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Show Sphinxes With Human-Like Heads Are Found at Luxor CAIRO. A broad avenue lined with sphinxes whose heads bear human likenesses has been found at Luxor beneath a pavement which hid it for 1,750 years. The find was by M. Zakaria Gon-eim, Gon-eim, chief inspector of antiquities for upper Egypt, throws new light on the grandeur of the ancient Pharaonic city of Thebes. Thebes was built on the Nile south of here more than 3,000 years ago. It was the capital of a powerful power-ful line of Pharaohs whose ancestors ances-tors liberated Egypt from northern invaders. Present day Luxor, a winter resort and storehouse of history, his-tory, stands among its ruins. Just across the Nile is the "valley of the kings," where the tomb and treasures treas-ures of Tutankhamen were found in 1922. The remains of two great temples have attracted visitors to the site for centuries. One is the temple of Karnak, which was the earthly palace pal-ace of the Theban god Amon. The other is the temple of Luxor, the god's "suburban home." In Pharaonic Phar-aonic times, during an annual 12-day 12-day festival called Opet, priests carried statues of Amon, his wife and son in the sacred barques from the main palace to their suburban establishment. Three kilometers separate the temples. It is known, from hieroglyphs hiero-glyphs and sculpture, that they once were connected by a broad avenue lined on each side with stone sphinxes. The road was built originally by the Pharaoh Amen-hotep Amen-hotep III, father of King Akhnaton, ill-fated advocate of a single benevolent benev-olent god. Its beginnings, bordered by ram-headed sphinxes, were uncovered un-covered some time ago in front of the Temple of Karnak. Most of its length remains buried beneath the debris of successive civilizations. |