A man working the ground in front of his own house in Behbeit El-Hagar, a village in Egypt’s Nile Delta, struck a carved stone block that has since led archaeologists to the head of a royal statue about 1.60 meters tall, with an estimated full height of 8.5 meters. Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the finds on Oct. 14.
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Two statues and an inscribed block of pink granite have come out of rescue excavations so far. One statue is identified as Ramesses II, the second is only tentatively assigned to him, and the digging is continuing. The announcement names neither the villager nor a timetable for the excavation, and it describes the work as ongoing, with specialists from the Supreme Council of Antiquities studying how the pieces fit together.
From a chance find to an emergency excavation
According to Archaeology News Online Magazine, the resident was working land he owns in front of his house in Behbeit El-Hagar, in Gharbia Governorate, when he hit the carved block. He reported it immediately to the local antiquities inspectorate, whose inspectors confirmed on a first check that the stone was ancient. The villager is not named in any account reviewed, which credit him only as a local man or citizen; Dexerto notes that one cited outlet, the Egyptian Gazette, calls him a farmer while its own account says only that he was working outside his home.
The inspectorate then completed the legal paperwork, and the Supreme Council of Antiquities formed a committee and a team of specialists to run the work. Gulf News describes the digging as rescue excavations and says the ministry expects further excavation and study to determine the nature of the finds and how they relate to one another.
Sherif Fathy, the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, thanked the citizen for reporting the stone and noted the part ordinary people play in protecting national heritage, according to the Italian art outlet Finestre sull’Arte, which paraphrases his remarks rather than quoting him. Hisham El-Leithy, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, supplied the description of the objects that every later report repeats.
What was actually uncovered
The first statue is known from a giant head about 1.60 meters tall, wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. A fragment of the upper back pillar carries the king’s Horus name, rendered in the reports as “Hor Ka Nakht Meri Maat.” From the head’s proportions, the ministry’s experts estimate that the whole statue, base included, stood roughly 8.5 meters high, which is about 28 feet. That is an extrapolation from a fragment, and the missing lower body means the figure has not been measured in one piece.
The second statue is a main body about 2.40 meters long, missing its legs, its base and the upper part of its royal nemes headcloth. Its head was also found, with a well-preserved face that closely resembles the first statue. Experts believe it too depicts Ramesses II, but the attribution is hypothetical. Dexerto points out that the widely repeated “28-foot statue” framing glosses over the fact that what has surfaced is surviving pieces rather than an intact figure.
A pink granite block about 1.30 meters long lay roughly a meter north of the second statue. Its hieroglyphs preserve two royal titles tied to Ramesses II, “Nesu Bity” meaning King of Upper and Lower Egypt and “Sa Ra” meaning Son of Ra. The inscription is the strongest textual link between the stones and the pharaoh, who ruled from about 1279 to 1213 BC according to the HeritageDaily figures that Dexerto cites.
A site already known for Isis
Behbeit El-Hagar is best known for the ruins of a large temple dedicated to the goddess Isis, and the site is strewn with granite blocks and architectural pieces that testify to its religious and monumental importance. Spanish-language coverage based on an EFE dispatch reports that the statement came from El-Leithy in the hours before publication, and that excavation and study of the site are ongoing.
Dexerto adds that researchers are investigating whether the statues originally stood at the site or were moved there later. Nothing in the ministry announcement settles that question, and no excavation start date, discovery date or independent dating of the statues beyond their attribution to Ramesses II has been published.
For now the facts that hold are narrow: a head wearing the double crown, a second body with a strikingly similar face, a titled granite block, and a villager who chose to call the authorities rather than keep digging. Officials have not said how long the excavation will run or where the pieces will eventually be displayed, and the ministry’s published statement describes the digging only as ongoing, with the aim of reconstructing the history and architectural development of the area around the Isis temple. Further work at Behbeit El-Hagar will decide whether the second statue can be confirmed as Ramesses II and whether more of either figure survives beneath the fields around the Isis temple ruins.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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