CAIRO, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced Thursday the start of the restoration process of the Ramesseum temple in the southern city of Luxor.
The restoration work will be carried out by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in cooperation with the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage, said the ministry in a statement.
The project aims to restore the temple's first pylon by reassembling its building stones, and to create a project database based on scientific documents, said Mohamed Ismail Khaled, secretary general of the SCA.
He explained that the project work includes finding out the mechanisms adopted by ancient Egyptians for building this monument, analyzing its inscriptions by comparing them with similar ones in other temples, fixing its blocks, and restoring the temple.
The Ramesseum temple was built by Ramses II, the third king of ancient Egypt's 19th Dynasty, during his reign between 1279 and 1213 BC. It was hit and damaged by an earthquake in 27 BC, according to the statement. ■
