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Rebuilding an Ancient Egyptian Statue is a Huge Challenge

सुनें/Video/Smithsonian/Rebuilding an Ancient Egyptian Statue is a Huge Challenge

Rebuilding an Ancient Egyptian Statue is a Huge Challenge

Smithsonian
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उपशीर्षक (66)

0:03NARRATOR: The largest pieces of the colossal statue
0:05of forgotten pharaoh Psamtik I are today
0:09on display at the Cairo Museum.
0:16But 1,900 other fragments recovered from the site are
0:20being pieced together at the state-of-the-art
0:23Grand Egyptian Museum.
0:27 This is the next step in Egyptian archeology.
0:30It's where all the priceless artifacts from the tomb
0:31of Tutankhamun are being analyzed
0:33before they go on display in the new Grand Egyptian Museum.
0:36And it's where thousands and thousands
0:38of Egypt's most valuable treasures
0:40are being investigated.
0:43NARRATOR: From the 1,900 recovered fragments,
0:46little remained of Psamtik's shattered legs.
0:50The challenge for the experts was
0:51to work out if the Pharaoh was depicted sitting or standing.
0:56The pose would help determine the true scale of the colossus.
1:01And their answer came from an unexpected piece of the puzzle.
1:06 These lines can really only be the folds
1:10from a kilt, a short kilt that Pharaoh was wearing.
1:14So this is a part of the middle of his body.
1:17And in fact, these curves represent the top of
1:23his left leg and his rear end.
1:25So it's this kind of part here.
1:28And this is really, really interesting because the curves
1:32are moving down the kilt, moving down the Pharaoh's leg,
1:35and they are angled forwards from his body.
1:40NARRATOR: Detailed analysis of the folds
1:41reveal they could only form like this
1:44if Psamtik was standing up.
1:48Incredibly, the intricate detailing allows experts
1:52to now recreate his exact pose.
1:56 So his left leg wouldn't have been entirely upright in line
2:01with the upper part of his body, it would, in fact, have
2:04been standing sort of forward.
2:06So he would have been more in a kind of a striding pose,
2:10like this.
2:12Would have conveyed a sense of sort of strength and power.
2:15It's a very imposing sort of shape he casts in this pose.
2:19And this is absolutely classic of Egyptian royal sculpture.
2:24NARRATOR: The fragments reveal the complete statue
2:27would have been 36 feet tall, an all-powerful striding colossus.
2:35It's a striking power pose, and it's
2:37uncannily similar to a statue on display at the Cairo Museum.
2:44 This is a statue of Pharaoh Senusret III, and look,
2:48it's got the same well-defined torso, the same clear pectoral
2:52muscles, muscular shoulders.
2:54It's got the same divine beard.
2:55It's got the same white crown, and also,
2:58crucially, if you look here, his left leg is extended forward,
3:03giving him this striding pose, exactly
3:06as we see in the other statue.
3:08And so in all the crucial details,
3:10this statue is exactly the same as that of Psamtik.
3:15NARRATOR: But despite its near-identical appearance,
3:17there's one crucial difference.
3:21This statue was created at a time when the Egyptian empire
3:24was in its ascendancy not in decline, 1,200
3:30years before Psamtik was born.
3:36 So it appears that Psamtik was following
3:39in the tradition which was well over 1,000 years
3:42old by his time.
3:42And in fact, the tradition of having statues carved like this
3:46goes back even further, to the time of the pyramids,
3:49well over 2,000 years before Psamtik's time.