Archaeologists from Egypt and Germany have found a mᴀssive 26ft (8 metre) statue submerged in ground water in a Cairo slum.
Researchers say it probably depicts revered Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.
The discovery, hailed by the Antiquities Ministry as one of the most important ever, was made near the ruins of Ramses II’s temple in the ancient city of Heliopolis, located in the eastern part of modern-day Cairo.
Archaeologists from Egypt and Germany have found a mᴀssive 26ft (8 metre) statue submerged in ground water in a Cairo slum. Researchers say it probably depicts revered Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago
‘Last Tuesday they called me to announce the big discovery of a colossus of a king, most probably Ramses II, made out of quartzite,’ Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani told Reuters on Thursday at the site of the statue’s unveiling.
Ramses the Great was the most powerful and celebrated ruler of ancient Egypt.
Known by his successors as the ‘Great Ancestor’, he led several military expeditions and expanded the Egyptian Empire to stretch from Syria in the east to Nubia in the south.
He was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt and ruled from 1279 to 1213 BCE.
‘We found the bust of the statue and the lower part of the head and now we removed the head and we found the crown and the right ear and a fragment of the right eye,’ Anani said.
Yesterday, archaeologists, officials, local residents, and members of the news media looked on as a mᴀssive forklift pulled the statue’s head out of the water
The joint Egyptian-German expedition, which included the University of Leipzig, also found the upper part of a life-sized limestone statue of Pharaoh Seti II, Ramses II’s grandson, which is 80 centimetres long.
Researchers found the bust of the statue and the lower part of the head (pictured) yesterday. It is believed to be of Ramses the Great, the most powerful and celebrated ruler of ancient Egypt, who ruled from 1279 to 1213 BCE
Egyptian minister of antiquities Khaled el-Anani poses for picture with workers next to the head of a statue with a team of German-Egyptian archeologists in Cairo’s Mattarya district
Pictured is the head of what is believed to be a mammoth statue of Ramses the Great. It was pulled from the mud and groundwater by a bulldozer
The statue stands eight meters (26 feet) tall and is carved out of quartzite, a tough stone composed mostly of quartz grains. Pictured is part of the torso before it was recovered
The discovery, hailed by the Antiquities Ministry as one of the most important ever, was made near the ruins of Ramses II’s temple in the ancient city of Heliopolis. Pictured are researchers digging out the statue from the archaeological site
Experts will now attempt to extract the remaining pieces of the statue before restoring it. Ramses II ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago and was a great builder whose effigy can be seen at a string of archaeological sites across the country
An Egyptian worker prepares to lift parts of a statue that they say likely depicts Pharaoh Ramses II. The head of the statue was submerged in ground water at the site of the king’s temple
The find could be a boon for Egypt’s tourism industry, which has suffered many setbacks since the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 but remains a vital source of foreign currency. Pictured are Egyptian works inspecting the statue
Ramses II was king of Egypt from 1279 to 1213 BC and is also known as Ramses the great. Egyptian workers lift part of the head of a statue with a crane
Pictured is part of an ancient Egyptian obelisk from the temple unearthed in the Matariya area in Cairo
During Ramses the great’s 67 year reign, he is believed to have built more temples and fathered more children than any other pharaoh
The sun temple in Heliopolis was one of the largest temples in Egypt, almost double the size of Luxor’s Karnak, but was destroyed in Greco-Roman times
The number of tourists visiting Egypt slumped to 9.8 million in 2011 from more than 14.7 million in 2010. Egyptian Minister of Antiquities Khaled E Nany (pictured kneeling left) inspects the findings, which could help the country to reinvigorate tourism
The sun temple in Heliopolis was founded by Ramses II, which increases the likelihood the statue is of him, archaeologists say.
It was one of the largest temples in Egypt, almost double the size of Luxor’s Karnak, but was destroyed in Greco-Roman times.
Many of its obelisks were moved to Alexandria or to Europe and stones from the site were looted and used for building as Cairo developed.
Experts will now attempt to extract the remaining pieces of both statues before restoring them.
If they are successful and the colossus is proven to depict Ramses II, it will be moved to the entrance of the Grand Egyptian Museum, set to open in 2018.
The discovery was made in the working class area of Matariya, among unfinished buildings and mud roads.
Dietrich Raue, head of the expedition’s German team, told Reuters that ancient Egyptians believed Heliopolis was the place where the sun god lives, meaning it was off-limits for any royal residences.
‘The sun god created the world in Heliopolis, in Matariya. That’s what I always tell the people here when they say is there anything important. According to the pharaonic belief, the world was created in Matariya,’ Raue said.
‘That means everything had to be built here. Statues, temples, obelisks, everything. But … the king never lived in Matariya, because it was the sun god living here.’
The find could be a boon for Egypt’s tourism industry, which has suffered many setbacks since the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 but remains a vital source of foreign currency.
The number of tourists visiting Egypt slumped to 9.8 million in 2011 from more than 14.7 million in 2010.
A bomb attack that brought down a Russian plane carrying 224 people from a Red Sea resort in October 2015 further hit arrivals, which dropped to 1.2 million in the first quarter of 2016 from 2.2 million a year earlier.
The discovery has excited the local community, with many posing for images alongside the mammoth statue
Workers spent hours digging out the giant statue, which is described as one of the most important discoveries ever made in the region
Dietrich Raue, head of the expedition’s German team, said that ancient Egyptians believed Heliopolis was the place where the sun god lives. Workers are shown here digging for more relics int he area
Archaeologists from Egypt and Germany found the statue in Mattarya district – today a sprawl of working class districts in northeastern Cairo
A boy rides his bicycle past the recently discovered head of a statue in the Cairo slum
People gather near water which covered the site of a recently discovered statue in a Cairo slum. Egyptologist Khaled Nabil Osman said the statue was an ‘impressive find’ and that the area is likely to have other buried antiquities
Mᴀssive statues of the warrior-king can be seen in Luxor, and his most famous monument is found in Abu Simbel, near Sudan. Pictured is the latest discovery in Cairo
People walk past the recently discovered statue. The discovery was a joint effort between Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities and researchers from the University of Leipzig
The quartzite colossus of Ramses II after they were discovered at the ancient Heliopolis archaeological site
Most of what was once Heliopolis is now covered with residential buildings. Locals in this image inspect the latest discovery
Egypt Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany (centre) and Head of the German group Archaeologist Dietrich Rauo (right) visit the ancient Heliopolis archaeological site in Matareya following the discovery
Once the statue has been analysed, it will be moved to the entrance of the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is expected to open in 2018
Dietrich Raue, head of the expedition’s German team, told Reuters that Heliopolis was off-limits for any royal residences. Pictured is the head of the statue
Egyptologist Khaled Nabil Osman said that the mᴀssive head removed from the ground was made in the style that Ramses was depicted, and was likely him
Archaeologists working under difficult conditions in Cairo had to recovered the ancient statue submerged in mud
Yesterday, archaeologists, officials, local residents, and members of the news media looked on as a mᴀssive forklift pulled the statue’s head out of the water
The University of Leipzig, who helped make the discovery, has been working in ancient Heliopolis for more than a decade. Pictured is part of the head of the statue
