The Statue of Ramesses II is a colossal 3,200-year-old figure of Ramesses II, depicting him standing. It is 11 meters tall, made from red granite, and weighs 83 tons. [1]
The statue was discovered in 1882, broken into six pieces, at Mit Rahina near ancient Memphis, Egypt, where it lay for several decades. [2]
Early attempts at restoration in situ failed, but in 1955, Egyptian Prime Minister Gamal Abdel Nasser moved the fragments to the large Bab Al-Hadid Square in Cairo, outside Cairo's main railway station; the square was then renamed Ramses Square. There the statue was restored to its full height and erected on a three-metre pedestal at the edge of a fountain. It was stabilized by iron bars inside the body. [2] [3]
In 2006, the Egyptian government decided to relocate the statue to a more appropriate location, as Ramses Square turned out to be an unsuitable location, where the statue was exposed to corrosive pollution and constant vibration from traffic and subways. It was decided to first move the colossus to a temporary site on the Giza Plateau, anticipating a final move to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza. [1] [2]
Criticized for its costs and concerns about pollution at the Giza location, [4] the transportation of the statue from Ramses Square to Giza was a technological challenge that had been in the planning since 2002. To test the proposed relocation process, a replica was made and transported along the planned route to Giza several weeks before the actual scheduled move.
The statue was eventually moved as a single intact piece on August 25, 2006. During its ten-hour transport the statue was wrapped and covered in rubber foam. Two flat-back trucks carried the weight of the statue and its support structures as it travelled in a vertical position. [5] [4]
In 2018, and after some restoration performed at the temporary location, the statue was moved to its current location, 400 meters away, in the entrance hall of the Grand Egyptian Museum. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
Memphis, or Men-nefer, was the ancient capital of Inebu-hedj, the first nome of Lower Egypt that was known as mḥw ("North"). Its ruins are located in the vicinity of the present-day village of Mit Rahina, in markaz (county) Badrashin, Giza, Egypt.
Giza is the third-largest city in Egypt by area after Cairo and Alexandria; and fourth-largest city in Africa by population after Kinshasa, Lagos, and Cairo. It is the capital of Giza Governorate with a total population of 4,872,448 in the 2017 census. It is located on the west bank of the Nile opposite central Cairo, and is a part of the Greater Cairo metropolis. Giza lies less than 30 km (18.64 mi) north of Memphis, which was the capital city of the unified Egyptian state during the reign of pharaoh Narmer, roughly 3100 BC.
Usermaatre Meryamun Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. Some scholars date his reign from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC, and he is considered the last pharaoh of the New Kingdom to have wielded substantial power.
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, commonly known as the Egyptian Museum, located in Cairo, Egypt, houses the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities in the world. It houses over 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display. Located in Tahrir Square in a building built in 1901, it is the largest museum in Africa. Among its masterpieces are Pharaoh Tutankhamun's treasure, including its iconic gold burial mask, widely considered one of the best-known works of art in the world and a prominent symbol of ancient Egypt.
Articles related to Egypt include:
Zahi Abass Hawass is an Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, serving twice. He has worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Western Desert and the Upper Nile Valley.
Abu Simbel is a historic site comprising two massive rock-cut temples in the village of Abu Simbel, Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt, near the border with Sudan. It is located on the western bank of Lake Nasser, about 230 km (140 mi) southwest of Aswan. The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside in the 13th century BC, during the 19th Dynasty reign of the Pharaoh Ramesses II. Their huge external rock relief figures of Ramesses II have become iconic. His wife, Nefertari, and children can be seen in smaller figures by his feet. Sculptures inside the Great Temple commemorate Ramesses II's heroic leadership at the Battle of Kadesh.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities was established in 1994, responsible for the conservation, protection, and regulation of all antiquities and archaeological excavations in Egypt. From 1994 to 2011, the SCA was a department of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. In 2011, the Supreme Council of Antiquities became part of the independent department of the Ministry of State for Antiquites (MSA). In 2022, the department was folded into the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism.
Seqenenre Tao ruled over the last of the local kingdoms of the Theban region of Egypt in the Seventeenth Dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period.
Ramses Railway Station, also called Misr Station, is the main railway station of Cairo, Egypt. The name is derived from the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, whose statue was erected by Nasser on the square there in 1955.
The Grand Egyptian Museum, also known as the Giza Museum, is an archaeological museum under construction in Giza, Egypt, about 2 kilometres from the Giza pyramid complex. The Museum will host over 100,000 artifacts from ancient Egyptian civilization, including the complete Tutankhamun collection, and many pieces will be displayed for the first time. With 81,000 m2 (872,000 sq ft) of floor space, it will be the world's largest archeological museum. It is being built as part of a new master plan for the Giza Plateau, known as "Giza 2030".
El Matareya is a district in the Eastern Area of Cairo, Egypt. The district is unrelated to the coastal town in the Dakahlia Governorate, that is also named El Matareya. The district holds the ruins of the ancient Egyptian city of Heliopolis, one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt.
Ramesses II, commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, he is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, which itself was the most powerful period of ancient Egypt. He is also widely considered one of ancient Egypt's most successful warrior pharaohs, conducting no fewer than 15 military campaigns, all resulting in victories, excluding the Battle of Kadesh, generally considered a stalemate.
The Saqqara Tablet, now in the Egyptian Museum, is an ancient stone engraving surviving from the Ramesside Period of Egypt which features a list of pharaohs. It was found in 1861 in Saqqara, in the tomb of Tjuneroy, an official of the pharaoh Ramesses II.
Badrashin is a city, and capital of the eponymous markaz (county), in Giza Governorate, Egypt.
Giovanni Battista Caviglia was an Italian explorer, navigator and Egyptologist. He was one of the pioneers of Egyptian archeology of his time. He was influential in the excavation of the Sphinx of Giza near Cairo.
The Department of Egyptian Antiquities of the Louvre is a department of the Louvre that is responsible for artifacts from the Nile civilizations which date from 4,000 BC to the 4th century. The collection, comprising over 50,000 pieces, is among the world's largest, overviews Egyptian life spanning Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, Coptic art, and the Roman, Ptolemaic, and Byzantine periods.
The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) is a large museum located in Old Cairo, a district of Cairo, Egypt. Partially opened in 2017, the museum was officially inaugurated on 3 April 2021 by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, with the moving of 22 mummies, including 18 kings and four queens, from the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo, in an event termed the Pharaohs' Golden Parade. The museum displays a collection of 50,000 artifacts, presenting the Egyptian civilization from prehistoric times to the present day.
The colossal statue of Amenhotep III and Tiye is a monolith group statue of Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III of the eighteenth dynasty, his Great Royal Wife Tiye, and three of their daughters. It is the largest known dyad ever carved. The statue originally stood in Medinet Habu, Western Thebes; today it is the centerpiece of the main hall of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The archaeology of Ancient Egypt is the study of the archaeology of Egypt, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. Egyptian archaeology is one of the branches of Egyptology.
Weighing in at 83 tons and more than 30 feet high
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