Message #74651

[Josie Linde]

Hourig Sourouzian (right), director of the Colossi of Memnon and the Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project, stands near a massive right hand and knee that once belonged to a colossus statue at the temple complex of Amenhotep III in Luxor on March 27, 2008.

Sourouzian unearthed the massive fragment in 2002 near the temple's second pylon, the same site where a perfectly preserved statue of the king's favorite wife, Queen Tiye, was uncovered last week.

The right hand resting on the knee, according to Sourouzian, “is one of the old conventions of Egyptian representations.”