“We found only a part of the city, ”the famous Egyptologist told the French agency AFP this morning, during a presentation to the press of that city located on the west bank of the Nile, which“ extends west and north ”. After seven months of excavations in a city buried under sand for millennia, several objects were exposed in the ruins, such as ceramic pieces, dried meat, jewellery, wine, amulets and small statues, between the temples of Ramses III and Amenófis III,

The stamps affixed in ceramics allowed that place to be dated to the reign of Amunhotep III, who ascended the throne in 1,391 BC (before Christ) and died in 1,353 BC, inheriting an extendable empire from the Euphrates River, in present day Iraq and Syria, until to Sudan. "It is not just a city and we can also see its economic activity," Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the General Council of Antiquities in Egypt, told AFP. The discovery of the “largest city in ancient Egypt” had been revealed on Thursday by the archaeological mission, which discovered “a place in good condition, with almost entire walls and rooms full of the tools of daily life”. "Many foreign missions searched this city and never found it," recalled Zahi Hawass, former Egyptian minister of Antiquities, in the same statement that the archaeological mission says it hopes to "discover intact tombs filled with treasures".

Egypt has been betting on the promotion of ancient heritage to try to recover visitors, after years of political instability caused by the revolt of the so-called Arab Spring, which started in January 2011, which caused a severe blow to the local tourism industry. Last week, the 'Golden Parade of the Pharaohs' transported the mummified remains of 18 ancient kings, including those of Amunhotep III, and four queens through Cairo, from the emblematic Egyptian Museum to the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.