A sphinx-shaped statue has been discovered in Qena, Upper Egypt, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziry announced on Monday.
The limestone sculpture, created for Roman emperor Tiberius Claudius (41-54 AD), was unearthed beside Dendera Temple in Qena Governorate.
An Egyptian mission led by Mamdouh el-Damaty, who is former antiquities minister and professor of archaeology at Ain Shams University, found the statue at the site of a temple to Horus, which was built east of the Dendera Temple during the Roman Era.
The mission also found a stela with inscriptions in hieroglyphics and demotic below the statue.
The mission also unearthed the remains of a limestone maqsura (enclosed space) consisting of a two-level platform with a foundation and sloping floors, inside is a water-storage basin made of red brick covered with mortar. It is said to date from the Byzantine Age.
The mission began work on this site last month with a ground penetrating radar survey of the Osirian halls in the Dendera Temple and a magnetic and radio survey in the area east of the wall surrounding the temple in front of the Isis Gate. The surveys were conducted in co-operation with a team from the National Research Institute of Astronomy & Geophysics.
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