A team of Egyptian and German archaeologists have discovered a colossal 8-meter sculpture sunken in ground water in a Cairo slum that they believe to embody the revered Pharaoh Ramses II, King of Egypt 3 millennia ago.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Egypt believes that the find is among the most remarkable ever made. It was done near the remnants of Ramses II’s temple in the prehistoric city of Heliopolis, situated in the eastern side of present-day Cairo.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Khaled El-Enany, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, said, “Last Tuesday they called me to announce the big discovery of a colossus of a king, most probably Ramses II, made out of quartzite.” Ramses II was called “Great Ancestor” by his descendants.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great, was the most powerful and celebrated Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, the 3^rd of the 13^th Dynasty, reigning from 1279 to 1213 BCE. Multiple military expeditions were carried out under his rule, helping to expand the Egyptian Empire from Syria in the east to Nubia in the south.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

“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,” Enany said. The next day, archaeologists, officials, local residents, and members of the news media looked on as a colossal forklift pulled the statue’s head out of the water.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

The upper part of a life-sized sculpture of Pharaoh Seti II, Ramses II’s grandson, measuring 80 cm in length, was also discovered by the joint Egyptian-German expedition, who reveal that Ramses II founded the sun temple in Heliopolis, supporting the theory that the statue is of him.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

The sun temple was one of the biggest in Egypt, nearly twice the size of Luxor’s Karnak, though it was demolished in Greco-Roman eras. Several obelisks from the temple were transported to Alexandria or to Europe, while stones from the site were plundered and used for constructions as Cairo grew.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Currently, experts are attempting to draw out the remnants of both statues before restoring them. Should they manage to do it and the massive statue is verified to represent Ramses II, it will be transported to the entrance of the Grand Egyptian Museum

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

CREATION SITE

Scientists carried out the find in the working class area of Matariya, among the incomplete constructions and mud roads. Dietrich Raue, leader of the German archaeologists, said that prehistoric Egyptians considered Heliopolis the home to the sun god, leading to it being off-limits for any regal residences.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

“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.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

“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.”

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

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.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

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.

Source: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany