CAIRO 

- The Rams Road - which dates back about 3500 years and was reopened by Egypt in Luxor Governorate (south of the country) - was not paved as reported by the media during the opening ceremony held last Thursday evening with the participation of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

The Rams Road connects Luxor Temple in the south and Karnak Temple in the north, and is lined with 1,059 statues, separated by a distance of 4 meters each.

The statues of the road of rams take two forms, the first is the body of a lion and the head of a human "the Sphinx", and the second is the shape of a ram as a symbol of one of the gods at the pharaohs, "Amon-Ra", and all the statues are erected on stone bases.

With the passage of time and the succession of different ages, the silt of the Nile obliterated part of the rams’ road, which the kings of the Pharaohs made a corridor for their processions and a path for some of their feasts, and a second part of the road was theft and vandalism, while a third part became trapped between the buildings of the people of Luxor, whose construction dates back to decades ago.

All of this made the project to revitalize Rams Road, which the government began implementing in 2005, facing many obstacles. The restoration hands were shaken for a long time in the face of the fact that hundreds of buildings - both private and governmental - objected to the old path.

However, decisive and perhaps harsh decisions on the part of the government, which began with the issuance of Prime Minister's Decision No. 1408 of 2005 to expropriate 130 properties blocking the path of the Rams, eventually led to the completion of the restoration of the path that was "sacred" for the Pharaohs.

bulk removal

The project to revive the Rams Road has faced difficulties as a result of the presence of government facilities, homes for the people, and Islamic and Christian places of worship above and around the road, which is about 2,700 meters long and 76 meters wide, according to the director of Karnak temples, Al-Tayeb Gharib.

Gharib explained to the local newspaper Al-Watan what the difficulties are, as the Rams Road is divided into 5 sectors, the first of which extends for a distance of 500 meters from the side of Luxor Temple, and includes the old Luxor Police Department, a church, 3 mosques and some random bazaars (shops selling tourist products).

The second sector extends for a distance of 950 meters and includes a group of buildings and homes for the people, as well as a mosque. The third and fourth sectors were a group of agricultural land behind Mubarak Public Library, and the fifth sector included a residential area and a public road in Naga Abu Asba.

The Director General of Karnak Temples added that excavation and excavation work began in various sectors to a depth of 6 metres, pointing out that some statues of rams were found in a completely intact condition, while most of them were found in a very bad condition as a result of vandalism and theft during ancient times.

However, Samir Farag - who assumed the presidency of the Supreme Council of Luxor City in 2004 before turning it into a governorate in 2009 and continued as its governor until 2011 - describes himself as the author of the comprehensive development plan in the governorate, and attributes to himself the majority of the achievement of the Rams Road project.

In a telephone interview with “Sada Al-Balad” channel, Farag, a former army officer, said that, in his capacity as governor of Luxor, he oversaw the development of 2,600 meters of Al Kabash Road out of 2,700 metres, which means that only 100 meters remain for officials after him to begin developing, according to saying.

He added that the people of Luxor used to live above the Pharaonic path, indicating that 450 houses, 20 bazaars, the city's police station, 3 mosques and a church were among the buildings established on Al Kabash Road.

The local authorities paid compensation and housing units to the owners of the destroyed houses, according to the former governor of Luxor, pointing to the construction of mosques, churches and bazaars in other places far from the path of rams.

date removed

In October 2009, authorities in Luxor Governorate demolished the Al-Maqqash Mosque - which is located north of the Luxor Temple and dates back about 350 years - along with two other mosques, according to a decision by then-Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif.

After the project to revive the Rams Road faltered with the revolution of January 25, 2011, and then resumed in 2017, the demolition hammers returned in September 2020 to remove the Evangelical Church, whose construction dates back to 1907.

In addition, Luxor residents talk about other buildings that were demolished and the media did not shed light on them. According to the director of the Upper Egypt Heritage Studies Center in Luxor, Abdel Moneim Abdel Azim, parts of Luxor’s heritage were demolished under the cover of developing the city, such as the removal of Andrew’s Palace, whose construction dates back to 1897. Luxor Culture Palace, Muslim Youth Association, Congress Cemetery, Luxor Sports Club, Red Crescent building, 3 schools and a hotel, in addition to the tourist market.

During the excavation and restoration work on the Rams Road, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced a number of important archaeological discoveries in the area, such as the discovery of a gauge for the water level of the Nile that was established during the rule of the 25th Pharaonic dynasty, and the discovery of complete wine presses and places for making amulets.

compensation

In March 2013, then-Prime Minister Hisham Qandil approved an amount of 100 million Egyptian pounds (equivalent to 6 million dollars) in the 2013/2014 financial plan, to compensate those affected by Luxor city development projects, which include reviving the Rams Road.

It seems that the entire amount was not allocated to compensate the people, as the governor of Luxor at the time, Izzat Saad, stated that the approved amount will cover compensation for citizens, and the surplus will be used to complete the comprehensive development plan in the city.

The 100 million pounds were not the first amounts paid by the government as compensation for what will be demolished. In December 2010, the governor of Luxor at the time, Samir Farag, announced that the value of compensation provided by the governorate to those affected by the construction and construction of the Rams Road amounted to 500 million pounds, adding - Margin of the Third International Conference on E-Tourism - The opening of Rams Road will be in February 2011.

Logically, setting a date for the opening of Al Kabash Road within 3 months means that the project was on the verge of completion, and thus the majority of the compensation payments were completed.

After the resumption of work on the Rams Road in 2017, Presidential Decree No. 201 of 2018 was issued, which considers that the project of expropriation of overlapping properties that impedes the completion of the discovery of the path of Rams Road and deprives it of public interest works in Luxor.

The first article of the decision included the expropriation of real estate over an area of ​​one feddan, 18 carats, and four shares in the Nagaa Abu Asba area in Luxor.

In May 2019, clashes took place between Egyptian police forces and the people of the Nagaa Abu Asba area, due to the demolition of a number of the people's homes that were blocking Al-Kabash's road.

And soon the Egyptian government moved to absorb the anger of the people. After a few days of the clashes, the compensation disbursement committee held a meeting for the people of Naga Abu Asba, in which it decided to increase the value of the compensation decided for them before.

moving statues

Despite the long road taken by the Egyptian government to move the people and facilities along the Rams Road, the authorities announced in mid-2020 a plan to move 4 statues of Rams Road to the capital to be placed in Tahrir Square in central Cairo, as part of a development process that included the field.

Under the hashtag "Against the Transfer of Statues of Rams in Karnak," archaeologists were active at the time on social networking sites, calling for a ban on the transfer of statues from their places, as a behavior that violates international conventions that prohibit the transfer of a historical landmark from its cultural fabric, except in the case of extreme necessity.

The archaeologists expressed their fear of transporting the statues to a humid environment that suffocated with harmful gases, unlike the dry environment that characterizes Luxor.

However, the government implemented its plan and moved 4 of the statues of the Way of the Rams and made them surround, like a circle, a pharaonic obelisk in the middle of Tahrir Square.