CAIRO — Archaeologists have unearthed the upper part of
a double limestone statue of a powerful pharaoh who ruled nearly 3,400
years ago, Egypt's Ministry of Culture said Saturday.
A ministry
statement said the team of Egyptian archaeologists discovered the 4-foot
(1.3-meter) by 3-foot (0.95-meter) statue of Amenhotep III in Kom
el-Hittan, the site of the pharaoh's mortuary temple in the southern
city of Luxor.
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The temple is one of the largest on the west bank of the Nile in Luxor.
The
statue portrays Amenhotep III wearing the double crown of Egypt, which
is decorated with a uraeus, and seated on a throne next to the Theban
god Amun.
Amenhotep III, who was the grandfather of the famed
boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, ruled in the 14th century BC 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.
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.