Several residents from Egypt's Giza district have been arrested after illegally digging under their home and excavating a temple.

According to Ahram, the men used diving equipment to explore a nine metre pit, which was submerged in ground water.

The homeowners were arrested after Egypt's tourism and antiquities police heard of the illegal excavations, and a group of experts took over to find that the site was a 3,400 year-old temple from the reign of the warrior king, Thutmose III.

Two large limestone blocks covered in hieroglyphics were discovered, along with seven reliefs, two marble columns and a huge red-granite statue of a seated person.

Antiquities Minister Mamdouh El-Damaty said in a statement that the artefacts had been taken to their Saqqara site to be restored and studied further.

The area of Hod Zeleikha, where the temple is located, has now been declared an archaeological site and is under the jurisdiction of the ministry.

The men who were arrested were later released as the area was not considered a heritage site.

Warrior King

King Thutmose III was the sixth pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, and ruled between 1479–1425 BC.

He is known for creating the largest empire Egypt had ever seen and he conquered from Northern Syria to the fourth cataract of the Nile in Nubia.

Upon his death he was buried in the Valley of the Kings and his mummy was discovered in the Deir el-Bahri Cache, above the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, in 1881.