Colossal Bust of Ramesses II (The Younger Memnon)

Ancient Egyptian This colossal granite bust of Ramesses II, known as the "Younger Memnon," weighs over seven tons and stands 2.67 meters tall. It came from the pharaoh's mortuary temple, the Ramesseum, at Thebes. The bust dates to around 1250 BCE and shows Ramesses wearing the nemes headdress and a hole where a beard once attached.

The Italian adventurer Giovanni Belzoni transported the bust to England in 1818, an extraordinary feat given its size. The statue inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley's famous poem "Ozymandias" (the Greek name for Ramesses). Shelley imagined the ruins of a fallen empire, though he never saw the bust himself. Ramesses II ruled Egypt for 67 years. His monuments cover Egypt. This fragment now resides in the British Museum, Egyptian sculpture gallery.