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They were buried beneath Egypt's shifting desert sands for centuries and more recently entombed by unsightly urban sprawl. But now the remains of hundreds of ancient sphinxes have been unearthed in Luxor and - once renovated - are due to go on show to tourists from next February in a huge open-air museum. The latest remarkable discovery came when jubilant Egyptian archaeologists found the 12 sphinxes along a road linked to an already discovered ceremonial route known as the Sphinx Alley.
The Kabash path connects the vast Karnak temple in ancient Thebes to the Luxor Temple. It marks a route that ancient Egyptians promenaded along once a year carrying the statues of the deities Amun and Mut in a symbolic re-enactment of their marriage.
Amun was ancient Egypt's supreme god king, while Mut was a goddess worshipped as a mother. 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.
Zahi Hawass, Egypt's most celebrated archaeologist, told the Daily Mail: 'It maybe shows that Cleopatra brought Mark Antony or Cesar on a journey up the Nile River to visit Sphinx Avenue.'
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