Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Two Royal Statues Returned to Egypt to Be Displayed at GEM


Thu 06 Aug 2020 | 07:32 PM
Ali Abu Dashish

Two huge royal statues arrived today, Thursday, at the homeland, which were included in the artifacts displayed in the exhibition "The Sunken Cities: The Enchanting World of Egypt" in the United States of America.

The newly restored statues will join the other artifacts on show in the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM).

Dr. Mustafa Waziri, Secretary- General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explained that these two statues were returned after approval of the Council of Ministers and they will be transferred to the GEM.

Waziri pointed out that these statues were on show in the exhibition "The Sunken Cities: The Enchanting World of Egypt", which started its foreign tour in 2015.

The exhibition took place in the French capital, Paris, the British London, the city of Zurich in Switzerland, and four cities in the USA. It is now displayed in the Virginia Museum for Art, USA.

The exhibition includes 293 artifacts that have been recovered from the sunken city of Heraclon, Abu Qir.

On the other hand, Moammen Othman, head of the museums sector at the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism, said that the statues belong to a Ptolemaic king and queen.

The two statues are made of pink granite of the length of each one reaches about 5 meters.

The first statue depicts the king standing wearing the double crown with his left foot forward, his hands clenched beside him.

The second statue depicts the queen standing in a transparent robe, wearing crown of Hathor, with her left foot in front of her.

Contributed by Ahmed Moamar