Who dragged this colossal statue of Ramses II across the desert?
Archaeologists uncovered the eight-foot-tall, six-ton monument to one of Egypt's greatest rulers miles away from its original home.
Around 3,300 years ago, ancient Egyptian craftsmen labored over a large granite slab in the city of Aswan, which lies around 530 miles south of Giza. As sweltering heat drew sweat from their exhausted bodies, the workers carefully cut the stone from its quarry, later sculpting it into a large, regal statue. The project was commissioned by Ramses II, a powerful pharaoh who ruled Egypt from 1279 B.C. to 1213 B.C.
Millennia would eventually bury the monument beneath sand and neglect. But earlier this year, researchers rediscovered this colossal figure at the Tel Fara’un archaeological site (which means the "Hill of the Pharaoh"), several hundred miles from its original birthplace.
“The moment the royal face of the statue began to appear was incredibly exciting for all of us,” says Hesham Hussein, an Egyptologist at the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities who supervised the excavation. “Standing in front of a statue connected to one of the greatest kings in Egyptian history was truly unforgettable.”
The statue—which weighs six tons and towers nearly eight feet tall—shows evidence of having been quarried, shipped, then shipped again as part of a long and deliberate chain of reuse. It reveals the often-hidden history of important and movable monuments across ancient Egypt.
“Transporting monuments of this scale required highly organized labor teams and careful engineering,” says Hussein. “The statue contributes to our broader understanding of how royal monuments were reused, recontextualized, and preserved across centuries in ancient Egypt.”
The discovery was announced by the Egyptian authorities in April.
Moving monuments
So how did the striking statue make its lengthy journey?
The statue’s story likely began in Aswan, says Hussein. Like many monuments erected during the reign of Ramses II, it would have been cut from high-quality granite quarries in Aswan, then transported by sledge or boat up the Nile over 500 miles north to Pi-Ramesses, a city that Ramses II would eventually make Egypt’s capital.
Pi-Ramesses rested on the then-easternmost branch of the Nile delta, strategically placing it near hostile borders with the rival Hittite Empire. Ramses II raised many statues across the city to display his power and divinity—and is in fact responsible for creating more monuments than any other pharaoh before or after.
The newly discovered monument, though deeply eroded and missing its base and legs, appears to show Ramses II in his traditional royal headdress and kilt alongside two additional figures.
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“Ramses II had a lot of so-called triad statues, statues that depict him alongside two other gods,” says Luiza Silva, an Egyptologist at the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved with the discovery. “In these statues, Ramses II is shown in the same size as the gods, suggesting that they were of a similar status.”
She adds that in the statue Ramses II is shown with the god Ptah, who is conventionally depicted bald and with a false beard.
But the three-tiered statue would not stay in Pi-Ramesses. Around 1060 B.C., the branch of the Nile that sustained the city began to dry up, rendering it increasingly unable to support its large population. Subsequent pharaohs would relocate Egypt’s capital, many taking statues of Ramses II with them.
Reusing Ramses II
Reusing statues, tombs, and obelisks was a common practice in Ancient Egypt, especially in the Nile delta, where high-quality quarries were scarce. It was also easier and less expensive to reuse a skillfully carved structure than to quarry and transport a new one, so pharaohs regularly repurposed older monuments to suit their needs. Reusing objects associated with Ramses II was especially common, since he was widely regarded as a powerful and successful leader.
The new statue was unearthed 15 miles north of Pi-Ramesses in the ancient city of Imet (present-day Tel Fara’un), suggesting the town’s rulers dragged the massive monument from its earlier home. It was discovered within a temple complex, suggesting a privileged religious use.
“Temples in Egypt were not like modern churches,” says Silva. They were often “highly exclusive spaces.”
Imet was another capital city established after Pi-Ramesses was abandoned.
“It was closely associated with the worship of the cobra goddess Wadjet, who was one of the major protective deities of Lower Egypt,” says Hussein. “Recent excavations have uncovered residential quarters, granaries, ceremonial roads, and distinctive multi-story ‘tower houses,’ which indicate that it was once a densely populated and prosperous city.”
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The discovery suggests the local rulers in Imet sought to buttress their reputations by appropriating Ramses II’s image; it “reinforced royal legitimacy and connected local sanctuaries to the prestige of earlier kingship traditions,” says Hussein.
To transport the statue, hundreds of workers had to dance it onto wooden sledges, then wet the sand and drag it, inch by inch, to its new home. It would have been “an exciting spectacle” to onlookers, says Silva. She adds that monuments like the recently unearthed Ramses II statue help enliven the past, beyond the static, unchanging works of art on display behind museum glass.
“In the past, these statues were part of living landscapes—they were often moved, reused, and re-carved,” she says. “Thinking about them in this way can help us restore some of their dynamism.”
