CAIRO — The gritty, working-class neighborhood of Matariya in northeast Cairo brims with noise and poverty, a place where motorized rickshaws vie with donkey carts on narrow, trash-strewn streets. But this week, archaeologists began pulling from a patch of barren ground a glistening 26-foot statue they say might be a world-class find.

If they are especially lucky, the colossus will be determined to be a likeness of Pharaoh Ramses II, one of the most famous rulers of ancient Egypt. That mystery will not be solved until next week, when they hope to finish the excavation and can look for any inscriptions on the quartzite statue.

Yet, for now, they are excited by the discovery itself, saying the statue is at least 3,000 years old, just the type of artifact they hoped to recover before further building in the teeming neighborhood makes such treasures impossible to find.