The mosque had been closed since 1992 due to damage it had suffered from an earthquake in the same year.

As part of the Al-Darb al-Ahmar Urban Regeneration Program, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) has commenced the renovation work in 2009.

The mosque was inaugurated in presence of Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty, the Aga Khan, the Chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network, Cairo governor Galal Saeed.

“The restoration of the Amir Aqsunqur Mosque was executed by a team of 60 to 80 craftsmen and conservators. They had first to remove the temporary supports installed after the 1992 earthquake – and then to implant seismic retrofit measures to protect against future earthquakes. They worked to conserve extensive roofing and facades on the one hand, and delicate marble panels and Iznik ceramic tiles on the other,” said the Aga Khan.

The blue tiles at the mosque’s interior eastern wall lend this mosque its alternative name, Islamic history professor at Minya University Fathy Khourshid told The Cairo Post Sunday.

The World Monuments Fund and the Selz Foundation were also key supporters of the restoration of the Amir Aqsunqur Mosque.

“Covering the Qibla wall from the floor to the ceiling, these tiles are in the style of ceramics manufactured in the Turkish town of Iznik which is famous for blue tiles,” said Khourshid.

Located in Islamic Cairo’s modern district of Al-Darb al-Ahmar between Bab Zuweila and the Citadel of Saladin, “the mosque was a part of a funerary complex, containing the mausoleums of its founder Shams El-Din Aqsunqur, his sons, a number of children of the Mamluk sultan Nasir Mohamed and that of its principal restorer, Ibrahim Agha al-Mustahfizan,” according to Khourshid.

Author: Rany Mostafa | Source: The Cairo Post [May 03, 2015]

The Stone Towers by Zaha Hadid Architects

VIA «Zaha Hadid will construct Stone Towers in Cairo»

Started in 2010, the renovation of the two tombs resumed after a three-year hiatus due to the political turmoil that followed the January 25 Revolution, head of the Projects Department at the Antiquities Ministry Waad Allah Abul Ela told The Cairo Post Tuesday.

According to Abul Ela, “The restoration work on the two tombs included cleaning and reinforcing walls and installing lighting and ventilation systems. New ceilings and roofs have been added as well as wooden floor coverings.”

According to the Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty, “The first tomb belonged to Imery, a high priest and administrative overseer of the royal court during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu (2589 B.C.-2566 B.C.) while the second belonged to Neferbau Ptah, Imery’s eldest son who was an overseer of the royal estates and a superintendent of the royal palace during the 5th Dynasty (2494 B.C.-2345 B.C.)

The four-year renovation was carried out under the supervision Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Damaty.

“The restoration work in Imery’s tomb included the removal of modern graffiti left by visitors on the walls of the tomb—particularly in the burial chamber—along with the removal of the old finishing mortar, which was falling from the walls,” Abul Ela said, adding that new mortar was then applied to the walls.

Located in the southwestern corner of the western necropolis at Giza, the tomb of Imery includes a number of vividly colored paintings covering the walls representing most of the practices of Imery’s everyday life with his family, archaeologist Sherif el-Sabban told The Cairo Post Tuesday.

According to Abul Ela, the tomb of Neferbau Ptah, which was unearthed in 1925, is badly damaged “due to the poor condition of the rock from which it was carved in the cliff and also due to the old-fashioned sanitation system installed in an unscientific method in the nearby Nazlet al-Samman suburb.”

“The renovation work in this tomb included restoring and strengthening the paintings and fixing the fading colors,” he added.

Neferbau Ptah’s tomb comprises five rooms and a crypt along with a life size rock carved statue in the western wall, Sabban said, adding that “the harvest scenes depicted at the tomb’s eastern wall are the most beautiful of the drawings in the tomb.”

Author: Rany Mostafa | Source: The Cairo Post [April 29, 2015]

But four years after the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and nearly ended his own career, Zahi Hawass can be found in a cramped Cairo office, lamenting the state of the antiquities bureaucracy he once ruled like a pharaoh and dreaming of a new museum whose fate lies in limbo.

His trademark wide-brimmed hat and safari vest may be hung up for now, but he is brimming with ideas on how to revive Egypt's antiquities and bring back tourists after years of unrest.

A long-planned new facility out by the pyramids, called the Grand Egyptian Museum, was intended to open this year, but the government says it is short the one billion dollars needed to complete the project.

"Government routine cannot work for museums," Hawass said in an interview in his office, asserting that state bureaucracy is one of the main reasons the current Egyptian Museum has fallen into disrepair. For the new museum, "the directorship, the curatorship, it can be from America, from Germany, from England, from any place in the world. You need this museum to be international."

He also says private, international sponsorship is needed.

"If you pay $10,000, I put your name, written on the wall of the museum. If you pay $100,000, I put your name on the facade of the museum. If you build a whole gallery, I will name (the gallery after you)," he said, adding that the government should announce that Egyptian monuments belong to the entire world, not just Egyptians.

As to the challenge of moving artifacts from the current museum in downtown Cairo over bumpy roads to the site of the new facility on the city's outskirts, Hawass says "any TV channel" would pick up the tab in return for exclusive rights to document the artifacts' restoration and transport. "They will run in competition to do this," he said.

Hawass knows TV. He was once a staple on the Discovery Channel and had his own reality show on the History Channel called "Chasing Mummies," the promo for which introduced him by saying "100,000 years of history belong to one man... Only he holds the key to the world's greatest ruins."

The productions earned him droves of fans abroad but led to accusations of grandstanding in Egypt, where he was seen by many as a self-promoter who mistreated subordinates and abused his position for personal gain. He lost his job as head of antiquities after the 2011 uprising and faced corruption charges, of which he was later cleared.

But his swashbuckling antics gave a boost to Egyptian archaeology, with fundraising efforts and international tours of King Tut artifacts generating tens of millions of dollars.

His name is still associated with many of Egypt's most famous digs, including grand discoveries such as the Valley of the Golden Mummies in Bahariya Oasis in 1999 and the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut almost a decade later. He has long campaigned to bring home ancient artifacts spirited out of Egypt during colonial times, and once said he had managed to recover 5,000 pieces.

Zahi was an outspoken supporter of his longtime patron Mubarak, and has praised President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who led the military overthrow of an Islamist president in 2013 and was elected last year. But that support has not translated into an official role other than promotional work for tourism in Egypt.

When asked about the state of antiquities today, Hawass says things have improved over the last year, carefully avoiding direct criticism of anyone in particular. But he points out that there is still theft, mismanagement and corruption - noting two incidents in recent months in which artifacts were found to have been replaced with replicas.

"This did not happen before," he said, adding that in order to prevent such abuses, "we need to restore the people before we restore antiquities," by boosting employees' salaries and providing them with health insurance.

Hawass insisted during the interview that he is focused on writing and has no desire to return to his previous position as head of the country's antiquities. "People come here every day and ask me to come back... I think I did my duty, and it's time for me now to publish all that I discovered."

But at the glitzy launch of his latest book earlier this month at a ceremony at a five-star hotel attended by hundreds of Cairo's elite, he was less guarded about possible ambitions to return.

"Maybe," he said, as a torrent of fans pressed to take photos next to him.

Author: Brian Rohan | Source: The Associated Press [June 30, 2015]

The fragment in question measures 30 by 50 centimeters (12 by 20 inches.) The archaeology mission, currently carrying out excavations where the tomb is located, has posted photos of the wall and the fragment before and after the looting.

“We have since been trying to get reliable information on this matter from the antiquities authorities. The reports we now have are consistent in confirming the grave news that the tomb has been entered and that a relief has been stolen,” said the statement.

Co-founder of Egypt’s Heritage Task Force archaeologist Monica Hanna told The Cairo Post that she first reported the shocking looting and extensive destruction of the tomb on May 11.

The tomb is located in Deir el-Bersha, an archaeological site from the east bank of the Nile to the south of Egypt’s Delta governorate of Minya, according to Hanna.

“A small scene to the east of the entrance has been hacked out. It was damaged already in Newberry’s day (1891-1892), but it still showed the well preserved top part of a man carrying a chest towards Djehutihotep. It was also one of the few reliefs where the head of a figure was still in good condition,” said the statement.

We have no photos at our disposal that confirm what the other walls of the tomb look like, according to the statement.

Deir el-Bersha was the necropolis for the governors of ancient Upper Egypt’s 15th province during the First Intermediate Period (2160B.C.-2040B.C.) and the Middle Kingdom Period (2040B.C-1750B.C.), according to Hanna.

Head of Upper Egypt Antiquities Department Aly el-Asfar has confirmed to the Cairo Post an attempt to loot the tomb but said the attempt was foiled by security forces, saying that the tomb is “sound and safe.”

“The tomb of Djehutyhotep was penetrated earlier this month but the assailants did not take anything from the tomb,” Asfar said, adding that the police forces have arrested the assailants.

Djehutyhotep was most likely a nomarch (province governor) during the reign of the 12th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenemhat II (1922B.C-1878B.C.) all the tombs in the area are badly preserved except for Djehutyhotep’s tomb, which is renowned for the great quality of its decorations.

Author: Rany Mostafa | Source: The Cairo Post [May 26, 2015]

In its meeting last week, “members of the Permanent Committee of the Egyptian Antiquities have approved an old project, submitted previously by the Alexandria governorate, aiming to revive the lighthouse,” Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities SCA Dr. Mostafa Amin told Youm7.

He explained that members of the committee agreed on reconstructing the Lighthouse on an area of land located a few meters to the southwest of the landmark’s original location. A comprehensive study has been completed and submitted to Alexandria governorate for final approval, he added.

The Lighthouse, also known as the Pharos, was badly damaged due to a series of earthquakes hit Alexandria and the Mediterranean area between the 3rd and 12th centuries, Greco-Roman archaeology professor Fathy Khourshid told The Cairo Post Tuesday.

“A severe earthquake in 1303 caused a huge destruction of the monument before the Mamluk Sultan Qaitbay in 1480 reused the monument’s ruins to construct a fortress (currently standing and bearing his name) on the original location of the Pharos northwest of Alexandria,” according to Khourshid.

Built by the Greek architect Sostratus of Cnidus for the purpose of guiding sailors into the harbor, the tower was completed and inaugurated during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285 B.C.-246B.C.), said Khourshid.

“The original building comprised three stages: a lower square section with a central core, a middle octagonal section and a circular section at its top,” he added.

Its top used to have a mirror that reflected sunlight during the day while a fire was lit at night in order to guide ships, said Khourshid.

In 1994, remains of the original building were unearthed on the floor of the sunken part of Alexandria’s eastern harbor.

With a height estimated at 130 meters, (420 feet) the tower was the tallest manmade structure on Earth for many centuries.

Author: Rany Mostafa | Source: The Cairo Post [May 06, 2015]

The move comes after extended diplomatic talks, carried out between the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv and officials from the Israeli government have failed, the source added.

“In order to return the smuggled artifacts, the Israeli government stipulated the reinstatement of Egypt’s ambassador to Israel, who was pulled in protest at Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in November 2011,” according to the source.

Head of the Restored Antiquities Department (RAD) Ali Ahmad told The Cairo Post that there are 126 artifacts in question spanning several eras of Egypt’s Paranoiac history.

“These artifacts, including clay vessels, vases and figurines were monitored during a routine search of international auction halls periodically carried out by members of the RAD,” said Ahmed.

In November 2014, former Egyptian Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim contacted the Interpol to “follow up with the responsible authorities in Jerusalem and to ask the Israeli authorities to conduct background checks on the proof of ownership and explain how it left Egypt as a prelude to reclaim,” AFP reported.

Based on UNESCO’s 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv filed a lawsuit to restore the artifacts, the source said.

“The lawsuit in order to proceed, the Israeli court is expected to summon an antiquity expert from Egypt to rule on the authenticity of the mentioned,” the source said, adding the Egyptian government also has to prove “the artifacts are registered in the antiquities ministry’s archives and that they were stolen from archaeological sites, museums and the ministry’s storerooms.”

According to Ahmed, if an artifact was found on an e-commerce website or listed at an auction house abroad, the RAD contacts Interpol, the Egyptian tourism and antiquities police and the Foreign Ministry’s cultural relations department which, in its turn, informs Egypt’s embassy in the country where the artifact has been detected to stop the sale until it is proven the artifact left Egypt in a legal way.

“In order to stop the sale of an artifact, Interpol requires information including the laws of the country where the artifact was detected. Among required information is when and from where the artifact was allegedly stolen along with a full description of the registered artifacts,” according to Ahmed.

The artifact’s provenances (document that trace an artifact’s chain of ownership back to its excavation), is among the evidence required to prove Egypt’s legibility.

Egypt’s political turmoil since the January 25 Revolution in 2011 and its consequent security lapses left much of the country’s cultural heritage vulnerable to looting. In spite of the efforts of the Egyptian government in tracking smuggled artifacts inside Egypt and in auction houses abroad, many items are unaccounted for.

Author: Rany Mostafa | Source: The Cairo Post [May 25, 2015]

Looting of the country's cultural heritage has increased since the popular uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and during the years of political turmoil that followed.

The huge National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation was created in collaboration with UNESCO and has yet to open to the public.

"Two curators were arrested while replacing a pharaonic statue of (fourth dynasty) King Menkaure, discovered in Luxor's Karnak temple, and an ancient Islamic lantern with fake ones," Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damati said in a statement.

The arrests came following a police investigation into ancient Islamic artefacts being stolen from the museum's storage area and later being put up for auction in London.

A ministry committee will make an inventory of the "priceless" collection that includes artefacts from prehistoric times to the present day, the statement added.

Source: AFP [June 04, 2015]

He added that the buildings in the Pyramids Plateau and the area from Al-Remaya Square until the Fayoum Road are encroachments on archaeological sites.

“Antiquities are not a priority for decision-makers in Egypt,” he said, noting that the scientific advisors have noted include archaeologists. “And all that people are interested in is whether it was the Jews who built the pyramids.”

“Sixty artifacts were stolen from the Egyptian Museum, in addition to many other pieces from the museums of Kantara. Mit Rahina and Malawi,” he said. “And there are 300 acres of the archaeological area in Abu Sir from which artifacts were stolen.”

He said Israel stole 45,000 artifacts from Sinai during the occupation, of which 38,000 were repatriated in the 1990s. “They wanted to keep four particular pieces, but I refused and told them only the Egyptian people have the right to dispose of them,” he said.

“There are neglected archaeological sites in Maadi, Helwan, Imbaba, Giza, Memphis and Old Cairo,” he said.

For his part, Syndicate Chairman Tarek al-Nabarawy said he cannot understand why the historical house of President Nasser has also been neglected, despite its great political and historical value.

Author: Al-Masry Al-Youm | Source: Egypt Independent [May 07, 2015]

According to an Egypt’s heritage Task Force report, looters have hacked out the tomb’s unique scenes and may have proceeded to smuggle them.

Deir el-Bersha, situated on the east bank of the Nile just north of Tell el-Amarna, was the necropolis (cemetery) of the First Intermediate Period (about 2160-2040 BC) and Middle Kingdom (about 2040-1750 BC) governors of the Fifteenth Upper Egyptian province (or nome).

Dating to the 12th Dynasty in the Middle Kingdom, the tomb was made for Djehutyhotep who served as the Nomarch (nome governor) of the Hare Nome (a prefecture within the Ancient Egyptian state) and is considered as Deir el Bersha’s most important funerary monument.

The tomb has been known to the modern world since 1817, when the first drawings of some of its scenes also appeared.

It is particularly renowned for the scene (now destroyed) of four teams of men dragging a huge statue of him. Having being repeatedly looted, it was published and restored by Egyptologist Percy Newberry at the end of the 19th century.

Recent work on the site has been done by the Catholic University of Louvain mission.

Several objects from the tomb are now in the Cairo, British and Metropolitan museums.

Source: Archaiologia Online [May 12, 2015]

Some 47 artifacts were stolen on Saturday, including a granite statute of a man and a woman, 31 coins of the Graeco-Roman era and 15 pots and bottles used to store perfume, Khaleefa told Youm7.

The pieces have been placed in temporary storage until the re-inauguration of the museum after restoration work is completed. The store contains some 2,500 pieces.

Earlier on Monday, eight people allegedly involved in the theft were arrested and referred to prosecution. They will be detained for four days pending investigations.

Preliminary investigations into the incident showed damages to door locks of the store as well as other artifacts were broken.

Work at the museum was halted for five years due to political circumstances following the January 25 Revolution in 2011. The Minister of Antiquities recently stated that the total repairs at the museum will cost 10 million EGP ($1.3 million.)

Source: The Cairo Post [April 29, 2015]

The suspects included an archaeological inspector from the site, who stands accused of having stolen the statue from the warehouse, before replacing it with a replica, and illegally smuggling it to Brussels, the minister added.

The ministry managed to retrieve the statue and bring it back to Egypt a few months ago, the minister said.

The suspects are being held in custody pending investigations.

Carved in limestone, the statue depicts a sitting priest and dates back to the Middle Kingdom, between about 2000 and 1700 BC.

Author: Nevine El-Aref | Source: Ahram Online [May 26, 2015]

In the videos that appeared in April, militants can be seen taking sledge hammers to the iconic winged-bulls of Assyria and sawing apart floral reliefs in the palace of Ashurnasirpal II in Nimrud before the entire site is destroyed with explosives. But according to Qais Hussein Rashid, head of Iraq's State Board for Antiquities and Heritage, that was just the final step in a deeper game.

"According to our sources, the Islamic State started days before destroying this site by digging in this area, mainly the palace," he told The Associated Press from his office next to Iraq's National Museum - itself a target of looting after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. "We think that they first started digging around these areas to get the artifacts, then they started demolishing them as a cover up."

While there is no firm evidence of the amount of money being made by the Islamic State group from looting antiquities, satellite photos and anecdotal evidence confirm widespread plundering of archaeological sites in areas under IS control.

Nimrud was also the site of one of the greatest discoveries in Iraqi history, stunning golden jewelry from a royal tomb found in 1989, and Rashid is worried that more such tombs lie beneath the site and have been plundered. He estimated the potential income from looting to be in the millions of dollars.

Experts speculate that the large pieces are destroyed with sledgehammers and drills for the benefit of the cameras, while the more portable items like figurines, masks and ancient clay cuneiform tablets are smuggled to dealers in Turkey.

On Wednesday, Egypt, together with the Antiquities Coalition and the Washington-based Middle East Institute will be holding a conference in Cairo entitled "Cultural Property Under Threat" to come up with regional solutions to the plundering and sale of antiquities.

This isn't the first time, of course, that Iraq's antiquities have fallen victim to current events. There was the infamous looting of the museum in 2003 and reports of widespread plundering of archaeological sites in the subsequent years, especially in the south. U.S. investigators at the time said al-Qaida was funding its activities with illicit sales of antiquities.

What appears to be different this time is the sheer scale and systematic nature of the looting, especially in the parts of Syria controlled by the Islamic State group. Satellite photos show some sites so riddled with holes they look like a moonscape.

The G-7's Financial Action Task Force said in a February report that the Islamic State group is making money both by selling artifacts directly - as probably would be the case with material taken from the museums - or by taxing criminal gangs that dig at the sites in their territory. After oil sales, extortion and kidnapping, antiquities sales are believed to be one of the group's main sources of funding.

In February, the United Nations passed a resolution recognizing that the Islamic State group was "generating income from the direct or indirect trade," in stolen artifacts, and added a ban on the illicit sale of Syrian antiquities to the already existing one on Iraqi artifacts passed in 2003.

While Iraq contains remains from civilizations dating back more than 5,000 years, the hardest hit artifacts have come from the Assyrian empire, which at its height in 700 B.C. stretched from Iran to the Mediterranean and whose ancient core almost exactly covers the area now controlled by the Islamic State group.

The looted artifacts most likely follow the traditional smuggling routes for all sorts of illicit goods into Turkey, according to Lynda Albertson, head of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art. From there, the most common route is through Bulgaria and the Balkans into Western Europe. Britain and the United States remain the biggest markets for antiquities, though wealthy collectors are emerging in China and the Gulf - especially for Islamic-era artifacts.

International bans make the ultimate sale of illicit antiquities difficult, but not impossible. So far, there have been no reports of major, museum-quality pieces from IS-held territory appearing in auction houses, so the artifacts must be going to either private collectors or they are being hoarded by dealers to be slowly and discretely released onto the market, said Patty Gerstenblith, Director of the Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University.

"I do believe that dealers are willing to warehouse items for a long time and that they may be receiving some `financing' to do this from well-heeled collectors or other dealers operating outside of the Middle East," she said. "It is relatively unlikely that a major piece would be plausibly sold on the open market with a story that it was in a private collection for a long period of time."

Mesopotamian sculptures, jewelry and stelae sold legally have commanded stunning sums, up to $1 million in some cases, but the looters would be selling them to dealers for a fraction of that cost - with the profit margin coming from the sheer number of artifacts being sold.

Iraq has sent lists to the International Council of Museums, the U.N. and Interpol detailing all the artifacts that might have been looted from the museum in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city overrun by IS last June. Harder to stop, however, is the sale of never-before-seen pieces that have been newly dug up and never registered.

There is new legislation going through the U.S. Congress to tighten controls on illicit trafficking of materials from the Middle East, though Albertson contends that the laws are less important than the manpower devoted to enforcing them.

"A new resolution is just another well-intentioned piece of ineffective paper," she said.

The Iraqi government is now rushing to document the remaining sites in the country, especially in the disputed province of Salahuddin, just south of the Islamic State stronghold in Nineweh province. Nineweh itself is home to 1,700 archaeological sites, all under IS control, said Rashid of the antiquities department.

As a number of experts point out, though, most sites in Iraq have not been completely excavated and there are likely more winged bull statues and stelae waiting to be found under the earthen mounds scattered throughout this country - assuming the Islamic State group and its diggers don't find them first.

Author: Paul Schemm | Source: The Associated Press [May 12, 2015]

The violence left the bomber and one gunman dead, the other wounded and arrested, and four other people wounded. The temple was not damaged.

The attackers carried guns in backpacks, and one wore a belt of explosives. They rode in a taxi through a police checkpoint to a parking lot and sat at a cafe and ordered lemonades, witnesses told The Associated Press. The taxi driver, suspicious after they refused his offer to help with the packs, alerted police.

When a policeman approached, the bomber tried to hug him, but the policeman wrestled away. Seconds later, he detonated the explosives, and the others pulled automatic weapons from their bags and opened fire wildly, sending a small group of European tourists running for cover, the witnesses said.

The attack followed one this month outside the famed Giza Pyramids in which gunmen killed two policemen. The violence points to a change in tactics by Islamic militants against the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. For two years, attacks have been centered in the Sinai Peninsula, mostly by a group that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group and largely focused on retaliation against police and soldiers.

A campaign against tourism, one of the main sources of foreign revenue, could deal a blow to el-Sissi's promises to repair Egypt's economy.

Tourism has just started to show signs of recovery after plunging in the turmoil since the 2011 uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The first five months of this year saw tourism revenues up 9 percent from the same period last year, Tourism Minister Khaled Ramy said.

Ramy said he expects the slow recovery to continue despite the attack, and he underscored how police had thwarted it.

"Security forces were there. It's a very important message to everyone," he told the AP on a flight from Cairo to Luxor.

Mohammed Sayed Badr, the governor of Luxor province, said the attack was "an attempt to break into the temple of Karnak."

"They didn't make it in," he said.

But witnesses noted it was civilian bystanders who alerted police to the threat.

Karnak, one of Egypt's biggest attractions, is a giant complex of temples, statues, obelisks and columns built by pharaonic dynasties alongside the Nile. The oldest sections date back nearly 4,000 years.

Access to the site is through a gate and a roadblock, leading to a parking lot and visitors' center hundreds of yards from the ancient structure, which is reachable only on foot.

The waiter who served the men said only one spoke to him and had an accent from northern Egypt, while the others stopped talking when he approached. When they paid their bill, he said he refused to take their tip.

"They looked scary. ... One of them had really bad eyes," said the waiter, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ikrami, for fear of problems with police for talking to the media.

Another cafe employee, Abdel-Nasser Mohammed, said the taxi driver reported his suspicions about the men to police. As the three walked away, a policeman approached them, leading to the tussle between the officer and the bomber, Mohammed said.

The bomber triggered the blast near a public restroom, and the other two opened fire. One ran toward the visitors' center, and a policeman shot him in the head, Mohammed said.

Tourist shop owner Sheik Ahmed Abdel-Mawgoud said he been standing near the restroom only seconds before the blast.

"When the explosion happened, I ran for cover and told my friend, a tour guide, to run with the tourists with him. I screamed at him, 'Terrorism!'" he told the AP.
 h
The exchange of fire with police lasted several minutes, witnesses said, and two policemen were among the wounded.

Only a handful of tourists and Egyptians were in the temple at the time, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

AP video of the scene showed what was believed to be the remains of the bomber covered with a black sheet with pools of blood nearby.

The monument "is safe and unaffected and visitors continue to arrive," temple director Mohammed Abdel-Aziz told the AP. Four groups of foreigners visited after the attack.

There was no claim of responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamic militants who have operating in the Sinai Peninsula.

Last year, the main Sinai-based insurgent group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, which has destroyed archaeological landmarks in Syria and Iraq, viewing them as idolatrous.

The violence in Sinai accelerated and spread to other parts of Egypt following the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The militants say the attacks are in retaliation for a massive crackdown on Islamists in Egypt.

A senior security official said investigators are looking to see whether the Luxor attackers are Egyptians and whether it marks an expansion of the violence to southern Egypt, which was a breeding ground for the militants of the 1990s and 2000.

In the 1990s, Islamic militants targeted tourism to try to undermine the economy. The deadliest attack was in Luxor in November 1997, 58 people were killed at the 3,400-year-old Hatshepsut Temple.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters, said the new breed of militants were unknown to the authorities. But he said the latest attack was a qualitative shift in the militants' target.

The attack coincided with a major regional economic summit, hosted by el-Sissi at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Luxor is home to some of Egypt's most famous ancient temples and pharaonic tombs, including that of King Tutankhamun. The city has been one the sites hit hardest by the sharp downturn in foreign visitors since the 2011 uprising.

Before the turmoil, tourism accounted for as much as 20 percent of Egypt's foreign currency revenues, with as a high of 14.7 million visitors in 2010.

After the uprising, those numbers plunged to 9.6 million, and then fell lower in 2013 after Morsi's ouster. Tourists have been coming back slowly, with revenues jumping to $4 billion so far this year, compared with $1.9 billion in the same period in 2014.

Beach resorts in southern Sinai and along the Red Sea coast have drawn most of the visitors, with cultural sites like Luxor seeing only a trickle. Most tourists in the searing heat of the summer months come to Luxor only for a one-day trip from the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.

Wednesday's attack is likely to result in cancellations in bookings for Luxor, although the blow is cushioned by the fact that it is low season and most tourists stay away until October.

Three major German operators, TUI Deutschland, the Germany branch of Thomas Cook and L'TUR, said they are temporarily canceling excursions to Luxor, but stressed that most of their customers are at Red Sea resorts or on Nile cruises.

"We have no reason to advise against traveling to Egypt at the present time, since the German Foreign Ministry hasn't changed its security guidance," said L'TUR spokesman Thomas Pluennecke. "But, as a precaution, we have stopped all excursions to Luxor. Of course we take the situation seriously."

Authors: Sarah el Deeb & Haggag Salama | Source: The Associated Press [June 10, 2015]