Archaeologists in Egypt unearth section of large Ramses II statue

Reuters ^ | March 4, 2024 | Reporting by Sameh Elkhatib Editing by Aidan Lewis and Bill Berkrot

[SunkenCiv]

A joint Egyptian-U.S. archaeological mission has uncovered the upper part of a huge statue of King Ramses II during excavations south of the Egyptian city of Minya, Egypt's tourism and antiquities ministry said on Monday.

The limestone block is about 3.8 metres (12.5 feet) high and depicts a seated Ramses wearing a double crown and a headdress topped with a royal cobra, Bassem Jihad, head of the mission's Egyptian team, said in a statement.

The upper part of the statue's back column shows hieroglyphic writings that glorify the king, one of ancient Egypt's most powerful pharaohs, he said.

Also known as Ramses the Great, he was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt and ruled from 1,279 to 1,213 BCE.

The size of the statue when combined with its lower section, which was unearthed decades ago, would reach about 7 metres.

The city of El Ashmunein, on the west bank of the River Nile, was known in ancient Egypt as Khemnu and in the Greco-Roman era was the regional capital of Hermopolis Magna.

Studies have confirmed that the upper part of the statue is a match for the lower section discovered by German archaeologist Gunther Roeder in 1930, said Mustafa Waziri, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The mission has begun cleaning and preparing the block ahead of modelling what the statue would look like when the two sections are combined, Waziri said.

[SunkenCiv]

That’s one of the amusing things about ancient sculpture, the ancient folks liked them painted to look more like actual people. That’s probably the inspiration for lawn dwarfs and the like. :^)

[SunkenCiv]

Wind, seasonal local floods, human activity.

[SunkenCiv]

His name was Ozymandias...

[SunkenCiv]

New info to me...

https://www.potw.org/archive/potw192.html

Poem of the Week
PotW.org
Founded August 1996
< PotW #192 >

Horace Smith (1779-1849)

Ozymandias.

In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desart knows:—
“I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone,
“The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
“The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

Horace Smith was a friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and helped to manage his finances. Inspired by Diodorus Siculus (Book 1, Chapter 47), they each wrote and submitted a sonnet on the subject to The Examiner. Shelley’s was published on January 11, 1818 under the pen name Glirastes, and Smith’s was published on February 1, 1818 with the initials H.S.
Smith’s poem was later published under the title On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below. in his collection Amarynthus.

The poem can be found in:

Original Poetry. (1818, February 1). The Examiner (London), p. 73.
Smith, Horace. Amarynthus, The Nympholet: A Pastoral Drama, In Three Acts. With Other Poems. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1821. (as found in the facsimile edition: Smith, Horace. Amarynthus. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1977.)

(and the much better known one)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias

Ozymandias

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—”Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Source: Shelley’s Poetry and Prose (1977)

[PLMerite]

“Also known as Ramses the Great...”

Also known as Ramses Tha God...”