Ancient Egyptian Sarcophagus Fragment Reexamined

PARIS, FRANCE—According to a Live Science report, a new study of a granite fragment unearthed in Abydos in 2009 suggests that it was part of a sarcophagus that belonged to the 19th Dynasty pharaoh Ramesses II, who reigned from about 1279 to 1213 B.C. The pharaoh’s mummy and an ornate coffin were discovered in Deir el-Bahari in 1881. Archaeologists Ayman Damrani of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and Kevin Cahail of the University of Pennsylvania suggested at the time of the discovery that the sarcophagus had been reused, and that the first owner held a high rank during the New Kingdom period. The second owner, they determined, was the high priest Menkheperre, who lived around 1000 B.C., during the 21st dynasty. Egyptologist Frédéric Payraudeau of Sorbonne University has now identified Ramesses II as the initial owner of the sarcophagus because of a single engraved cartouche representing the pharaoh’s name that had been previously overlooked. To read about a cache of mummified animal heads around Ramesses' temple in Abydos, go to "Ram Heads for Ramesses."