Colossal Bust of Ramesses II

Ancient Egyptian This colossal bust of Ramesses II weighs over seven tons and stands 267 centimeters tall, depicting the pharaoh with the classic nemes headdress and serene expression of Egyptian royal portraiture. The granite sculpture originally formed the upper portion of a seated statue at the Ramesseum, Ramesses II's mortuary temple in Thebes. A hole drilled into the right shoulder shows where ancient workers attempted to break the statue apart for transport.

Italian adventurer Giovanni Battista Belzoni removed the bust in 1816, an engineering feat that inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley's famous poem "Ozymandias." Belzoni used levers, rollers, and hundreds of workers to drag the massive fragment to the Nile for shipment to England. The Greek name "Memnon" came from classical visitors who mistakenly associated Ramesses with the mythical Ethiopian king.

The bust has anchored the Egyptian galleries at the British Museum since 1817, one of the first major Egyptian antiquities to reach Europe.