News summary: Update from Luxor

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

A new entrance for Luxor Temple and the reopening of Howard Carter's dig house as a museum are the main events commemorating the 87th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb, says Nevine El-Aref

Waset is the pattern of every city... Mankind came into being within it, to find every city in its true name."

These words uttered by an ancient Egyptian priest and recorded for posterity testify to the significance of Waset, the ancient name for Luxor. It means, literally, "the specter", and it houses what is today arguably the world's most amazing archaeological site.

Over the span of history its magical atmosphere has magnetised Egyptologists, historians and visitors and lured thousands of excavators to the Theban west bank. These erstwhile treasure hunters, later skilled archaeologists, tried to uncover the resting place of all those renowned Pharaohs and other royals who once ruled Egypt and helped establish the country's great ancient Egyptian civilisation.

To highlight Luxor's ancient history and new discoveries, and celebrate the anniversary of one of its greatest find, made on 4 November 1922, the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) opened a new entrance to Luxor Temple, reopened Howard Carter's rest house with a view to developing it into an open air museum, and held an archaeological forum to discuss Carter's discovery and subsequent research on the Valley of the Kings.