After decades, Egypt reclaims the 3,400-year-old Ramses II statue

Egypt’s 3,400-year-old Ramses II statue, which was stolen more than 30 years ago, has now been returned.

On Sunday, the Egyptian ministry of antiquities declared the repatriation of a 3,400-year-old statue that had been taken and smuggled out of the nation more than thirty years prior, and it showed the head of King Ramses II.

According to a government statement, the statue is now being restored and is not on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. According to Shaaban Abdel Gawad, head of Egypt’s antiquities repatriation department, the artifact had disappeared after being taken from the Ramses II temple in the ancient city of Abydos in Southern Egypt more than three decades ago. The theft is thought to have happened in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

The relic was discovered by Egyptian authorities in 2013 when it was offered for sale at an exhibition in London. The antiquities ministry claims that after that, it passed via a number of nations before arriving in Switzerland.

Abdel Gawad clarified, “This head is part of a group of statues depicting King Ramses II seated alongside a number of Egyptian deities.”

Ramses II, often known as Ramses the Great, was one of the most powerful pharaohs in ancient Egypt. From 1279 until 1213 B.C., he ruled Egypt as the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty.

Egypt cooperated with Swiss officials to verify that it was the legitimate owner of the statue. The monument was successfully returned to Egypt by Egypt last year, after Switzerland had given it back to the Egyptian embassy in Bern.