Three ancient statues, engraved with a little-understood sub-Saharan language, have been unearthed in Sudan.
The ram statues symbolise the god Amun, and include the first discovery of a complete royal dedication in Meroitic script, only found before in fragments.
It is the oldest written sub-Saharan language and dates from the Meroe period of 300BC to AD450.
Archaeologist Vincent Rondot said it was "an important discovery", but the inscriptions were hard to interpret.The statues were discovered three weeks ago at el-Hassa, a site close to Sudan's 50-odd Meroe pyramids, about 200 km (120 miles) north of the capital Khartoum.
Mr Rondot said: "It is one of the last antique languages that we still don't understand.
"We can read it. We have no problem pronouncing the letters. But we can't understand it, apart from a few long words and the names of people."
Experts are working on deciphering the inscriptions, using previously found fragments.
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