Posted on 04/26/2011 5:31:00 AM PDT by Red Badger
CAIRO — Archeologists unearthed one of the largest statues to date of a powerful ancient Egyptian pharoah at his mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor, the country's antiquities authority announced Tuesday.
The 13 meter (42 foot) tall statue of Amenhotep III was one of pair that flanked the northern entrance to the grand funerary temple on the west bank of the Nile that is currently the focus of a major excavation.
The statue consists of seven large quartzite blocks and still lacks a head and was actually first discovered in the 1970s and then rehidden, according to the press release from the country's antiquities authority. Archaeologists expect to find its twin in the next digging season.
Excavation supervior Abdel-Ghaffar Wagdi said two other statues were also unearthed, one of the god Thoth with a baboon's head and and a six foot (1.85 centiment) tall one of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet.
Archaeologists working on the temple over the past few years have issued a flood of announcements about new discoveries of statues. The 3,400-year-old temple is one of the largest on the west bank of the Nile in Luxor, where the powerful pharoahs of Egypt's New Kingdom built their tombs.
Amenhotep III, who was the grandfather of the famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, ruled in the 14th century B.C. at the height of Egypt's New Kingdom and presided over a vast empire stretching from Nubia in the south to Syria in the north.
The pharaoh's temple was largely destroyed, possibly by floods, and little remains of its walls. It was also devastated by an earthquake in 27 B.C. But archaeologists have been able to unearth a wealth of artifacts and statuary in the buried ruins, including two statues of Amenhotep made of black granite found at the site in March 2009.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
GGG Ping!.............
Better bury it again quick before the Egyptian Taliban (opps, democratic freedom fighters) decide to blow it up because it is un-Islamic.
During routine excavation work at the site of the King Amenhotep III funerary temple on Luxor’s west bank, an Egyptian excavation mission led by Zahi Hawass, minister for antiquities, unearthed a statue of the king. Thirteen metres in height, the King Amenhotep III statue consists of seven huge quartzite blocks. The statue is without its head.
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I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away”.
— Shelley
Hey! I know this guy!
Not to worry...they already chopped his head off!!
A statue of one of the honorary members of the “Phay-rows”?
Inshallah!
Tear down the pyramids, blow up the sphinx!
They are an affront to Islam!
The fact that these offerings to the heathen gods still exist proves the apostasy, corruption and westernization of the former Egyptian rulers.
The works of the infidel mock Allah and his prophet, true believers would not allow them to remain standing.
Obama Pharoh Ping!
Amenhotep III was called the “Napoleon of Egypt” because of his success as a military commander. He is also remembered for destroying all reference to his predecessor, Hatshupset, the queen regent who usurped his throne when his father died, and ruled in her own name as Pharoah.
“The Sphinx stinks!”
I guess he was UPSET with HatshUPSET.............
Well, he must not have been completely successful, since you’ve heard of her!
Well, not ALL references.
Or you wouldn't have been able to write that.
Beautiful.
He was successful for a lot longer than you’d think. He even removed her statues and name from her burial complex. Reference to her was eventually found on broken statuary/pillar material, etc used as fill on ther buildings.
Dr. Hawi Zawiss [?] recently found her mummy in a cave with several others in the Valley of the Queens [Kings?].
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