Egypt has not finished revealing all its secrets. a sphinx “smiling with two dimples” representing a Roman emperor was unearthed near the temple of Hathor from which the famous Zodiac of Dendera comes, 500 km south of Cairo, announced Monday the Egyptian authorities.
This limestone sphinx was discovered in “a Byzantine basin inside a two-level tomb” alongside a “Roman stele engraved in demotic and hieroglyphics”, said the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in a press release. This stele, he adds, still needs to be deciphered to reveal the exact identity of the emperor, who could be “Roman Emperor Claudianoius”, according to the Egyptian team in charge of the excavations.
The Dendera zodiac joined Paris when in 1820 the French prefect Sébastien Louis Saulnier sent a team to unseal this bas-relief with explosives. This representation of the celestial vault of more than 2.5 meters in width and height has hung on a ceiling in the Louvre since 1922, while a plaster copy replaces it in Dendera.
Several major discoveries
Egypt has revealed several major discoveries in recent months, mainly in the Saqqara necropolis near Cairo, known for the step pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser. But also on the famous plateau of Giza where stands the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world still standing.
Thursday, Cairo thus announced the discovery of a hidden corridor of nine meters inside the Great Pyramid of Egypt, that of Cheops, which could possibly lead to “the real burial chamber of King Cheops” supposed to contain the treasure of the pharaoh. Further south, in Luxor, the Thebes of the pharaohs, remains of“an entire Roman city” dating from the first centuries AD have recently been unearthed.
For some experts, these announcement effects have more political and economic than scientific significance. Because the country of nearly 105 million inhabitants in serious economic crisis is counting on tourism to straighten out its finances: its government is aiming for 30 million tourists per year by 2028, against 13 million before the Covid-19.