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Quirks and Quarks·QUIRKS & QUARKS

Solved: the mystery of the colossal statue of Cairo

Speculation about the identity was wrong. It wasn't Ramses II after all, but another powerful Pharaoh.
CBC Radio ·
A massive statue pulled out of the groundwater of a Cairo suburb, turned out to be a depiction of another great Egyptian Pharoah, Psamtik I. (The Associated Press/Amr Nabil)

For the past week and a half, a big mystery has been building in the world of archaeology.

A team of German and Egyptian archaeologists hoisted up pieces of a massive statue from under Cairo's busy streets.

And just this week, they moved the pieces to the world famous Egyptian Museum.  So who does the statue depict? 

 Many observers speculated it might be the famous ancient Egyptian Pharoah, Ramses II. After careful analysis, the statue's identity has been revealed. 

Dr. Dietrich Raue shares the details of this find. He's co-director of the Egyptian - German research team, as well as the curator of the Egyptian Museum at the University of Leipzig, Germany, where he's normally based. 

The newly excavated statue head believed to belong to King Psammetich I (Psamtik I), outside the Egyptian museum in Cairo on March 16, 2017, following its discovery by a team of German-Egyptian archeologists in Cairo's Mattarya district. ( KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images)

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