Tracing of the Avenue of the Ram-Headed Sphinxes Remains Using Geophysical Investigations, Luxor, Egypt

Abstract

Throughout 3000 years ago, over the New Kingdom in the Pharaonic period, the Ram-headed Sphinxes Avenue connected Karnak and the Temples of Luxor, a processional avenue was lined on both sides by 1200 statues of sphinxes. The lining of the avenue was erased. Centuries over centuries this avenue has been buried with its statues under about 2 m of silt and sand, and urban development covered it with housing, asphaltic streets, and other structures, obscuring its route and interrupting this dramatic connection. This paper focuses on the discovery of some of these Sphinx statuses and remains at a suggested part of the avenue using both near-surface magnetic and shallow seismic refraction methods. A gradiometer survey was conducted in an area that amounted 576 m2 as (48 m × 12 m) to measure the vertical magnetic gradient with a high resolution instrument with 0.25 m sampling interval. A superior detection was accomplished by using the analytic signal and Euler deconvolution techniques. The shallow seismic refraction survey was done in the same area to illustrate the lithology of layers material with 1 m interval; both P and S waves were measured to calculate the geotechnical properties of the area to sustain the sketch of structures’ boundaries. We have lucratively detected six main structures; they can be the pedestal of these Ram-headed Sphinx statues. Mining a small part of the study area has proven the reliability of, both the magnetic and shallow seismic refraction discoveries, and the shallowness and composition of the detected features.