An international team of archaeologists have unearthed the long-lost upper half of a statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. The discovery comes nearly 100 years since the statue’s lower half was first identified.
In 1930, Günther Roeder, a German archaeologist, unearthed the lower part of a statue that depicted Ramesses II, otherwise known as
The newly discovered statue portion was found by a joint team of Egyptian and American archaeologists from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and the University of Colorado Boulder. It was recovered while the team were researching the ruins of the ancient city of
The top of the statue is about 3.8 meters long (12.5 feet) and depicts
The statue itself is made of limestone and it has
The excavation at Hermopolis was initially launched to find the religious center that once stood there during the New Kingdom era (otherwise known as the Egyptian Empire), which extended from the 16th century BCE to the 11th century BCE, and lasted until the Roman era (30 BCE to 641 CE).
Along with the recovered statue piece, the researchers also found traces of ancient blue and yellow
“It will be quite exciting to have a scientific analysis of the pigment,” Yvona Trnka-Amrhein, assistant professor of classics at the University of Colorado Boulder, expressed in a
It is possible that the soil samples that were mixed in with the pigment can offer even more information about the history of the area.
Ramesses II is one of the few
Now that the top half of the statue has been recovered, Trnka-Amrhein’s colleague Basem Gehad, with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, has submitted a proposal to reunite them. However, it is currently unclear where the completed statue will be placed if the proposal is approved. It will likely remain at the site or be placed in a museum.