LUXOR, Egypt
Egypt on Sunday celebrated the restoration of a statue of the ancient King Amenhotep III at his funerary temple in the southern province of Luxor, for the first time in 3,000 years.
Attending the event on Sunday was Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh al-Damati, Luxor Governor Tarek Saad and a host of archeology and antiquities experts.
The statue is now ready to receive visitors for the first time in three millennia. It was totally destroyed by an earthquake that hit Egypt 3,000 years ago.
The quake broke the statue down to four major pieces and around 500 smaller ones.
However, a European-Egyptian team of experts managed to reassemble the statue and bring it back to its location at the northern entrance of the funerary temple, according to officials from the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry.
Antiquities expert Sultan Eid said it took the experts two months to restore the 13-meter high statue, which weighs 50 tons.
The statue features King Amenhotep III standing with his left leg extended forward.
Amenhotep III, the 9th pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, ruled Egypt from 1391 to 1353 B.C.
Al-Damaty said his ministry had worked closely with the European-Egyptian mission to revive the colossal monument.
Last month, the Egyptian government reopened the Great Sphinx, the Menkaure Pyramid and the nearby Amenhotep II Museum in Giza after three years of restoration.
Egyptian officials have hopes that the inauguration of some of the country's world-famous ancient monuments will perk up their country's tourism sector, which was hard hit by the political turmoil that has persisted since a popular uprising ousted long serving president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
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