King Ramses II in Luxor statue to be restored

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Fri, 26 May 2017 - 12:22 GMT

BY

Fri, 26 May 2017 - 12:22 GMT

King Ramses Statue, file photo

King Ramses Statue, file photo

CAIRO – 26 May 2017: The Luxor antiquities sector seeks the approval of the permanent committee of the Ministry of Antiquities to restore of the new statue of King Ramses II in the eastern side of Luxor Temple’s facade.

Mostafa Waziry, the director of Luxor antiquities restoration sector, said that restoring this statue will get the Luxor Temple back to its original shape back in the Pharaonic era.

The Minister of Antiquities Khaled el-Anany asked Luxor Antiquities sector to provide the permanent committee with the needed studies to get their approval to start the restoration of King Ramses II new statue as soon as possible.

Luxor Temple archaeologists had collected large parts of King Ramses II new statue; the collected pieces represent more than 70 percent of the statue, Waziry pointed out.

He further explained that the statue restoration process will kick off directly after the Ministry's committee approval, under the supervision of the Department of Antiquities to be completed before the end of 2017. He pointed out that the archaeologists are ready to work in the restoration project during Ramadan.

Mohamed Abdel Aziz, head of Upper Egypt Antiquities sector, said that 6 statues were in front of Luxor Temple in the past. There are currently two statues only, and one in the western side of the Temple, next to this statue there was another gray granite statue.

But it is most likely that in the fourth or fifth century this statue was deliberately broken into more than 84 pieces.

The statue restoration project will be carried out in the coming days by only Egyptian archaeologists and restorers, Abdelaziz confirmed. He pointed out that this project is a national one, that they want to prove that Egyptians are capable of executing such project as efficient as the foreign missions.

King Ramses II is from the Egyptian nineteenth dynasty. He ruled Egypt for an average of 67 years, he had two obelisks, one of them still exist and the other was donated by Mohammed Ali to Louis IX, currently placed in "Concord Square" in Paris.

Luxor Temple was inaugurated last month in the presence of the Minister of Antiquities along with the Ministry’s leaders. The eastern temple façade is expected to be completed with a new statue, to be unveiled by the end of this year.

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