Summary: Huge missing head of Pharaoh Ramesses II statue found to match lower section discovered almost 100 years ago.
An oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. – Isaiah 19:1 (ESV)
Missing Puzzle Piece Found
A century-long mystery has finally been solved with the exciting discovery of a colossal limestone statue’s missing head found at the archaeological site of El Ashmunein. Scientific studies of the limestone have confirmed the 12-foot-tall statue head is a perfect match for a lower section previously discovered by German archaeologist Gunther Roeder in 1930, according to Mustafa Waziri, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The recently found statue piece depicts the head, shoulders, and upper torso of King Ramesses II, wearing a double crown representing his simultaneous control over the Upper and Lower Egyptian kingdoms. At the front of the crown is a cobra, the symbol of royalty.
Hieroglyphics listing the king’s many titles are etched on the upper area of the back column of the statue, glorifying him as “one of ancient Egypt’s most powerful pharaohs,” said Dr. Bassem Gehad, head of the excavation team.
Cleaning and preparation work has begun so that the parts can be reunited and put on display. The enormous Ramesses II statue will be approximately 23 feet tall once assembled.
“This is only the second colossal statue to be found in Middle Egypt, though many are known from major pharaonic sites such as Karnak at Luxor,” the archaeologists said. “When reunited with its bottom half, it will be the first complete colossal statue from Middle Egypt and the first to be studied with modern technological and archaeological methods.” It is unclear whether other missing sections of the statue have been found to make it truly complete.
El Ashmunein Archaeological Site
The archaeological site of El Ashmunein (Ashmunin) is located south of the Egyptian city Minya, on the west bank of the Nile River in Middle Egypt. The discovery was made as part of the City of the Baboon Project – a joint Egyptian-American mission between Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities headed by Bassem Gehad and the University of Colorado headed by Ivonna Trnka-Amrhein. The news was announced by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on March 4.
“The statue came to light as we began work excavating a temple for the pharaoh Ramesses II that was repurposed by the Roman Emperor Nero,” said Gehad and Trnka-Amrhein. Excavations of the present day city of Ashmunein began last year to uncover an ancient religious center dating from Egypt’s New Kingdom period until the Roman era.
Khemnu or Khomeno, as the city was called in ancient Egypt, was an important worship center for the Egyptian god Thoth, often depicted as a baboon or ibis bird. In the Greco-Roman era, the city was called Hermopolis Magna because the Greek god Hermes was identified with Thoth.
“Though we have not found the complex we were initially looking for, a statue of such importance is a sign that we are digging in the right place,” said Adel Okasha, an antiquities official who oversaw the dig.
The discovery was notable because “it completes the half found many, many years ago,” said Dr Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo.
“Not only is it a wonderful opportunity to have a whole other massive statue of the famed king, it also adds to our general understanding and fills gaps in our data on the large corpus of Ramesses II’s statuary,” said Ikram. “Through each discovery, we have been able to trace changes in the style during the course of his very long reign.”
Who was Ramesses II?
Ramesses II, also called Ramesses the Great, was known as one of the most formidable rulers of ancient Egypt. He was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Standard dating says he ruled from 1279 to 1213 BC. (Though some scholars interviewed by Patterns of Evidence challenge the standard dating of Egypt.) His 66-year reign is said to be the longest of any other pharaoh and is considered to be the pinnacle of Egypt’s might and glory.
Renowned for his victories on the battlefield, Ramesses II led over 15 successful military campaigns, securing Egypt’s dominance across the Levant and Nubia. Besides being a warrior, he also left a strong mark in history with his monumental construction projects.
Ramesses II is one of ancient Egypt’s most depicted figures. Hundreds of colossal statues of him can be found across the country. Two important historical sites he commissioned include the dual temples of Abu Simbel in Egypt’s southernmost province of Aswan and the marvels at Karnak near Luxor.
The entrance to the main temple at Abu Simbel is guarded by four enormous statues of Ramesses II, each 66 feet tall. In the 1960s, a laborious effort was made to move the two temples, carved into the rock, to higher ground to prevent them from being submerged by Lake Nasser, the reservoir created from building the High Aswan Dam.
The amazing Karnak Temple complex, mostly built by the famous pharaoh, includes a vast mix of structures: temples, pylons, chapels, and the largest room of any ancient religious building in the world. This beautiful columned or hypostyle hall measures 54,000 sq. feet. It contains an astonishing 134 columns, some 33 feet tall, arranged in 16 rows and covered with amazing hieroglyphics. The Karnak Temple is unique in that it was developed under 30 different pharaohs, beginning in the 12th Dynasty running all the way through to the New Kingdom.
In a time where lifespans averaged 40-50 years, Ramesses II lived to the ripe old age of 90 or 91, outliving almost all of his dozens of children and some of his grandchildren. He was buried in the Valley of the Kings. His mummy was later discovered by archaeologists in the Royal Cache and is now on display at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, in Cairo.
The Ramesses Exodus Theory
Egyptologists spell the great pharaoh’s name as “Ramesses” since the three components in the Egyptian language are Ra-mes-ses, which means, “Ra [is] the one who gave birth [to] him.” Ra was the sun god of Egypt.
The name “Raamses” or “Rameses” occurs in the Bible in Exodus 1:11, not as the name of a king but rather the name of one of the store cities the Israelite slaves built for the pharaoh. This was a main factor in the Ramesses Exodus Theory’s placement of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt around 1250 BC, during the amazingly long reign of Ramesses II who built the enormous city of Ramesses, named after himself. But is this connection faulty?
Problems arise when realizing that chronological information in the Bible puts the Exodus about 200 years before 1250 BC. More problems arise when seeing that the conditions in Egypt and Canaan at the time of Ramesses II do not match the main situations described in the Bible for the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan 40 years later. This is laid out by covering six primary steps of the Biblical criteria in the film Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus.
Most significantly, in the era of Ramesses II there is no evidence of a massive Semitic population in Egypt’s Nile Delta centered at the site of Ramesses. Neither is there any sign of the major troubles in Egyptian society as would be expected after the calamities of Exodus. Nor is there the destruction of high-walled cities in Canaan as described in the Bible. In fact, some of these specifically-named cities in the Bible have been found to be empty burned out ruins at the time of Ramesses – and they had been that way for centuries before his time.
Additionally, the Bible mentions the “land of Rameses,” which it equates with Goshen, in Genesis 47:11 at the time of Joseph. In the Biblical narrative, this was more than a century prior to the building of the store city in Exodus 1:11. Both could not be referring to the reign of Rameses II. Do either of these refer to him?
So how can we understand this puzzle? Ramesses II was the grandson of Ramesses I, an inconsequential pharaoh who was the first to rule by that name. He ruled only two years and is not known to have built any cities. However, the remains of an older city called Avaris exist under the site of Ramesses, and this city fits the Exodus account well. Evidence for the other main Biblical criteria can also be found in earlier periods.
Could evidence for the Exodus in the era of Ramesses be lacking (resulting in skepticism of the Biblical account by many) because scholars have been looking in the wrong time period?
It is possible that the term Ramesses was associated with the area long before any pharaohs by that name reigned. However, many scholars believe the best explanation is that the Biblical text updated the city’s name at some point after knowledge of the older city had faded away. The Israelites lived in the older version of the site before it was rebuilt by Ramesses. This would be similar to the situation seen with the city of Dan in the Bible in Genesis 14:14 and Judges 18:29, with the text just not mentioning that the name had been updated to Ramesses.
Conclusion
The exciting discovery of the ancient Egyptian statue of Ramesses II prompts us to more closely consider the history the Bible presents. Although it appears Ramesses II lived long after the Israelites left Egypt, he would have reigned during the time Israel lived in the Promised Land. Egypt is frequently mentioned in the Bible. Becoming familiar with it and the other countries surrounding Israel gives us more context to better understand the Biblical account itself.
Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: The top portion of a limestone statue depicting ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II was unearthed at an archaeological site in Middle Egypt. (credit: City of the Baboon Project, Basem Gehad and Yvona Trnka-Amrhein)
