Egyptian and German archaeologists on Thursday unearthed a 26 foot statue in El Matareya of Cairo.The statue is believed to be of one of Egypt’s greatest rulers, Pharaoh Ramses II. Carved out of Quartzite, a tough rock, the statue was submerged in ground water and has been buried under the streets of a Cairo slum for ages. Fragments of another statue, believed to be Ramses II’s grandson, Pharaoh Seti II have been recovered along with an obelisk.
Reuters reported that Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry has called this find one of the most important ever. Khaled al-Anani, the antiquities minister of Egypt has said: “We found the bust of the statue and the lower part of the head and now we removed the head and we found the crown and the right ear and a fragment of the right eye.”
The work for extraction and recovery of other parts of the statues for restoration and study is under way in Egypt. It is also reported by the ministry that if it is determined that the larger statue is Ramses II it will be shifted to the Grand Egyptian Museum by the next year. Over the years several discoveries of statues have been made in the streets of Cairo. The last was in 2006, wherein a four-ton statue believed to depict Ramses II was found buried under a marketplace.
Ramses II has high value in Egypt as he was the longest ruler and had a six decade reign. He rules over Egypt from 1279 BCE to 1213 BCE which was the peak of Egyptian ruling power in the region. Several artifacts were discovered in oldest part of Egyptian city, Heliopolis, which had a massive temple dedicated to Ramses II.
The city in those days was popular for its temples and historical records. As Greece expanded its empire into Heliopolis, it was eclipsed by the rise of neighboring cities Cairo and Alexandria. The temples and statues of Heliopolis were dismantled for raw materials. It is the leftover statues that are being discovered in recent excavations.
