Egyptian Team Works to Uncover Statue of Pharaoh

An archeological team, under the direction of Egypt's well-known Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, has begun uncovering rubble under which the largest known statue of Pharaoh Ramses II is buried in the southern Egyptian town of Sohag.

The statue, which workers discovered more than 15 years ago, 476 kilometers miles south of Cairo, is finally being uncovered, according to Antiquities Chief Zahi Hawass.

The Egyptian team had been hampered in its excavation work, until now, by the presence of a Muslim cemetery in the region of Akhmim across the Nile River from Sohag. Archeologists were finally able to begin their work when bodies from the modern-era cemetery were moved elsewhere.

Hawass said the statue was the "largest of Ramses II" ever found in Egypt, and his team said the statue was part of a temple complex dedicated to Ramses II. . . .


French Egyptologist Bruno Argemi of the Egyptian Archeological Society of Provence, France, says that Ramses II is one of the most important Pharaohs of Egypt's New Kingdom's 19th dynasty, which is the next to last dynasty of the era. The Amenophis pharaohs begin the New Empire, he says, at the point when the 18th dynasty ends, and it includes the Thutmose pharaohs and Hatchepsout. The 19th dynasty is known for Ramses I, Seti I and Ramses II… So, he concludes that Ramses II is really one of the greatest kings that Egypt has ever known, along with Tuthmose III, Amenophis III and Hatchepsout…

Argemi thinks that the discovery of the new statue is also an important event, not only because of its colossal size, but because few other remnants of his reign have been found, to date, in the Middle Egyptian region of Sohag.