Surprisingly, to the horror of those present, Ramesses II moves his left arm
?The day Ramesses II moved his arm, what would Ramesses II say to those gathered there
Already in 1902, when a group of scholars were examining the mummy of the famous pharaoh at the recently opened Egyptian Museum in Cairo's Tahrir Square, an event occurred that shocked those gathered there and even novelists of the stature of Pierre Loti or Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. Collected in their works.
After the discovery of the mummy of Ramesses the Great in a hideout in Deir el-Bahari in 1870 AD, the mummy of Ramesses II was transported to Cairo and housed in the Boulak Museum, formerly the current Egyptian Museum in Cairo, before the mummy was transferred with the rest of the royal mummies to the Museum of Civilizations in Fustat.
In 1886, in front of a large number of authorities, the mummy of Ramesses the Great was studied by the highest archaeological authority in the country, the Frenchman Gaston Maspero, Director General of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, who confirmed the identity of the pharaoh thanks to an inscription on the shroud.
But Maspero not only removed the bandages from the mummy, but also revealed three inscriptions engraved on the sarcophagus: the first explains how the mummy was restored in the time of Herihor (1106-1077 BC), while the other inscriptions explain the transfer of the mummy of King Ramesses II from its original location to The tomb of his father, Seti I, and then to the tomb of Queen Ahmose-Enhabi, of the Seventeenth Dynasty (ca. 1540 BC).
The mummy of Ramesses II, which was in very good condition, was finally placed in a special room and protected by a glass cover.
In 1902 AD, the current headquarters of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo was opened in Tahrir Square, which was designed by the French architect Marcel d'Orignon.
Royal mummies, including the mummy of Ramesses, are arranged on the first floor of the building, although they are not on public display.
In fact, at that time royal mummies could only be seen by distinguished visitors and in very exceptional cases. Among these visitors are distinguished novelists such as Pierre Loti or Vicente Blasco Ibáñez.
Ramses moves:
At that time, there was already talk about the magic of mummies and the famous curse of the pharaohs, and accounts of evil mummies coming back to life began to be a success among readers.
Lotti, who visited the museum in 1907 accompanied by its director Gastón Maspero, was struck by a story he had been told, an event also confirmed by Blasco Ibáñez that occurred shortly after the museum's opening.
The writer narrates the following:
“The fact is that the mummy of Ramesses II, without losing his reclining stability, raised one hand, and slapped the glass cover... All the guards of the Egyptian Museum, who looked on with some anxiety immediately realized that the Pharaoh had woken up and ran terrified towards the doors, fighting for who would escape first.” "
A logical explanation for why Ramesses II’s arm moved:
But did Ramses II really raise his left arm? Well, it seems that yes, but the explanation for such an event is very simple, the mummy of the pharaoh at that time was not in a controlled environment and due to the sudden change in temperature, the tendons of the arm spontaneously contracted.
“The mummy’s joints suffered from heat-induced expansion on certain materials, one of which moved intermittently [of his arms],” Blasco Ibáñez himself explains in his book.
In fact, one day, British scholar Sir Grafton Elliott Smith was studying and photographing the mummy of Ramesses II.
Illustrative image
When his assistant began to remove the bandages covering the pharaoh's arm, the long-pressed fibers of the limb suddenly contracted, and the scholars standing next to the mummy blinked when they saw that the great pharaoh moved his arm, seeming to wake up from his thousand-year dream. , with a gesture that seemed like an order.
Obviously nothing supernatural had happened and the pharaoh's mummy had no intention of indicating anything.
But if that were possible, what would Ramesses II say to those gathered there? We will never know.
Source : websites