The Journey of Ramesses II’s Sarcophagus: A Tale of Reuse and Rediscovery

Hold onto your hats, folks, cuz this is a wild one. We’re talking ancient Egypt, pharaohs, and a sarcophagus with more frequent flyer miles than your average business traveler. Get ready to dig into the fascinating story of Ramesses II’s final resting place – or, should we say, resting places – cuz this thing’s been around the block a few times.

Setting the Scene

It’s two-thousand-twenty-four, and the world of archaeology is buzzing. Why? Because a sarcophagus fragment, just chilling beneath a Coptic building in Abydos, Egypt since its discovery in two-thousand-and-nine, has just spilled the tea. And guess what? It used to belong to the one and only Ramesses II. Mic drop.

This revelation, my friends, is more than just a cool historical tidbit. It’s a window into the surprisingly common practice of “recycling” funerary bling by later Egyptian rulers. Think of it as ancient Egyptian upcycling, but with, you know, a lot more gold and a dash of “oh my god, that’s a mummy!”.

The Initial Discovery

Let’s rewind back to two-thousand-and-nine. Our crack team of archaeological detectives – led by Ayman Damrani and Kevin Cahail – are on a dig in Abydos. They stumble across this granite sarcophagus fragment, like a giant jigsaw puzzle piece just waiting to be solved.

Now, these archaeologists, they’ve got eyes like hawks. They quickly realize that this sarcophagus has seen some things. It’s actually housed two different residents over the years. Talk about a timeshare!

The later tenant, they figure out, was a high-ranking priest named Menkheperre, living it up in the twenty-first dynasty (around one-thousand BC). But the OG owner? That remained a head-scratcher, although they knew this mystery person was a total VIP in the New Kingdom.

Unveiling the Mystery

Enter Frédéric Payraudeau, an Egyptologist from Sorbonne University with a knack for cracking ancient codes. Payraudeau, bless his cotton socks, makes the connection to Ramesses II. Turns out, there was a tiny little detail everyone else missed – a cartouche (like a name tag for a pharaoh) that had been totally overlooked. And boom – case closed! It was Ramesses’ pad all along.