Hatshepsut Temple at night

CAIRO - Excavations on part of an ancient 2.7 km long avenue of sphinxes that once linked temples in Luxor and Karnak should be completed in March, Egypt’s antiquities chief said on Thursday.

Archaeologists have so far uncovered 65 of the 1,350 sphinxes that lined a path between temples during the time of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned 3,350 years ago.

The project will cost 60 million Egyptian pounds ($11.7 million), half of which will be used to compensate about 2,000 families that must be relocated to make way for the roadway, Egypt’s chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass told Reuters.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities was currently working on about a third of the 2.7 km (1.7 mile) pathway lined with sphinxes, mythological creatures with the body of a lion and usually, although not always, the head of a human.

The remainder of the buried avenue will be uncovered in the next few years.

“In the area that we restored, we found many sphinxes,” Hawass said. “We’ll be excavating the rest of the road until it can go to Karnak, and this will take years.”

Home to many of Egypt’s most renowned antiquities, Luxor attracts thousands of sightseers to a country where tourism is a vital source of jobs and foreign currency.

In 2006 Egypt began a plan to demolish and relocate Gurna, a village near the Valley of the Kings, to access and preserve tombs buried beneath nearly 3,200 homes.

The government built the villagers new houses about 3 km away, but many complained the new homes were too small for big families, and that people would lose their livelihoods in the tourist business.

“We are not moving anyone by force,” Hawass said of the Sphinx Avenue project.

Egyptian relics - The Curse of the Pharaohs - the secret of mummification - Magic at the Pharaohs - Luxor - Sphinx - Pyramids - The Temple of Karnak - The Temple of Abu Simbel - Temple of Ramses II - Akhenaten - Tuthmosis III - Tutankhamun - Pharaoh - Nefertiti - Cleopatra - Nefertari - Hatshepsut -