A joint of German-Egyptian research team working under difficult conditions in Cairo have discovered an ancient statue submerged in mud.
Archeologists suggest that it depicts Ramses II. Khaled al-Anani, Egypt's antiquities minister said to Reuters: "The most powerful and celebrated ruler of ancient Egypt, the pharaoh also known as Ramses the great was the third of the nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt and ruled from 1279 to 1213 BCE. ...His successors called him the great ancestor".
The team was working at what was once Helopolis, one of the oldest cities in ancient Egypt. Today the site is seriously threatened by new construction and a rapidly rising water table.