Egypt's Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly inspected renovation work at Cairo's Tahrir Square, which is set to be promoted as a tourist site. According to a statement on Sunday night, Madbouly toured the square to follow up on the final stage of renovation. He also inspected construction work at Tahrir's Egyptian Museum, which includes upgrading the museum's garden and fountain and lighting for the museum's facades. Madbouly said the state aims to highlight Egypt's long-standing civilisation through its “unique treasures,” affirming the importance of sprucing up the square to include it among the country's tourist destinations. Egypt plans to turn the 150-year-old square into an open-air museum, hosting an open-air pharaonic exhibition and historical pathway that the public can view, functioning as an extension of the Egyptian Museum. The square will also be dotted with many pharaonic-era florae like date trees, olive trees, fig trees, and carob trees, in addition to papyrus, for which the ancient Egyptian civilisation was famous. It will also be home to a 17-metre-tall, 90-ton-obelisk from the era of Ramses II, and four ram-headed sphinxes moved from Luxor earlier this month as the prime attractions. Despite the government's plans to transform the famous site, which has been at the centre of many historical and political events in the country's modern history, it has been met with criticism over the transfer of the sphinxes from the southern tourist hub to busy Cairo. Critics have argued that Egyptian antiquities law forbids the use of antiquities in decoration works that might harm their historical value.
