If the lure of the Sphinx or Tutankhamen’s tomb hasn’t moved you to book your trip to Egypt yet, perhaps you’ll want to schedule your flight to see the latest Egyptian find. During an excavation in the largest mortuary temple in Egypt, several incredible statues were discovered—including one of a baboon god. The piece is part of a rare double statue; in fact, this particular piece has no precedent.

Though fragments, it’s amazing that the remains of these two statues, found in the temple of Amenhotep III in Luxor, are still solid at all after the collapse that buried them over 2,000 years ago. Doesn’t it just make you shiver knowing that much history is present in these ancient artifacts? What it must be like to actually be in the presence of them—to see them up close and even smell them! Amazing.

The statue fragments depict part of the body of the king, King Amenhotep III—seated; his legs are what remain—next to the god Hapi, the baboon god, who is one of the four sons of Horus. Several other similar statues have been found in recent years as well.

Archeologists must be very familiar with the god Hapi, as the statue itself does not seem that much like a monkey. It’s eyes feature wrinkles beneath them, but otherwise most of the fact is missing and there are no other strong defining characteristics. Still, it’s a very cool find—especially after the statues were buried so many hundreds of years ago.

Antiques chief Zahi Hawass says, “Because the statuary were ritually significant, they could not be destroyed," said antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, who headed the excavation. The excavation team is still digging to find fragments of the double statue. It is the first of its kind as it depicts the king seated with the god Hapi, one of the four sons of Horus, beside him.”

It makes one wonder if, with so many discoveries still occurring today, we’ve even begun to learn just a fraction about our ancestors. There is so much that we know, yet new finds are continually being unearthed, giving us deeper peeks into the past. Perhaps we will never completely understand those who came before us—or mysteries like Stonehenge or the pyramids—but one thing is for sure: it will always be cool to play the historical detective, with each new artifact found serving as a small piece of evidence.