Egyptian authorities were unveiling Thursday a renovated ancient promenade in the city of Luxor dating back 3,000 years, the latest government project undertaken to highlight the country's archaeological treasures.

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Egypt has struggled to revive its tourism industry, battered by years of political turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, and more lately, the coronavirus pandemic.

The ancient walkway – known as the Avenue of the Sphinxes, but also dubbed the Way of the Rams and the Path of the Gods – connects the famous Karnak and Luxor temples in what was the city of Thebes, which used to be Egypt's capital in antiquity. It is believed to have been the path that pilgrims trod to visit the temples and pay tribute to their deities.

Lined with statues of rams and sphinxes on pedestals, the ancient road in Luxor, which sits on the banks of the Nile River and is located about 650 kilometers (400 miles) south of Cairo, stretches for several miles and had been under excavation for more than 50 years.

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi attended the made-for-TV event, a late evening ceremony that nodded to an ancient fall holiday, along with other senior officials.

Mohamed Abd el-Badei, a top Egyptian archeology official, said the oldest ruins along the pathway are six structures built by Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's only woman pharaoh, that date to 1400 B.C.

He said that according to hieroglyphics on the walls of one of the temples, the ancient holiday was known as "Opet" and was marked by parades and dancers in celebration of the bounty that the Nile's annual flooding brought to the fields. There was also a flotilla of sacred boats that made their way to the temple, according to the transcriptions.

Thursday's event is the second glitzy ceremony this year to honor Egypt's heritage. In April, the government hosted a procession to mark the transfer of some of the famous mummies from the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo to the newly built museum south of the Egyptian capital.

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Khalid el-Anany said at least 59 sealed sarcophagi, with mummies inside most of them, were found that had been buried in three wells more than 2,600 years ago.

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"I consider this is the beginning of a big discovery," el-Anany said, adding that there is an unknown number of coffins that have yet to be unearthed in the same area.

He spoke at a news conference at the famed Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara where the coffins were found. The sarcophagi have been displayed and one of them was opened before reporters to show the mummy inside. Several foreign diplomats attended the announcement ceremony.

The Saqqara plateau hosts at least 11 pyramids, including the Step Pyramid, along with hundreds of tombs of ancient officials and other sites that range from the 1st Dynasty (2920 BCE-2770 BCE) to the Coptic period (395-642).

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said initial studies show that the decorated coffins were made for priests, top officials and elites from the Pharaonic Late Period (664-525 BCE).

He said archaeologists also found a total of 28 statuettes of Ptah-Soker the main god of the Saqqara necropolis, and a beautifully carved 35 cm tall bronze statuette of god Nefertum, inlaid with precious stones. The name of its owner, Priest Badi-Amun, is written on its base, he said.

Egyptian antiquities officials had announced the discovery of the first batch coffins last month, when archaeologists found 13 of the containers in a newly discovered 11-meter (36 feet) deep well.

The Saqqara site is part of the necropolis of Egypt's ancient capital of Memphis that includes the famed Giza Pyramids, as well as smaller pyramids at Abu Sir, Dahshur and Abu Ruwaysh. The ruins of Memphis were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1970s.

El-Anany said the Saqqara coffins would join 30 ancient wooden coffins that were discovered in October in the southern city of Luxor, and will be showcased at the new Grand Egyptian Museum, which Egypt is building near the Giza Pyramids.

The Saqqara discovery is the latest in a series of archeological finds that Egypt has sought to publicize in an effort to revive its key tourism sector, which was badly hit by the turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising. The sector was also dealt a further blow this year by the global coronavirus pandemic.

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Israel, he said, refused to open its embassy east of the Nile River because it considers all the land from the eastern bank of the Nile to the Euphrates River to be part of the biblical land of Israel.

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"Therefore," said Fora, "it established its embassy west of the Nile, because it considers the land west of the Nile to be outside its territory." Fora continued by saying that "The Jewish state aspires to establish a "Greater Israel" stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and will eventually demand lands in Medina and other regions of the Arabian peninsula."

"Israel is not about to achieve these Zionist or biblical ambitions now," said Fora, "but Israel wants to establish 'Greater Israel.'"

"By Allah," he went on to say, "the day will come when Israel demands lands in Medina, the lands of [the Jewish tribes of] Qurayza, Nadhir, and Banu Qaynuda, as well as the lands of Khaybar."

This, he said, was the true goal of the Zionist movement.

Fora emphasized that he had no issue with Judaism, only with Zionism, but said that not all Jews would have the right to live in a Palestinian state.

"The only Jews that have a right to live with us in Palestine, under our patronage and our authority, are those who have been living in Palestine," he said. "But the Ashkenazi Jews, who came from overseas, from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, and settled in this land – they should go back to where they came from."

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Fora clarified that this would not apply to Sephardi Jews, who he said "would have the same rights and obligations that we have."

"They would live with us, just like they live in Morocco, under the authority of the Kingdom of Morocco, they would live with us in Palestine."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Talks collapsed earlier this month over the construction of the $5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is around 70% complete and promises to provide much-needed electricity to Ethiopia's 100 million people.

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But Egypt, with a population of around the same size, fears that the process of filling the reservoir behind the dam could slice into its share of the river, with catastrophic consequences. Pro-government media have cast it as a national security threat that could warrant military action.

Speaking at the UN last month, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said he would "never" allow Ethiopia to impose a "de facto situation" by filling the dam without an agreement.

"While we acknowledge Ethiopia's right to development, the water of the Nile is a question of life, a matter of existence to Egypt," he said.

Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewude, also speaking at the UN General Assembly, said her country believes "the use of the river should be [decided] according to international law and fair and equitable use of natural resources."

Egypt has been holding talks for years with Ethiopia and Sudan, upstream countries that have long complained about Cairo's overwhelming share of the river, which is enshrined in treaties dating back to the British colonial era. Those talks came to an acrimonious halt earlier this month, the third time they have broken down since 2014.

"We are fed up with Ethiopian procrastination. We will not spend our lifetime in useless talks," an Egyptian official told The Associated Press. "All options are on the table, but we prefer dialogue and political means."

Egypt has reached out to the United States, Russia, China, and Europe, apparently hoping to reach a better deal through international mediation. The White House said earlier this month it supports talks to reach a sustainable agreement while "respecting each other's Nile water equities."

Egypt said it has accepted an invitation from the US to meet in Washington with the foreign ministers of Ethiopia and Sudan to break the deadlock.

Mohamed El-Molla, an Egyptian Foreign Ministry official, said Cairo would take the dispute to the UN Security Council if the Ethiopians refuse international mediation.

That has angered Ethiopia, which wants to resolve the dispute through the tripartite talks.

An Ethiopian official said the packages offered by Cairo so far "were deliberately prepared to be unacceptable for Ethiopia."

"Now they are saying Ethiopia has rejected the offer, and calling for a third-party intervention," the official added. Both the Ethiopian and the Egyptian official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks with the media.

The main dispute is centered on the filling of the dam's 74-billion-cubic-meter reservoir. Ethiopia wants to fill it as soon as possible so it can generate over 6,400 Megawatts, a massive boost to the current production of 4,000 Megawatts.

That has the potential to sharply reduce the flow of the Blue Nile, the main tributary to the river, which is fed by annual rainfall in the Ethiopian highlands. If the filling takes place during one of the region's periodic droughts, its downstream impact could be even more severe.

Egypt has proposed no less than seven years for filling the reservoir, and for Ethiopia to adjust the pace according to rainfall, said an Egyptian Irrigation Ministry official who is a member of its negotiation team. The official also was not authorized to discuss the talks publicly and so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Nile supplies more than 90% of Egypt's fresh water. Egyptians already have one of the lowest per capita shares of water in the world, at around 570 cubic meters per year, compared to a global average of 1,000. Ethiopians, however, have an average of 125 cubic meters per year.

Egypt wants to guarantee a minimum annual release of 40 billion cubic meters of water from the Blue Nile. The irrigation official said anything less could affect Egypt's own massive Aswan High Dam, with dire economic consequences.

"It could put millions of farmers out of work. We might lose more than one million jobs and $1.8 billion annually, as well as $300 million worth of electricity," he said.

The official said Ethiopia has agreed to guarantee just 31 billion cubic meters.

El-Sissi is set to meet with Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, on Wednesday in the Russian city of Sochi, on the sidelines of a Russia-Africa summit. They may be able to revive talks, but the stakes get higher as the dam nears completion.

Ahmed told Ethiopian lawmakers Tuesday that negotiations are the best chance for resolving the Nile deadlock and that going to war is "not in the best interest of all of us."

"Some say things about use of force," he said, referring to Egypt. "It should be underlined that no force could stop Ethiopia from building a dam. If there is a need to go to war, we could get millions readied. If some could fire a missile, others could use bombs."

Late on Tuesday, Egypt said in a statement it was "shocked" and "surprised" by Ahmed's remarks, which came just days after he was awarded the peace prize.

The statement said it was inappropriate to talk about military options in dealing with the dispute and that it thought the peace prize would have prompted Ethiopia to demonstrate political will, flexibility and "goodwill toward a binding and comprehensive legal agreement that takes into account the interests of the three countries."

Ethiopia hopes to finish the much-delayed project by 2023. The dam's manager, Kifle Horro, said the project is now 68.5% complete and preparations are underway to finalize power generation from two turbines by next year.

The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, warned earlier this year that the "risk of future clashes could be severe if the parties do not also reach agreement on a longer-term basin-wide river management framework."

In recent weeks there have been calls by some commentators in Egypt's pro-government media to resort to force.

Abdallah el-Senawy, a prominent columnist for the daily newspaper Al Shorouk, said the only alternatives were internationalizing the dispute or taking military action.

"Egypt is not a small county," he wrote in a Sunday column. "If all diplomatic and legal options fail, a military intervention might be obligatory."

Anwar el-Hawary, the former editor of the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, compared the dispute to the 1973 war with Israel, in which Egypt launched a surprise attack into the Sinai Peninsula.

"If we fought to liberate Sinai, it is logical to fight to liberate the water," he wrote on Facebook. "The danger is the same in the two cases. War is the last response."

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