Ancient Biblical Pharaoh's Statue Found

I know its always been up for debate whether or not Ramses II was actually the biblical Pharaoh of the exodus, but none the less Ramses II was one of the most Famous of ancient Egypt's rulers.

Archeologists are saying this might be one of the most important finds in history as far as Egyptology is concerned...

Can't wait to see the final result when they dig the rest of this huge statue up...

Archaeologists from Egypt and Germany have found a massive 26ft (8 metre) statue submerged in ground water in a Cairo slum.

Researchers say it probably depicts revered Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.

The discovery, hailed by the Antiquities Ministry as one of the most important ever, was made near the ruins of Ramses II's temple in the ancient city of Heliopolis, located in the eastern part of modern-day Cairo.

'Last Tuesday they called me to announce the big discovery of a colossus of a king, most probably Ramses II, made out of quartzite,' Antiquities Minister Khaled al-Anani told Reuters on Thursday at the site of the statue's unveiling.

The most powerful and celebrated ruler of ancient Egypt, the pharaoh also known as Ramses the Great was the third of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt and ruled from 1279 to 1213 BCE.

He led several military expeditions and expanded the Egyptian Empire to stretch from Syria in the east to Nubia in the south. His successors called him the 'Great Ancestor'.

'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,' Anani said.

Yesterday, archaeologists, officials, local residents, and members of the news media looked on as a massive forklift pulled the statue's head out of the water

The joint Egyptian-German expedition also found the upper part of a life-sized limestone statue of Pharaoh Seti II, Ramses II's grandson, that is 80 centimetres long.

The sun temple in Heliopolis was founded by Ramses II, lending weight to the likelihood the statue is of him, archaeologists say.

It was one of the largest temples in Egypt, almost double the size of Luxor's Karnak, but was destroyed in Greco-Roman times.

Many of its obelisks were moved to Alexandria or to Europe and stones from the site were looted and used for building as Cairo developed.

Experts will now attempt to extract the remaining pieces of both statues before restoring them.

If they are successful and the colossus is proven to depict Ramses II, it will be moved to the entrance of the Grand Egyptian Museum, set to open in 2018.

The discovery was made in the working class area of Matariya, among unfinished buildings and mud roads.

Dietrich Raue, head of the expedition's German team, told Reuters that ancient Egyptians believed Heliopolis was the place where the sun god lives, meaning it was off-limits for any royal residences.

'The sun god created the world in Heliopolis, in Matariya. That's what I always tell the people here when they say is there anything important. According to the pharaonic belief, the world was created in Matariya,' Raue said.

'That means everything had to be built here. Statues, temples, obelisks, everything. But ... the king never lived in Matariya, because it was the sun god living here.'

The find could be a boon for Egypt's tourism industry, which has suffered many setbacks since the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 but remains a vital source of foreign currency. The number of tourists visiting Egypt slumped to 9.8 million in 2011 from more than 14.7 million in 2010.

a reply to: Akragon

Cool thread, thanks for the info.

Love Egypt stuff.

What an amazing find! This is exciting. Here is more from the National Geographic Magazine.

NatGeo

Cool find I guess ...Does this find fit the official narrative or will it cause a debate to rage on and on .

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Its possible.
Radio 4 just had a little snippet about this and they said Ramses would recycle statues of his ancestors with a little chiselling to suit his features.

Its a pretty cool find!

For he was Osimandius, behold his works oh ye mighty and despair!


Or something along those lines

a reply to: Akragon

There was documentary that links the Ancient Egyptians to the TPTB (It's actually a long documentary that talks about 9/11 conspiracies and other stuff but as you watch it, you'll see the part where TPTB has a connection to the Pharaohs)

a reply to: starwarsisreal

Hey!!

Thanks very much... Now i have something to watch later tonight!

a reply to: Akragon

The images you present do not have the one that is going to start the "cone head" argument for ETs all over again. I saw the image on Fox News this evening. It was a brief of the head of that statue with an immense cone head or helmet, if you are inclined to be conventional.

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
Cool find I guess ...Does this find fit the official narrative or will it cause a debate to rage on and on .

No, it fits. Ramesses is one of the longest lived monarchs and ruled over a nation that was prosperous. He had many building projects and left a LOT of statues in his wake. And he wasn't above taking the statues of other kings and erasing their names and having his own name carved instead.

a reply to: Byrd

Doesn't that helmet show he is the king of upper or lower Egypt? They had a crown to rep each of them didn't they?

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
Cool find I guess ...Does this find fit the official narrative or will it cause a debate to rage on and on .

No, it fits. Ramesses is one of the longest lived monarchs and ruled over a nation that was prosperous. He had many building projects and left a LOT of statues in his wake. And he wasn't above taking the statues of other kings and erasing their names and having his own name carved instead.

just the guy i was looking for... thanks for your contribution Byrd

i was wondering why such a statue was destroyed in the first place...

Another member mentioned that Ramses used statues of former rulers and carved his image into them... i was thinking perhaps a mistake was made in this process and the whole project was scrapped?

A fault in the stone maybe?

Its curious... we have so many from this particular Pharaoh. He wasn't one of the many who others tried to history like Akhenaten.

Do you think this was destroyed deliberately or was it something that just happened over time?

I suppose we will find out when they recover what remains hidden

originally posted by: Akragon
i was wondering why such a statue was destroyed in the first place...

Neglected over time, buildings falling over in an earthquake, people needing space to live. Cairo has been built and rebuilt over the course of nearly 6,000 years. So there's layers on layers there.

Another member mentioned that Ramses used statues of former rulers and carved his image into them... i was thinking perhaps a mistake was made in this process and the whole project was scrapped?

No, this was a finished statue.

Its curious... we have so many from this particular Pharaoh. He wasn't one of the many who others tried to history like Akhenaten.

He was considered to be a "great ancestor", and he got to write a lot of his own history. He had several notable military expeditions but he didn't focus his reign on war (as some others did.) He also had a long life during which to commission lots of royal works (which gave income to temples and to artisans and to villages and so forth.) As one of my teachers pointed out, many families would have not remembered a time when someone living (father, grandfather, etc) did NOT live under Ramesses II as the king.

I'm sure he was disliked by some, but there were (as far as we can tell) no assassination attempts against him. Hatshepsut was erased to some extent to give legitimacy to Thutmose's successor, but no huge effort was made to destroy her name and her temple at Dier-el-Medina was not defaced. On the other hand, Akhenaten was so detested that they referred to him only as "the hated one" when they had to refer to him.

This statue shows him wearing the White Crown of Lower Egypt, and Cairo is in Lower Egypt (the lowlands of Egypt, in the Delta region).

originally posted by: hiddenNZ
a reply to: Byrd

Doesn't that helmet show he is the king of upper or lower Egypt? They had a crown to rep each of them didn't they?

Lower Egypt; the White Crown. And yes, they had different crowns for the two areas. The statue was found in Cairo, which was the center of government during some periods for Lower Egypt. It would have been part of a temple in Heliopolis (which has now become part of Cairo.)

Atlas Obscura's article has some good information on it. Sadly, the article is badly written, but the information is good.

a reply to: starwarsisreal

Hi what was the name of that video, its gone now and would like to see if its elsewhere you youtube

originally posted by: Byrd


No, it fits. Ramesses is one of the longest lived monarchs and ruled over a nation that was prosperous. He had many building projects and left a LOT of statues in his wake. And he wasn't above taking the statues of other kings and erasing their names and having his own name carved instead.

Hmmmm....

Like taking a large ancient statue of a lion and re-carving it's head?

I guess Egypt is funny that way eh?

originally posted by: SLAYER69

originally posted by: Byrd


No, it fits. Ramesses is one of the longest lived monarchs and ruled over a nation that was prosperous. He had many building projects and left a LOT of statues in his wake. And he wasn't above taking the statues of other kings and erasing their names and having his own name carved instead.

Hmmmm....

Like taking a large ancient statue of a lion and re-carving it's head?

I guess Egypt is funny that way eh?

Its more like writing your name on a block of stone in front of the Sphinx as a claim to legitimise your kingship

originally posted by: SLAYER69

originally posted by: Byrd


No, it fits. Ramesses is one of the longest lived monarchs and ruled over a nation that was prosperous. He had many building projects and left a LOT of statues in his wake. And he wasn't above taking the statues of other kings and erasing their names and having his own name carved instead.

Hmmmm....

Like taking a large ancient statue of a lion and re-carving it's head?

No, they didn't do that. The proportions are entirely different. (Also, not possible with the limestone of the Sphinx... the muzzle would have fallen off the lion face (and lion as guardian makes no sense, really, when the image of the king-as-sphinx-and-protector-of-the-land predates the pyramids.)

Now, in LATE Egyptian period, some of the Nubian kings were presented as sphinxes with a full lion mane and ears (possibly reinforcing the idea of them as the son of "Mother Sekhmet." Taharqua has several of these.

Here's a bit more about the statue from today's news (Luxor Magazine, Hawass responds)

NOTE: Hawass is not in a position of power and has nothing to do with this. He's just responding as an archaeologist who worked the site (note also that there were three temples there and that the statues were actually destroyed during the Coptic Christian era when a lot of "heathen/pagan" things were destroyed.)

There's several other articles about the groundwater being alkaline and some conservation efforts they're doing on the statue to prevent the chemicals in the groundwater from further damaging the statue.