The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced on Monday the discovery of the upper part of a huge statue of King Ramses II in Minya Governorate, south of Cairo.
He reported statement The Ministry stated that “the archaeological study conducted on the discovered upper part of the statue proved that it is a continuation of the lower part that was discovered by the German archaeologist Roeder in 1930.”
The discovery came during excavations carried out by the joint Egyptian-American archaeological mission between the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the University of Colorado in the Ashmunin area in Minya Governorate.
The ministry said that the mission began carrying out archaeological cleaning and strengthening work in preparation for studying it and preparing a visualization of what the statue would look like in its entirety.
The head of the Central Administration of Antiquities of Middle Egypt, Adel Okasha, said that the mission began excavations in the region during the past year in an attempt to uncover the religious center of the city of Ashmunin during the New Kingdom until the Roman era, which includes a number of temples, including a temple for King Ramesses II.
Okasha stressed that the discovery of this huge part of the statue of King Ramses II indicates the importance of this site, which will reveal more archaeological discoveries during the coming period.
The head of the mission from the Egyptian side, Bassem Jihad, said that the discovered part is made of limestone and is about 3.80 meters high. It depicts King Ramesses II sitting, wearing a double crown and a headdress, surmounted by a royal cobra.
The upper part of the statue’s back column also shows hieroglyphic writings of titles to glorify the king, indicating that the size of the statue, when the lower part is added, may reach about 7 metres.
The head of the mission from the American side, Yovona Trnka, indicated that the mission succeeded during its first excavation season in the region in restoring and reinstalling the huge granite columns located on the northern side of the Ashmunin Basilica, which was built over the ruins of the Ptolemaic Temple, in dedication to the Virgin Mary, during the sixth century AD. According to the ministry’s statement.
The city of Ashmunin was known in ancient Egypt as Khemnu, meaning the City of the Eight. It was the seat of the Egyptian cult of Thamun and was known in the Greco-Roman era as Hermopolis Magna, where it was then the center of the worship of the god Djehuti and the capital of the fifteenth region.
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