Monday, April 1, 2013
New Discovery, Luxor: Amenhotep III temple from Rediscovery to Reassembling
11 April 2011 … During the current excavation at the Amenhotep III temple on west bank,Luxor, a statue of Amenhotep III was found. Dr. Zahi Hawass says “This statue was one of two statues once stood at the northern entrance of Amenhotep III and they were probably destroyed during the earthquake took place in Egypt in 27 B.C and they were buried since then.” Zahi added “at the moment the process of restoring the statue and putting it together is ongoing to re-erect the statue in its original site. The head of the statue is still buried underground and excavation is on. Probably the discovery of the other Amenhotep statue will be found during this season.
11 FEBRUARY 2013 … The Egyptian European mission working on Amenhotep III temple in Kom El Hettan, started the process of moving 2 statues of Amenhotep III after discovering them in a plot of land next to the temple on the west bank. Those two statues are considered the largest of Amenhotep III. Each of the limestone statues are of 14m high, based on 4m high base. The statues represented the King standing at the northern entrances of the temple. They were discovered in 1933 then re-discovered and recently they were submerged in irrigation water in the agriculture area and required a quick intervention to safe and move the statues.
18 FEBRUARY 2013 ... the minister of Antiquities in co-operation with the European mission headed by Dr. HourigSourouzian started moving the blocks and massive parts of the two statues of Amenhotep III, in order to restore and re-erect them.
After the two statues are moved to their new location, the restoration will start immediately guided by an inscription found on the back of one of the statues showing how the statues looked when it was erected which give a clear idea on how it should be like and will help in restoring them successfully in order to open them to public as also a lights’ system will be installed to turn them into a new tourist attraction spot.
A German team participating in the project which is funded by the German side to move the statues 60 meters to make sure they are safe then the restoration project will start which will include rejoining more than 20 blocks to the statues.
25 MARCH 2013 ... The Egyptian-European mission celebrated the end of the first season by holding an event to start reassembling the two colossal statues of Amenhotep III on concrete pedestals which were constructed especially for that.
Two colossi of Amenhotep III were standing at the North Gate of the Funerary Temple of the king, facing north. Each was a monolith of quartzite hewn in the quarries of Gebel El-Ahmar near Ancient Heliopolis, and transported to Thebes to precede the Northern Gate of the funerary temple precinct of Amenhotep III. Both colossi represent the king striding, crowned by the white crown of Upper Egypt and wearing the pleated kilt.
The plan to reassemble the pieces and raise the colossi in the same direction, on solid foundations 110m to the West and 8m higher on the bedrock belonging to the Antiquities has been approved by the Permanent Committee of the SCA. The plan is designed by architect Nairy Hampikian, field manager of the works on this site the foundations have been structurally calculated by structure Engineer Mohamed El-Esawy, who also supervised their execution. The new reinforced concrete bases were placed only after the investigation of the soil and archaeological soundings, which assured the joint team that the ground was absolutely free of any antiquities.
By Luxor Times