ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT—Egypt Today reports that the larger-than-life-size head of a marble statue depicting an elderly man was discovered at Taposiris Magna, an ancient city on Egypt’s northern coast. The sculpture has realistic features, including a bald head, wrinkled face, and signs of illness. When it was intact, the colossal statue likely stood in a public building, according to Mohamed Ismail Khaled of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, since it may represent a prominent public figure from the Ptolemaic period (304–30 B.C.). The carving was found in the ruins of a house dated to the seventh century A.D., however. Joachim le Bomin of the University of Lyon and the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo said that he and his team are working to identify the possible Ptolemaic official and figure out how the sculpture ended up in a private residence some 700 years later. To read about Greco-Roman tombs found at Taposiris Magna, go to "Around the World: Egypt."
