Excavations on the Avenue of Sphinxes, a key element of the large project to convert Luxor into an open museum, intended to unearth the route that linked the Luxor and Karnak Temple in Pharaonic times, have come to a halt. While visiting the town in May to give impetus to the project, incumbent Prime Minister Essam Sharaf promised that the excavations would be resumed, so that the reclaimed Avenue of the Sphinxes would be inaugurated in October at the start of tourism’s high season. Despite his promise, the situation is at a standstill.

During routine excavation work the French-Egyptian archaeological team working at the Karnak Temple in Luxor uncovered two major monuments. The first is the wall that once enclosed the New Kingdom temple of the god Ptah and the second is a gate dated back to the reign of 25th dynasty King Shabaka (712-698 BC).

During a routine excavation at the funerary temple of the 18th Dynasty king, Amenhotep III, at Kom el-Hettan area on Luxor’s west bank, the mission of the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project unearthed an alabaster colossus of the king. The team has also discovered the head of a deity, as well as restoring a stele and a statue head of the same king.

130 years after the discovery of the colossal of King Amenhotep III and his wife Queen Tiye, six missing statue pieces have been uncovered at the king’s funerary temple on Luxor’s west bank. The colossal double statue is currently the centerpiece of the main hall at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The measurements of the six missing fragments range from 47cm to 103cm. These pieces are currently being held at the site of Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple on the west bank, but will soon be relocated to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where they will be restored and fitted into the colossal.

Twelve sphinx statues have been found near the Karnak Temple in Luxor. The statues were found by a mission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, which was excavating in the area of the Sphinx Alley which leads to the temple. The statues date back to the reign of King Nectanebo I (380-363 BC), the last pharaoh of the 30th Dynasty.

Egyptian archaeologists have found part of a 3,400-year-old double statue of Pharaoh Amenhotep III together with the falcon-headed sun god Ra-Harekhti. The red granite upper half of the statue was found at the site of Amenhotep III's funerary temple.

Egyptian excavators from the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) unearthed a granite statue depicting the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III this week in the Kom Al-Hittan area of the west bank at Luxor. The statue, depicting the Pharaoh seated on a throne and accompanied by the god Amun, shows Amenhotep wearing the double crown of Egypt decorated with the uraeus.

Archaeologists working at the Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor, Egypt, have uncovered the remains of a fifth century Coptic church and a Nilometer. The church was built with limestone blocks originally belonging to the Ptolemaic and Roman temples that once stretched along the Avenue. The blocks are well preserved, with many of them bearing depictions of Ptolemaic and Roman kings offering sacrifices to ancient Egyptian gods.

Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed a colossal statue head of Amenhotep III. The red granite head, part of a larger 3,000 year-old statue, was discovered at the site of the pharaoh's funerary temple in Luxor, Egypt's culture ministry said in a statement.

Excavations on part of an ancient 2.7km avenue of sphinxes that once linked temples in Luxor and Karnak should be completed in March, Egypt's antiquities chief said. Archaeologists have so far uncovered 65 of the 1 350 sphinxes that lined a path between temples during the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep III.