The opening of the first phase of the restoration project for the group of rams housed in the Karnak temples in Luxor
Tourists to "Minister of Tourism and Antiquities": We are happy to spend the early days of the new year in Luxor
This morning, Saturday morning, Dr. Khaled Al-Anani, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities and Counselor Mustafa inspired the Governor of Luxor, in the presence of Dr. Mustafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the works of the first phase of the restoration project of a group of rams' statues located behind the first pylon in the Temple of Amun Ra in the temples of Karnak in Luxor. Which included the completion of the restoration of 29 statues in the southern region, and a signal was given to start the implementation of the second phase, which includes restoring the rest of the 19 statues group in the northern region.
During the inauguration, the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities and the Governor of Luxor listened to a detailed explanation from the archaeologist Salah Al-Masakh about the work that was done to restore the statues of the rams, where the Minister thanked the restorers and workers who carried out this huge work, and also thanked the governor for the work done by the governorate to develop the city's infrastructure And the cornice.
Dr. Khaled Al-Anani explained that his presence today, on the second day of the new year, to the city of Luxor comes to encourage cultural tourism and support workers in the sector, expressing his happiness at the start of the return of cultural tourism, as there are now about 40 floating hotels operating between Luxor and Aswan, which a few days ago were about 10 hotels. Just floating.
The minister pointed out that 74% of the arrivals to the city are Egyptians who were keen to know the history and civilization of their ancient country, in addition to the one-day trips coming from Hurghada.
He added that the “Difficult in Egypt” initiative launched by the ministry in cooperation with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Chamber of Hotel Facilities will revive domestic tourism so that Egyptians visit the antiquities of their beautiful countries by granting a reduction in the prices of domestic air tickets to tourist cities, ranging between 1500 to 2000 Egyptian pounds. This is in addition to reducing hotel prices and granting a 50% reduction on tickets to enter museums and archaeological sites.
During his tour of the temples of Karnak, the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities met with a number of tourist groups from Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Switzerland who came to Luxor on day trips from Hurghada, and the tourists with these groups were keen to take memorial photos with the minister and the governor, expressing their happiness to spend the early days of the year New in Luxor, which they described as the best place to start the new year.
The tour was attended by a number of members of Parliament in Luxor, and Mr. Mohamed Othman, head of the Marketing Committee for Cultural Tourism in Upper Egypt.
The minister also inspected the excavations of the Egyptian archaeological mission headed by Mustafa al-Saghir, director of the Karnak temples, on the road to the major processions, where the foundations of the gate of the Khonsu Temple were discovered, which is a huge granite stone lintels reused from the era of King Thutmose III, in addition to inspecting the restoration work in the lobby of the columns The major.
Mr. Mohamed Othman, head of the Cultural Tourism Marketing Committee in Upper Egypt, indicated that the committee has set up excavation works in the procession of major celebrations on tourism excursion programs to inform tourists of what archaeologists are doing to discover the secrets of the ancient Egyptian civilization.
During his tour, the minister also visited the tourist market, where he met with a number of workers in the bazaars, listened to their problems, and told them about the “Shti in Egypt” initiative and its importance in stimulating domestic tourism.
The minister also explained to them some inquiries regarding the closing times of the bazaars, as they had a wrong belief in these dates, as the minister indicated that according to the decision of the Council of Ministers, the bazaars are closed every day at twelve in the morning except on Thursday and Friday at one o'clock in the morning.
The workers also spoke with the minister about the tourist bazaars licensing fees, as the minister indicated that a 50% reduction in tourist bazaars licensing fees has been made, stressing to them the importance of them being tourist licensed.
During the meeting, workers in the bazaars expressed their welcome to the Minister's visit, and their happiness at listening to their problems and promised them to work on solving them.
Learn about the works of restoration project for rams located behind the first pylon in the Temple of Amun-Ra in the temples of Karnak in Luxor:
Dr. Mustafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explained that this project is one of the largest restoration projects that have been implemented for nearly five decades, which began in December 2019, after the process of transferring 4 statues of these rams to Tahrir Square as part of the government's plan to develop the field. During the transfer process, it became clear that these rams were in a poor state of preservation and that they were suffering from collapse and loss of some of their parts, stressing that the decision of the Permanent Committee of Egyptian Antiquities at the Supreme Council of Antiquities was immediately issued to start an immediate comprehensive restoration project for them.
Examination and scientific studies have proven that the direct cause of the poor preservation of these rams is their exposure to wrong restoration work with inappropriate materials in the early seventies of the last century when establishing the sound and light project at the Karnak temples, where these rams were restored and raised on a layer of modern rubble covered with mortar Cement, red bricks and small pieces of stones, which negatively affected them and allowed underground water to seep in between their lower parts and reach the original stone bases of rams, which led to the transformation of some of its parts into sand powder, which helped in causing a tendency for some of these statues and a decline in some The other, in addition to some parts detached from the statues themselves. In addition to the growth of weeds and fungi inside the stone.
Saeed Zaki, head of the restoration department at Karnak temples, said that the restoration work of the first phase included different documentation methods, including photography and documentary drawings to show the signs of damage in the statues, and each ram was moved separately on flat pillows to start the procedures for the complete restoration, as mechanical cleaning was done for each A ram to remove dust, and strengthen the weak parts of it by using the materials designated for it and internationally recognized, as for the large parts, stainless steel was used to collect them.
After the restoration work was completed, these rams were placed on terraces, each one measuring 38m x 4m, to bear the weight of each ram, whose weight ranges between 5 to 7 tons.
Excavation works:
After the rams were raised, the work team carried out excavations around the row of rams and the bottom of the hollow bench, which resulted in the discovery of a group of reused pottery and stone blocks, and the members of the team are now working on their studies to find out the correct date for transferring these rams from their original place in the middle of the open courtyard to their current location. And that during the ancient Egyptian times.
About the Rams:
The rams of the southern row, depicting the head of a ram and the body of a lion, belong to King Ramesses II (1304-1237 BC).
These rams were present in front of the second pylon, which was the first edifice during the reign of King Ramses II, but King Taharqa (690-664 BC) transferred them to this place to build his temple in the middle of the open courtyard.
The French archaeologist “Georges Lagran” discovered between the years 1895-1910 AD, 9 statues from the eastern side, then discovered 10 other “Shafari” in 1926-1940 AD, and in 1924 AD the Egyptian antiquities inspector “Abdullah Abd al-Alim” discovered the number 11 tamales else.
