Who are the heroes of Luxor’s Al-Kebbash Road excavations?

CAIRO – 25 November 2021: Luxor’s King’s Festivities Road [Al-Kebbash Road] dates back more than 5,000 years, when the kings of Pharaonic Egypt built the road in Thebes (currently Luxor) for their sacred processions that took place during the annual Opet celebrations.

In the Opet celebrations, the king used to lead the procession followed by ministers, high priests and statesmen, in addition to the sacred boats loaded with statues of Pharaonic deities and religious symbols, while the common people line up on both sides of the road, dancing and cheering in joy and happiness.

King Amenhotep III initiated the construction of this road, around the same time he launched the construction of the Luxor Temple. However, the greatest credit for completing the Rams Road goes to King Nectanebo I, founder of the Pharaonic 30th Dynasty (the last dynasty of pharaonic Egypt).

Excavations began on the road at the end of the 1940s by the archaeologist Zakaria Ghoneim. In 1949, he discovered 8 Sphinxes.

Afterwards, Mohammad Abdul Qadir (1958 – 1960) uncovered 14 statues of the Sphinx, and Mohammad Abdel Razek (1961 – 1964) unearthed 64 statues of the Sphinx.

From the mid-seventies to 2002, Mohammad Al-Sagheer had been working on the discovery of the road extending from the tenth edifice to the Temple of Mot and the adjacent road towards the Nile.

In 2006, Mansour Brik also re-drilled to reveal the rest of the road in the areas of Khalid Bin Al-Walid, Airport Road and Al-Matahn Street, He also maintained the discovered archaeological evidence and analyzed the layers of the soil to know the history of the great processions route through the ages.

Currently, the final touches are being placed in Luxor prior to the legendary opening event of Al-Kebbash Road {Luxor – The Sphinx Avenue} scheduled on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.