Archaeologists in Britain have discovered a long-lost ancient Egyptian statue which had been used by museum staff to prop up their bicycles.

The statue, which dates back more than two-and-a-half thousand years, is a polished stone sculpture just under a metre high of King Taharqa, a Kushite monarch from what is now Sudan.

A leading Egyptologist described it as an incredibly exciting find.

The statue had been lying unnoticed in a storeroom in the museum in the southern English city of Southampton.

A museum curator said how it came to be there was a mystery.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service