Five pharaonic statue heads found in Egypt

A team of Egyptian and French archaeologists have found five heads of royal statues from the pharaonic era, officials from the antiquities ministry said on Saturday.

"The heads, which had crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt and were made from limestone, were discovered" south of Luxor, Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said in a statement.

The head of the department of pharaonic antiquities, Mohammed Abdel Maqsud, said the heads measured 50 centimetres (20 inches) across and are estimated to be around 4,000 years old.

He said experts were studying them to determine if they belonged to decapitated statues found in the same location several years ago.