2,000-year-old Sphinx discovered in ancient Egyptian temple
A sandstone statue of a sphinx was discovered in an ancient temple in Aswan, Egypt, as workers were trying to lower the groundwater level, and experts believe it’s more than 2,000 years old.
A sphinx is a mythical creature created by the Egyptians with the head of a human man, the body of a lion and sometimes wings. In Greek mythology, a sphinx had the head of a woman.
The statue likely dates to the Ptolemaic period from 305 BC – 30 BC, according to Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziri.
The sphinx was found in the Kom Ombo temple near an area where two sandstone reliefs of King Ptolemy V were found two months ago, according to a press release from the Antiquities Council.
Cleopatra was the last Ptolemy to rule Egypt and the most famous of the dynasty, which was actually Greek but ruled both Egypt and Greece at the time.
The director of Aswan Antiquities, Abdel Moneim Saeed, said researchers are searching for more information on the sphinx and that more archaeological studies are planned in the same area.
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Shelby Lin Erdman, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
