Ramesses II: Rare Loan of Great Egyptian Pharaoh’s Sarcophagus to Paris

Egypt says sending the coffin to France this year comes in appreciation of the role of French scientists in providing support and assistance in treating the mummy.

Egyptologist and French co-ordinator of the exhibition Dominique Farrow told BBC Arabic that it would be a “dream” to have the sarcophagus back in France. He adds, “When we raised the matter, I believed that the Supreme Council of Antiquity would refuse. Send it because it is a very important sarcophagus, but they said yes because of the compliment.” As for the role of France in saving the mummy of King Ramesses II, I did not believe myself at the time. It’s a dream come true for me.”

“When the sarcophagus came out in 1976, I went to see the exhibit eight times,” Farrow says. “This sarcophagus touched my heart. Today all the people in France are talking about visiting the sarcophagus. It is a wonderful gift. Egypt.”

Benedict Lauer, the exhibition’s scientific coordinator, describes the sarcophagus as a priceless “treasure for mankind” and says it is a very important sarcophagus because it protected the mummy of King Ramesses II for about 2,800 years. Exhibition to see it.”

The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said the exhibition had sold 130,000 tickets before it officially opened in Paris.

The exhibit features 181 unique artifacts, highlighting some of the holdings of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, dating back to the era of King Ramses II. At the helm.

The story of the sending of the sarcophagus and mummy of King Ramses II dates back to September 1974, when a growing fungus was discovered threatening the king’s mummy, so French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing at the time asked his Egyptian counterpart, Mohammed Anwar Sadat, to send the mummy to Paris for treatment.

At that time, the mummy received an official reception by presidents and kings with the participation of the Republican Guard and tunes of military music before reaching the “Museum of Man” in the center of the French capital, Paris. The coffin is on display at the Grand Palais museum.

But the visit, where the king was treated for a fungus, did not end well. Locks of hair stolen from mummy of Egyptian pharaoh.

Egypt officially asked France to restore these locks in 2006 after a publicity stunt spread across the Internet.

In 2007, the then Egyptian Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, announced the recovery of five hair samples from the mummy of King Ramses II. At the time, Hosni said the lumps were stolen while Ramses II was being examined in Paris, and that the person offering the lumps for sale online was the son of an archaeologist who studied the mummy.

And the most famous of the kings who ruled Egypt in the Old Testament was King Ramses II. His reign lasted for about 67 years from 1279 to 1213 BC.

During his reign, Ramesses II led several military campaigns into the Levant and built numerous temples and statues, the most famous of which is the Temple of Abu Simbel in Aswan Governorate in the south of the country. The Egyptian pharaoh also built numerous obelisks, the most famous of which are two obelisks, one of which adorns the facade of the Luxor Temple and the other is erected on the Place de la Concorde in central Paris.

Despite the importance of the wooden coffin, it was not the first coffin to contain the body of King Ramses II. According to historical records, in ancient times the mummy moved from one coffin to another and was reconstructed twice to preserve it. Thieves.

Farrow explains that the sarcophagus was created between the end of the Eighteenth Pharaonic Dynasty (circa 1929 BC) and the beginning of the reign of Ramesses II in the Nineteenth Dynasty, and “we believe that royal painters produced such pieces when the king died and created several empty coffins, and by the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, Egypt saw a great economic crisis and people started robbing the tombs of the kings.The first thing the thieves hit was the tomb of King Ramses II.

Farrow adds, “The king’s gold coffin and stone coffin were destroyed, and the mummy was transferred to this wooden coffin, and they wrote down what had happened, and the coffin was placed in the tomb of King Seti I, and then the coffin was used in the nineteenth century by many other mummies, including the mummy of Ramesses II, the king of Egypt. The mummy was moved again after renewed raids by thieves to Deir el-Bahari where it was found.

In this case, Mohammed Mohi, researcher in Egyptology and author of the book “Ramses II – The Complete Story”, tells the details of this period. Valley of the Kings on the West Bank in Luxor.

The Egyptian researcher adds, “After tomb robberies became rampant at that time, several government investigations were conducted, and some of the kings’ mummies were moved to the tomb of Seti I, and then to Deir al-Bahari. Discovered by the Commission of Antiquities in 1881, the so-called “Deir al-Bahari cache” is known. .

Regarding the details of the sarcophagus made of cedar, Mohi explains that the sarcophagus bears features of King Tutankhamun, indicating that it was made during the Eighteenth Baronic Dynasty and appears to be an ancient sarcophagus. Unfinished, and unlike coffins it is not colored. Although the features of the coffin are clear, there are no royal symbols engraved on it, but it was found in this state in a royal workshop in the late Twentieth Dynasty, and was used for preservation. According to Mohi, the mummy of King Ramses II.