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Towering like sentries above the necropolis of Ancient Thebes in southern Egypt, the world-famous Colossi of Memnon will see their number double from two to four from next year.

A giant statue of the ancient Pharaoh Amenhotep III stands at the site of the Colossi of Memnon near the southern Egyptian town of Luxor, on March 22. Egyptian and European archaeologists announced a string of spectacular new discoveries at the Colossi of Memnon site including a giant statue of queen Tiy, the wife of 18th dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III.(AFP/HO/File)

Next year two giant statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III will begin to rise again, just a hundred metres (328 feet) behind his two existing colossi that mark the entrance to the temple.

Another two statues, still half-buried, will also be returned to their former upright position in the years to come

The statues are all that remains of the funerary temple of 18th dynasty Amenhotep who ruled from 1391 to 1353 BC. He was the father of the iconoclastic pharaoh Akhenaton

The team discovered pieces of four giant Amenhotep statues, two sphinxes, 84 statues of the war goddess Sekhmet depicted as a lioness, and a stele whose 150 fragments were spread across a site

The tenth annual dig, which ends this month, has already unearthed a 3.62-metre- (11.9 feet-) tall statue of Tiya, Amenhotep's wife

She has an extraordinary beauty