Development: More re Avenue of Sphinxes in Luxor

IOL (Alexander Dziadosz)

The remainder of the buried avenue will be uncovered in the next few years.

"In the area that we restored, we found many sphinxes," Hawass said. "We'll be excavating the rest of the road until it can go to Karnak, and this will take years."

Home to many of Egypt's most renowned antiquities, Luxor attracts thousands of sightseers to a country where tourism is a vital source of jobs and foreign currency.

In 2006 Egypt began a plan to demolish and relocate Gurna, a village near the Valley of the Kings, to access and preserve tombs buried beneath nearly 3 200 homes.

The government built the villagers new houses about 3km away, but many complained the new homes were too small for big families, and that people would lose their livelihoods in the tourist business.

"We are not moving anyone by force," Hawass said of the Sphinx Avenue project.