Investigation opened into handling of Ramsis II statue excavation

CAIRO – 7 April 2017: Egypt’s Administrative Prosecutor opened investigations into the technical errors committed during the process of extracting a recently-discovered statue from the mud in a Matareya slum,

Youm7 reported

Thursday.

The prosecutor accused Minister of Antiquities Khaled Al-Anany and Head of Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Mahmoud Affifi of “negligence” and abandoning the appropriate technical measures for the excavation processes, the report added.

“Usage of the heavy crane in digging up the statue was one of the major violations,” Youm7 added, especially as it was done in presence of the Antiquities Minister, which “hurt Egypt’s image abroad.”

In March, two large, 3,000-year-old statues were discovered in Matareya, a district in Cairo, by local archeologists. At the time, archaeologist and former antiquities minister Dr. Zahi Hawass, who was present at the excavation, said it could be classified as an emergency extraction judging by the available facilities.

“Of course there were mistakes made during the process, such as forgetting to cover the head of the statue during the extraction or pulling it out using an unprotected crane that could have harmed the statue, yet at the end of the day the statue was completely unharmed,” Hawas told Egypt Today.

Dietrich Raue, head of the German archeology team that helped to discover the statue,

said in a phone call

to late night program “A’ala Maso’lety” that the statue was not damaged during the excavation process.

The statue is believed to represent Ramsis II. Known as Ramses the Great, Ramses II led ruled for 60 years, making him one of Ancient Egypt’s most famous and longest-ruling pharaohs.