An aerial picture taken from a hot air balloon on September 10, 2017 shows the Ramesseum temple in the southern Egyptian town ofLuxor. (AFP Photo)

CAIRO, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Archeologists have discovered part of a Pharaonic obelisk dating back to about 4,300 years ago in Saqqara district on the outskirt of Egypt's Giza Province, the chief of the country's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said in a statement Wednesday.

SCA Secretary General Mostafa al-Waziri revealed the discovery of the upper part of an obelisk belonging to ancient Egyptian Queen Ankhesenpepi II, mother of Pharaonic King Pepi II of the Sixth Dynasty who ruled Egypt from 2278 to 2184 BC.

The discovery was unearthed by a French-Swiss archeological mission from Gueneva University in cooperation and coordination with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities.

"The importance of this discovery is that it belongs to one of the females of the ancient royal family as she was the guardian of the throne during the first reign of her son who came to power at the age of six," said Waziri in the statement.

He added that the mission also found an ancient cartouche on the side of the obelisk reading in Hieroglyphics the first letters of "Neferkare," the Horus throne title name of King Pepi II Neferkare.

The discovered upper part of the obelisk, made of pink granite, is 2.5 meters high, which indicates that the total height of the complete obelisk might vary between 5 and 6 meters.

Saqqara district, where several pyramids were found, used to be a burial ground for the pharaohs and served as the necropolis of an ancient capital city in southern Giza, known in ancient Egypt as Memphis.

Egypt has witnessed several big archeological discoveries this year.

In May, Egyptian archaeologists uncovered a burial chamber of a 13th Dynasty pyramid in Dahshur archaeological site in Giza, dating back to more than 3,600 years ago.

In the same month, a Spanish team discovered remains of a nearly 4,000-year-old funerary garden outside a tomb in Upper Egypt's city of Luxor, known in ancient Egypt as Thebes.

Earlier in March, an Egyptian-German mission discovered three-millennia-old statue believed to be of ancient King Ramses II at Cairo district of Matariya.

Unearthed in two parts, the statue was moved to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to be initially reassembled and restored before being transferred to its final destination at the Grand Egyptian Museum near the Great Pyramids of Giza that is scheduled to be opened in 2018.