Giant statue unearthed in Cairo slum
Archeologists think eight-metre figure could be famed pharaoh Ramses II
CAIRO— Archeologists in Egypt discovered a massive statue in a Cairo slum that may be of Ramses II, one of the country’s most famous and longest ruling ancient pharaohs.
The colossus, a large portion of whose head was pulled from mud and groundwater by a bulldozer, is around eight metres high and was discovered by a German-Egyptian archeological team.
“We used the bulldozer to lift it out. We took some precautions, although somewhat primitive, but the part that we retrieved was not harmed,” said Khaled Mohamed Abuelela, manager of antiquities at Ain Shams University.
Egyptologist Khaled Nabil Osman said the statue was an “impressive find” and the area in the working class neighbourhood of Matariya in eastern Cairo is likely full of other buried antiquities.
“It was the main cultural place of ancient Egypt, even the bible mentions it,” he said.
“The sad news is that the whole area needs to be cleaned up, the sewers and market should be moved.”
Ramses II, who took the throne in his early 20s as the third pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty, ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.
He is credited with expanding ancient Egypt’s reach as far as modern Syria to the east and modern Sudan to the south. The expansion earned him the title “Ramses the Great.”
Famed archeologist Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former antiquities minister, said the area where the head was found is a very important archeological site containing the remains of temples to Akhenaten and Thutmose III — kings who ruled during the 18th Dynasty — as well as Ramses II.
He said excavating the area is difficult because there are houses and buildings atop the site and the ground below is filled with rainwater. He said the excavated head had been broken in earlier times.