from the ramesseum, thebes, egypt, 19th dynasty, about 1250 bc one of the largest pieces of egyptian sculpture in the british museum, this statue shows ramesses ii, who succeeded his father sethos i in around 1279 bc and ruled egypt for 67 years. weighing 7.25 tons, this fragment of his statue was cut from a single block of two-coloured granite. he is shown wearing the nemes head-dress surmounted by a cobra diadem. the sculptor has used a slight variation of normal conventions to relate his work to the viewer, angling the eyes down slightly, so that the statue relates more to those looking at it. it was retrieved from the mortuary temple of ramesses at thebes (the 'ramesseum') by giovanni belzoni in 1816. belzoni wrote a fascinating account of his struggle to remove it, both li