Six Pieces of 18th Dynasty Double Statue Discovered

This is wonderful news!  The newly-discovered pieces can, one hopes, eventually be inserted into the statues and the "filler" parts removed. I count this a significant discovery for preserving our ever-increasingly fragile link to our collective past.  More people today seem intent on destroying it (all over the world) than in preserving it.  This makes me sad - frustrated and bitterly angry at such short-sighted stupidity, too - but mostly, just very sad.

From eturbonews.com
New Discovery in Egypt
Missing Egyptian artifacts found
By Hazel Heyer, eTN | Jan 09, 2011
(eTN) - Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosny announced today that six missing pieces from the colossal double statue of the 18th Dynasty King Amenhotep III and his wife Queen Tiye, have been discovered at the king’s mortuary temple on Luxor’s west bank. The double statue is currently a centerpiece of the main hall at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The missing pieces were uncovered 130 years after Mariette discovered the double statue in 1889 at Medinet Habu. The fragments were found during excavation work by an Egyptian team under the direction of Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

Hawass said that when the statue was first discovered an Italian team restored the statue and filled in the missing pieces with modern stonework. The pieces from Amenhotep III that were recovered come from the right side of his chest, nemes headdress, and leg. The pieces of Queen Tiye that were uncovered include a section of her wig, and pieces from her left arm, fingers and foot. A small section of the base of the double statue was also found. The measurements of the six missing fragments range from 47cm to 103cm. These pieces are currently being held at the site of Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple on the west bank, but will soon be relocated to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo for restoration and placement into the colossal statue.

Archaeologist, Abdul Ghafar Wagdy, the supervisor of the excavation at the site in Luxor, said that the pieces of statuary were found as part of a project to lower the ground water on the west bank of Luxor. These six pieces are only a few of nearly 1,000 statuary fragments that have been found dating from the Pharonic to the Coptic era. All the pieces that have been found to date are being stored in the west bank magazines for documentation and restoration.

Queen Tiye Update

A follow-up to my post from March 23, 2008.

From National Geographic News. Here's a photo of the giant statue of Queen Tiye excavated at Amenhotep III's mortuary temple. This is a different statue that the one I thought they might have been talking about (which was old news). Also published is that this Tiye statue was attached to the broken-off leg of a much larger colossus—a 50-foot-tall (15-meter-tall) likeness of Amenhotep III seated at his throne.

Giant Statue of Queen Tiye Discovered at Memnon

Statue of pharonic queen discovered in south Egypt
(Image: Statue of a queen, probably Tiy, execavated at the Temple of Mut at Luxor, January, 2006. I wonder if this is the same statue?)

Sat Mar 22, 4:25 PM ET

LUXOR, Egypt (AFP) - Egyptian and European archeologists on Saturday announced they had discovered a giant statue of an ancient pharaonic queen on the spectacular south Egypt site of the Colossi of Memnon.

The statue represents Queen Tiy, the wife of 18th dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III, and stands 3.62 metres high (almost 12 feet).

It was discovered around the site of the massive Colossi of Memnon twin statues that command the road to Luxor's famed Valley of the Kings.

Two sphinx representing Tiy and Amenhotep III as well as 10 statues in black granite of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, who protected the pharaohs, we also found by the archeologists and presented to reporters and senior officials.

Culture Minister Faruq Hosni hailed the discovery as a "formidable" entreprise and told reporters he expected the statues to be erected for public view next year.

They will be joined by two 15-metre-high (50 feet) statues, excavated in recent years, which will be placed 100 metre (yards) behind the Colossi of Memnon as part of an "open air museum."

"Once these new colossi and the other new discoveries are put in place... this site will become one of the most important open air museums of the pharaonic period," the head of the archeological team Hourig Sourouzian said.

The Colossi of Memnom are massive quartzite sandstone statues, some 20 metres high, which used to guard a temple dedicated to Amenhotep III that was destroyed in a devastating earthquake in the 1st century AD.

Over the centuries the rising waters of the Nile River inundated the rest of the site.

Archeologists hope to rehabilitate the site within five years.