The exhibition entitled "Ramses and the gold of the pharaohs" started in San Francisco in 2022 and will continue in Sydney in the fall, but the sarcophagus will only be visible in France.
In Paris, the public will be able to admire this famous anthropomorphic royal coffin in cedar wood, specifies to AFP the World Heritage Exhibitions, which organizes it from April 7 to September 6 at the great hall of La Villette.
The sarcophagus, usually on display at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo, had not been released from Egypt for 45 years.
It had been presented in Paris at the Grand Palais in 1976 during an exhibition already devoted to Ramses II, one of the most famous pharaohs of the 19th dynasty, a great warrior and prolific builder who reigned for 67 years.
Originally, it was to be covered with gilding and inlays of gems or glass, but the surface was then probably scraped and painted yellow, with some details highlighted in bright colors and eyes underlined in black.
This sarcophagus depicts the king, arms crossed on his chest, holding the heqa scepter and the nekhakha whip, and wearing a nemes adorned with the erect cobra as well as a false beard braided under his chin.
The shroud he is wearing covers his feet.
Egyptian Ambassador Naguib Kadry and Egyptologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt (c) attend the opening of the wooden sarcophagus of Pharaoh Ramses II during an exhibition dedicated to him at the Grand Palais in Paris, May 11, 1976 © STAFF / AFP/Archives
Several inscriptions are also visible there, in particular at the level of the belly, recalling the name of "Ramses loved by Amon".
After the success of the exhibition "Tutankhamun, the treasure of the pharaohs" in 2019 at the great hall of La Villette which had attracted 1.4 million visitors, that on "Ramses and the gold of the Pharaohs" will allow the general public to also discover other sarcophagi, precious jewellery, statues and amulets as well as animal mummies, including cats.
© 2023 AFP