page_title: Ramesses II
section_title: Colossal statue
hierarchical_section_title: Ramesses II / Building activity and monuments / Colossal statue
caption_attribution_description: English: Colossal statue of Ramesses II at Memphis, Egypt. Photo taken in September 1999 by Barrylb.
context_page_description: Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. He is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, itself the most powerful period of Ancient Egypt. His successors and later Egyptians called him the "Great Ancestor".
  He is known as Ozymandias in Greek sources, from the first part of Ramesses's regnal name, Usermaatre Setepenre, "The Maat of Ra is powerful, Chosen of Ra".
  Ramesses II led several military expeditions into the Levant, reasserting Egyptian control over Canaan. He also led expeditions to the south, into Nubia, commemorated in inscriptions at Beit el-Wali and Gerf Hussein. The early part of his reign was focused on building cities, temples, and monuments. He established the city of Pi-Ramesses in the Nile Delta as his new capital and used it as the main base for his campaigns in Syria. At fourteen, he was appointed prince regent by his father, Seti I. He is believed to have taken the throne in his late teens and is known to have ruled Egypt from 1279 to 1213 BC.
context_section_description: The colossal statue of Ramesses II dates back 3,200 years, and was originally discovered in six pieces in a temple near Memphis.  Weighing some  83-tonne (82-long-ton; 91-short-ton), it was transported, reconstructed, and erected in Ramesses Square in Cairo in 1955. In August 2006, contractors relocated it to save it from exhaust fumes that were causing it to deteriorate.  The new site is  near the future Grand Egyptian Museum.
caption: Gigantic statue of Ramesses II in Memphis
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2006:05:29 16:27:38", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4804", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1041", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "894"}