PM, His Jordanian Counterpart Inspect Tahrir Square Renovations

On Thursday, Egypt's Prime Minister (PM) Moustafa Madbouly, and his Jordanian counterpart Bisher Al-Khasawneh inspected Tahrir square's developmental works.

Earlier today, Madbouly and Al-Khasawneh held bilateral talks, in the presence of a number of ministers.

The Egyptian government plans to turn the 150-year-old square into an open-air museum.

The government’s strategy aims at beautifying the famous site, which has witnessed many historical and political events in the country’s modern era, through changing the appearance of the main buildings and embellishing it with a host of archaeological items, under the supervision of the project’s general engineering consultant Waleed Mansour.

Al-Tahrir Square development project

The square renovations include the roundabout at the square center, known as “Al-Sanya” in Arabic, where a pharaonic obelisk is installed, in addition to four ram-headed sphinxes, surrounded by a circular fountain.

The 17-meter-tall, 90-ton Ramses II era obelisk, was found in the form of eight large blocks at San El-Hagar archaeological site in the city of Zagazig.

The four sphinxes were transferred from Luxor’s Karnak Temple.

The square will also be decorated with many pharaonic-era plants such as date trees, olive trees, fig-trees, and carob trees, in addition to papyrus, for which the ancient Egyptian civilization was famous.