Ramses II moves to new museum
CAIRO — With much fanfare, Egypt on Thursday placed the ancient statue of one of its most famous pharaohs, Ramses II, in the entrance hall of a new antiquities’ museum under construction near the pyramids of Giza, just outside Cairo.
This was fourth time the statue, which dates back 3,300 years, had been moved. It was discovered in 1820 near ancient Memphis by Giovanni Battista Caviglia, an Italian explorer and Egyptologist who was also a key figure in the excavation of the Sphinx of Giza.
Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great, ruled Egypt for about 60 years, from 1279 B.C. to 1213 B.C. He is credited with expanding ancient Egypt’s reach as far as modern Syria to the east and modern Sudan to the south.
The placement of the colossus, which weighs more than 72 tonnes and is about 12 metres tall, took place amid a ceremony attended by Egyptian officials and foreign diplomats.
The massive statue — which for more than 50 years had graced the Ramsis Square, named after the statue, in downtown Cairo — was moved in an iron cage hung like a pendulum on a steel bridge for about 400 metres from where it stood earlier, at the museum compound.
The relocation of the colossus cost 13.6 million Egyptian pounds, al-Anani said, which today is about $947,000 Cdn, and involved the military corps of engineers and a contractor.
Al-Anani said the museum entrance hall will host 87 other artifacts, including 43 massive statues. He said the first phase of the new museum, including the atrium, will be inaugurated this year.
The grand opening of the new museum is expected to take place in 2022.
The museum covers about 490,000 square metres and will house some of Egypt’s most precious artifacts, including many belonging to King Tutankhamun.
Egypt hopes the inauguration of the new museum, along with a string of recent discoveries, will help spur a tourism industry that has been reeling from the political turmoil that engulfed Egypt following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.