Farmer Digs Up Stone Egyptian Stele Saluting Sixth Century BC Pharaoh

Recently, a farmer ploughing his field in Egypt’s Ismailia Governorate dug up something massive and historically significant. The unnamed farmer was shocked to realize the heavy object he’d uncovered was not a large rock. It was actually a huge stone Egyptian stele that contained hieroglyphic writing in an ancient language.

Suspecting he’d found something important the man immediately contacted the local Tourism and Antiquities Police. After retrieving it, antiquities experts identified the thick stone slab as an ancient Egyptian stele, or sandstone monument. This stele was constructed in the sixth century BC, as a monument to a largely forgotten pharaoh.

The Egyptian stele of Apries, as it was found in the farmer’s field, with its hieroglyphic inscription related to one of the pharaoh’s numerous completed or planned military campaigns . (Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)