luxor to the temple of Karnak.

Avenue of Sphinxes (Rams)

The Ram in the road symbolizes the god Amun, perhaps to protect the temple and highlight its axis, which the ancient Egyptians had called "Wat-nTr" meaning God's Way. On a base of stone made of 4 courses of stone used, due to the presence of some inscriptions, it is erected in two forms, the first takes the form of a lion's body and a human head (the Sphinx), and the second takes the form of Ram's body and Ram's head as a symbol of the machine "Amon Ra".

The Avenue of Sphinxes is one of the greatest historical works, as it is an unprecedented global corridor, but it is currently destroyed by the factors of time and the passage of thousands of years on it, and citizens built their homes on the road after the theft of its lofty statues throughout different ages.