A Swedish-Egyptian mission led by Maria Nilsson and John Ward from Lund University has discovered a New Kingdom sandstone workshop and several sculptures during excavations carried out at Gebel El-Silsila archaeological site in Aswan.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the mission discovered among the debris in the workshop a large criosphinx (ram-headed sphinx) statue.
The statue, approximately 5 metres long, 3.5 metres high, and 1.5 metres wide, is carved in a style comparable to the criosphinxes to the south of Khonsu Temple at Karnak. The sphinx is believed to be dated to Amenhotep III of the 18th Dynasty.
