Archaeologists found additional fragments of ancient Egyptian statues

Spectacular findings: Archaeologists have made exciting discoveries during excavations in Cairo. Among them are fragments of a six-meter statue of Pharaoh Ramses II, parts of a five-meter-high falcon figure and a priest statue. In addition, they encountered still missing parts of the colossal statue of Pharaoh Psammetich I. discovered early in 2017. Surprisingly, the statues come from very different times.

Colossal: In addition to parts of a large Ramses statue, the archaeologists discovered these ten centimeter wide toe fragments of the statue of Psammetich I. © Dietrich Raue / University of Leipzig

It was a real sensation: In March 2017, archaeologists had discovered a huge pharaoh statue in the middle of a densely populated suburb of Cairo. It once stood in Heliopolis - a temple complex dedicated to Egyptian sun gods and built by Pharaoh Ramses II. Because the statue was incomplete and almost the entire lower body was missing, the Egyptian-German team continued its excavations.

Giant toes, a Sphinx, a priest and a hawk

At the same time the team headed by the founder Dietrich Raue from the University of Leipzig came upon new, spectacular findings. These include about 1,900 between 10 and 150 centimeter-sized fragments of the giant Psammetich statue, including three giant toes of the pharaoh, about ten centimeters wide, as well as an important part of the backbone with the name Psammetich I.

Previously, the experts had also found the remains of a huge sphinx, including a 32-inch wide claw. Likewise, remains of a falcon about five to six meters high were discovered. His eye alone is 30 centimeters wide. As an "additional surprise" Raue described the basalt fragments of a so-called healer statue of a priest from the fourth century BC. This was the latest discovery.

Six-meter-high statue of Ramses II.

However, the fragments of another colossal statue - this time of Ramses II - the builder of the Temple of Heliopolis provided a great surprise.

The new parts of the statue of Ramses II are made of rose-granite and date from around 1250 BC, which is about 600 years older than the Psammetich statue, explains Raue, who was in Cairo from late August to early October.

Among the parts found so far of the Ramses statue are, among other things, a base, a lower leg and an upper arm of the pharaoh.

The statue was estimated to be about six feet tall and probably sitting, says Raue.

He could safely say that the gigantic quartzite figure of Psammetich had stood and was about nine meters high without a base.

Additional findings expected

We found the most in our last digging attempt on 28th September on an area of ​​four by three meters, reports the Egyptologist.

The mix of different ages and materials in the smallest space was the result of the fact that in the past there were always stoneworkers who could not use harder stone parts of the statues for their construction projects and were therefore left behind on the site of Heliopolis.

Raue will continue the excavations in February 2018 and awaits further interesting findings.

Now it's a matter of time, we have to puzzle, he says.

The variety and the size of the excavated fragments give new possibilities to reconstruct the original shape of the temple. At the same time, the investigation of the statues bases provided completely new insights into the progress of the tools and techniques used.

Source: University of Leipzig, October 12, 2017 - NPO