This is a historic moment for Egyptology enthusiasts: nearly fifty years after its exhibition in Paris in 1976, the sarcophagus of Ramses II will return to France.

This Pharaonic treasure, comparable to the tomb of Tutankhamun, will be the centerpiece of a major exhibition-event, in the spring, in the City of Lights.

"When I was told he was arriving in Paris, I almost cried with joy to find him here!" Egyptologist Dominique Farout, professor at the Ecole du Louvre and scientific curator, told AFP. of the exhibition entitled "Ramses and the gold of the pharaohs".  

The return of a great warrior

"I was 16 in 1976, he was in my room on a big poster. I went there eight times in a row", he recalls, referring to the exhibition which was held that year at the Big palace.

Ramses II is one of the most famous pharaohs of the 19th Dynasty, a great warrior and prolific builder of temples who ruled for 67 years.

The traveling exhibition started in San Francisco in 2022 and will continue in Sydney in the fall, but the sarcophagus will only be visible in France, at the Grande Halle de la Villette from April 7 to September 6. 

With the presentation of innumerable objects and jewels in gold and solid silver, statues, amulets, masks and other sarcophagi, it promises to attract crowds, like that on Tutankhamun, installed in the same place in 2019 (1, 4 million visitors).

Both are organized by World Heritage Exhibitions, the world leader in this event sector.   

A treasure rescued from history

An exceptional loan from Egypt to France, the famous cedar wood sarcophagus painted yellow is "an exception" made to France by the Egyptian authorities, "in recognition of the rescue of the mummy of Ramses II by French scientists who had treated her against fungi at the time of the exhibition in 1976", according to Dominique Farout.

The sarcophagus is presented empty, the law prohibiting the departure of royal mummies from Egypt. 

Featuring details enhanced with bright colors and eyes underlined in black on its lid, it represents "the king, in Osiriac attitude, arms crossed, holding the heqa scepter and the nekhakha whip. He is wearing a nemes (headdress striped of the pharaohs, editor's note) with the braided false beard", explains Dominique Farout. 

Appearing all along, hieratic administrative inscriptions "testify to the transport of the mummy of Ramses to save it three times at the end of the New Kingdom, around 1070 BC, then 100 years later", explains- he.

Because “the tomb of Ramses in the valley of the kings was plundered and his body installed in” this sarcophagus.

"The whole was transported to the tomb of his father, Seti I", according to the Egyptologist.

During the 21st dynasty, it was again moved "to the hiding place of Deir en-Bahri, west of Luxor, which contained a hundred mummies including those of the kings of the New Kingdom".

animal mummies

It took until 1881 to find this hiding place which was being looted.

"The mummies were transported from Luxor to Cairo by boat, and acclaimed by the population who had gathered on the banks of the Nile", he says.

In Paris, only animal mummies can be admired and in particular of cats, "raised and sacrificed to offer them to the deities", according to Dominique Farout.

These mummies were discovered in recent years near Cairo, in a necropolis of the kings of the Old Kingdom (between 2700 and 2200 BC), specifies the specialist. 

Alongside them, the public will discover the "treasure of Tanis", named after the new capital, Tanis, rebuilt by Ramses II east of the Nile delta after the first, Pie-Ramses, was silted up.

The treasure, consisting of a "solid silver coffin, cases of fingers and toes or masks in solid gold and jewels, comes from royal tombs found in this city in 1939-40", according to the specialist.

With AFP

The summary of the

France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you!

Download the France 24 app