Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a 4,000-year-old statue as they carried out routine cleaning work at one of the Giza pyramids.
The 149-centimetre-long statue was found on Tuesday buried just 40 centimetres below the surface of the sand in the northern part of the King Men-Kau-Re's pyramid (2551-2523 BC).
The statue is of an unidentified person wearing a medium-length wig, sitting on a chair with his right arm stretched on his knee and holding an unidentified object in his fist, Zahi Hawas, secretary general of the Egyptian Higher Council for Antiquities, said.
Hawas explained that it is difficult to recognise the dynasty to which the statue belongs because it has no inscriptions on it.
However, Hawas said that from the way the statue was structured, it is most likely that it belongs to the fourth dynasty (2649-2513 BC).