Tourists take snapshots under close guard of an Egyptian soldier at the Collossi of Memnon
Egypt: An armed soldier watches over the sightseers. The Collossi guards still watch over us all after 3300 years. The Colossi of Memnon are located on the West Bank of Thebes near the Valley of the Kings. The two 75 ft statues of Pharoah Amenophis or Amenhotep III 1391 1353 BCE are the only remnants of his extensive mortuary temple that was constructed in the Nile flood plain. Amenhotep III was the father of heretic pharaoh Akhenaten or Akhnaton. The Greeks incorrectly identified the statues as Memnon the son of Eos. They claimed the statues were singing with the desert wind. Military presence have been strong here since the november 17 1997 attack that left 58 tourists dead at nearby temple of Hatshepsut. The radical islamic group Gamaa al Islamiya deliberately killed innocent sightseers to cripple the country's three billion dollars a year tourism industry, one of the main engines of Egypts economy.
Size: 5474px × 3582px
Location: Colossi of Memnon, New Gurna, Gourna, Westbank Nile Valley, Egypt
Photo credit: © WimWiskerke / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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