The Reconstruction of Amenhotep III

Two 14 m colossal sandstone statues of King Amenhotep III discovered in that kings mortuary temple in 1933 have been uncovered and packed to be shipped to a dryer climate to be reconstructed and consolidated with the intent of returning them back to the mortuary temple.

The kings mortuary temple was in good condition only for a little more than a century after it was built in the first half of the fourteenth century BC. The Nineteenth dynasty King Merenptah used many of the blocks from Amenhotep's temple in his own construction in the closing years of the thirteenth century BC.

The two statues in question were destroyed in a massive well recorded earthquake in 27 BC where they collapsed and broke to pieces.