Ramses II (the Great) was one of the most prolific builders of
ancient Egypt. Hardly a site exists that he did not initiate, add
to, complete, or build entirely himself. Some of the greatest
monuments on any tour of Egypt bear his stamp: Abu Simbel, Karnak
and Luxor Temples, the Ramesseum, and many others. He also
commissioned the largest monolithic statue ever, a seated statue of
himself at the Ramesseum. Now lying in pieces, the giant red-granite
statue inspired the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley to craft the
poem "Ozymandias" (the Greek form of User-maat-Re, one of Ramses
II's many names):
I met a traveler from an antique
land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand
in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered
visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold
command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which
yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that
mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these
words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look
on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The
lone and level sands stretch far away.
Can you locate two
ancient Egyptian crosses, or ankhs, somewhere in this image? Hint:
Each looks like the letter "T" with an egg perched on top.