On Sunday, Egyptian authorities unveiled the completed restoration works on two colossal alabaster statues of a notable Egyptian king.
Located in Luxor, and standing over 30 feet tall, the two statues were destroyed in an earthquake 1,200 years ago, making their reconstitution an awfully long time coming.
King Amenhotep III, whose reign is dated roughly between 1388 BCE and 1349 BCE, oversaw one of the most prosperous and influential periods in ancient Egyptian history. As the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, he was revered not only as a ruler but also as a living god during his lifetime.
On the west bank of the Nile stood his vast mortuary temple, once watched over by two monumental statues known as the Colossi of Memnon. Carved from Egyptian alabaster quarried at Hatnub in Middle Egypt, these towering figures portray Amenhotep III facing east, adorned with the nemes headdress, a crown associated with both royal authority and divine status.
According to Africa News, an Egyptian-German archaeological mission led by German Egyptologist Hourig Sourouzian began work at the temple site in the late 1990s. The team focused on assessing whether the scattered alabaster fragments could be reassembled to restore the statues to their original form.
This long-term effort led to the identification, conservation, recording, reinstallation, and elevation of numerous statues that once belonged to the temple, along with several architectural features though the Colossi themselves remained excluded from these restorations.
