Researchers unearth sphinx-like statue and shrine in southern Egypt 

Looks like this month is lucky for the field of archaeology, as there have been back to back discoveries worldwide. Only last week, archaeologists in the UK found prehistoric combs made from human skull. And now, sphinx-like statue and the remains of a shrine have been unearthed in an ancient temple site in southern Egypt. It is called the Temple of Dendera and is located in the Qena province, only 280 miles south of the capital city, Cairo, on the eastern banks of River Nile.  

What’s interesting here is that, as per initial analysis by the researchers, the artefacts may not be that of an Egyptian, but of the fourth Roman emperor Claudius who had invaded parts of north Africa during 41 AD and 54 AD. Guess how they came to this conclusion? Well, the statue has smiling features (soft smile with two dimples) with stark resemblance to the Roman ruler. But the statue does bear royal Egyptian features, such as a ‘nemes’ (a striped cloth headdress traditionally worn by pharaohs) on its head, which also had a ‘uraeus’ or a cobra-shaped end, thus giving it an Egyptian touch.  

Besides the statue, a Roman-era stone slab with demotic and hieroglyphic inscriptions have also been dug up from the ruins of a shrine that includes a dual-layer platform made from limestone, a ladder and a mud-brick basin belonging to the bygone Byzantine era which seemed to have been used for water storage.  

The archaeologists are yet to conduct further studies which are expected to reveal more information about the markings on the stone slab and provide the statue’s real identity and the surrounding environment. In case you were wondering whether the sphinx-like statue was anything like the 20 metres tall Great Sphinx of Giza (belonging to 2500 BC and representing the Egyptian pharaoh Khafre), it isn’t. In fact, it is significantly smaller in size.  

Interestingly, the Egyptian government has been promoting this brand-new discovery in the hope of attracting more tourists which in turn would earn them some much-needed foreign currency in an otherwise state of bankruptcy.  

For those interested, the discovery has been conducted by the Department of Egyptology of Ain Shams University.