Bust of a Standing Statue of Ramesses II
From Aswan, Elephantine Island
New Kingdom, Nineteenth Dynasty, reign of Ramesses II (about 1279-1213 B.C.)
Pink granite, Height 56 in.
EA 67, acquired in 1840, gift of W.R. Hamilton (cat. no. 89)
©Trustees of The British Museum, Courtesy AFA

This fragment of a massive statue of Ramesses the Great shows him wearing the artificial ceremonial beard of a king and a heavy wig with a diadem and a royal uraeus cobra. The wig is topped by the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The figure holds a crook and a flail, emblems of Osiris, the god of the dead. Originally, the statue stood in the temple of the creator god Khnum at Elephantine, an island in the Nile at Aswan.