Egypt is unveiling a sacred road lined with thousands of statues on Thursday, which was used as a procession route for the gods 3,000 years ago.
Called the Avenue of Sphinxes, this 1.7-mile stretch features more than 1,050 statues of sphinxes and rams that connect the Temples of Karnak in the north with Luxor in the south.
The glitzy ceremony is set to kick-off at 12:30pm, with a livestream beginning an hour earlier.
The pathway, paved in sandstone blocks, was used every year for a festival called ‘Opet’ that was held the second month of the Nile flooding seasons.
Priests carried three divine boats on their shoulders, transporting statues of the Theban Triad — the deities of Amun-Re, his consort Mut and their son Khonsu from one end to the other.
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Egypt is unveiling a sacred road lined with thousands of statues on Thursday, which was used as a procession route for the gods 3,000 years ago
The road was later used by the Romans and is believed to have been renovated by Cleopatra, the fabled Ptolemaic queen who left her cartouche - an inscribed hieroglyphic bearing her name - at the temple in Luxor.
The tradition began to fade as time went on, until the road was completely abandoned and eventually became buried under the sand.
It was not until 1949 did humans again feast their eyes on the sphinx statues – eight were discovered by Egyptian archaeologist Dr Zakaria Ghoneim, ABC News reports.
From 1958 to 1961, 17 more statues were uncovered and then 55 more from 1961 to 1964.
Called the Avenue of Sphinxes, this 1.7-mile stretch features more than 1,050 statues of sphinxes and rams that connect the Temples of Karnak in the north with Luxor in the south
The glitzy ceremony is set to kick-off at 12:30pm, with a livestream beginning an hour earlier
The entire walkway was
