Modern elite soldiers of the Egyptian army secured and paraded their great grandfather’s chariot as it was being relocated from the Egyptian National Military Museum to its final resting place at the Grand Egyptian Museum on Saturday. The chariot belonged to king Tutankhamun of the Egyptian 18th dynasty who ruled from 1332 to 1323 BC. The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb (also known as King Tut) was considered by some the 20th century’s most famous find because his tomb was found (intact). The tomb was discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 after six fruitless years of searching, as reported by National Geographic. In addition to more than 4500 of king Tut’s items, 6 chariots were found in the tomb. Four of them have been displayed in Tahrir Museum, the fifth in Luxor museum and the sixth was loaned to the Military Museum in 1978 according to Al-Youm El Sabe7 and was returned on Saturday. The Independent published that earlier this year it was announced that the search for a secret chamber in King Tutankhamun’s tomb will recommence later this month.
A team from the Polytechnic University of Turin will be scanning the burial site and surrounding areas in the hope of finding buried treasures. The expedition is the third time researchers have studied the tomb in the past two years, with the hope of finding the resting place of Queen Nefertiti, Tutankhamun’s mother.
On another note related to tourism in Egypt, Katherine Doggrell from Hotel Management publishing site posted an article titled: “Egypt posts best quarter for its hotel industry in eight years.” In the article she quoted JLL (a MENA real estate market insights group) saying: ““With continuous efforts being made to improve safety and security in response to the demands of international travel partners, the remaining flight bans that have not already been lifted are expected to be removed in 2018. This should result in a further growth in demand and hotel occupancies.” After she established early on in the article that Egypt reported its best first quarter since 2010—a watershed year for Egyptian hospitality when some 15 million foreign visitors visited the country. Other sources like Andrea Vento Viaggi, representative of one of the biggest Italian tourism companies, Vento Viaggi, confirmed this news in relation to the Italians by saying: “Italy supports tourism in Egypt, especially in Sharm El Shiekh, as all Italian tourism companies started running their flights to Egypt, upon Italian tourist’s requests to spend their vacations in the city,” as reported by Egypttoday.
On May 3rd 2018, two thousand three hundred tourists from 190 countries travelled from the Red Sea to tour Luxor and undertake a short journey through its historical sites. According to Egypt independent one-day trips are organized by hotels in the Red Sea resorts to Luxor. They include a visit to Luxor’s main attractions such as Karnak Temple, Hatshepsut Temple, the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens.
