Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1818 sonnet Ozymandias – which contained the line “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” – was written soon after the British Museum acquired a large fragment of a statue of Ramses II from the 13th century BC. Photograph: Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty ImagesOn Thursday, archaeologists, officials, local residents and news media looked on as a massive forklift pulled the statue’s head out of the water. The joint Egyptian-German expedition also found the upper part of a life-sized limestone statue of Pharaoh Seti II, Ramses II’s grandson, measuring 80cm in length. Facebook Twitter Pinterest A mechanical digger is employed to clear mud away and allow access to the statue. The number of tourists visiting Egypt slumped to 9.8 million in 2011 from more than 14.7 million in 2010.

Source: The Guardian March 09, 2017 18:49 UTC