DEIR AL-BALAH: Children in sandals trudge through water contaminated with sewage and scale growing mounds of garbage in Gaza’s crowded tent camps for displaced families. People relieve themselves in burlap-covered pits, with nowhere nearby to wash their hands.
In the stifling summer heat, Palestinians say the odor and filth surrounding them is just another inescapable reality of war — like pangs of hunger or sounds of bombing.
The territory’s ability to dispose of garbage, treat sewage and deliver clean water has been virtually decimated by eight brutal months of war between Israel and Hamas. This has made grim living conditions worse and raised health risks for hundreds of thousands of people deprived of adequate shelter, food and medicine, aid groups say.
Hepatitis A cases are on the rise, and doctors fear that as warmer weather arrives, an outbreak of cholera is increasingly likely without dramatic changes to living conditions. The UN, aid groups and local officials are scrambling to build latrines, repair water lines and bring desalination plants back online.
COGAT, the Israeli military body coordinating humanitarian aid efforts, said it’s engaging in efforts to improve the “hygiene situation.” But relief can’t come soon enough.
“Flies are in our food,” said Adel Dalloul, a 21-year-old whose family settled in a beach tent camp near the central Gaza city of Nuseirat. They wound up there after fleeing the southern city of Rafah, where they landed after leaving their northern Gaza home. “If you try to sleep, flies, insects and cockroaches are all over you.”
Over a million Palestinians had been living in hastily assembled tent camps in Rafah before Israel invaded in May. Since fleeing Rafah, many have taken shelter in even more crowded and unsanitary areas across southern and central Gaza that doctors describe as breeding grounds for disease — especially as temperatures regularly reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius).
“The stench in Gaza is enough to make you kind of immediately nauseous,” said Sam Rose, a director at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Conditions are exacting an emotional toll, too.
Anwar Al-Hurkali, who lives with his family in a tent camp in the central Gazan city of Deir Al-Balah, said he can’t sleep for fear of scorpions and rodents. He doesn’t let his children leave their tent, he said, worrying they’ll get sick from pollution and mosquitoes.
“We cannot stand the smell of sewage,” he said. “It is killing us.”
Basic services breakdown
The UN estimates nearly 70 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation plants have been destroyed or damaged by Israel’s heavy bombardment. That includes all five of the territory’s wastewater treatment facilities, plus water desalination plants, sewage pumping stations, wells and reservoirs.
The employees who once managed municipal water and waste systems have been displaced, and some killed, officials say. This month, an Israeli strike in Gaza City killed five government employees repairing water wells, the city said.
Despite staffing shortages and damaged equipment, some desalination plants and sewage pumps are working, but they’re hampered by lack of fuel, aid workers say.
A UN assessment of two Deir Al-Balah tent camps found in early June that people’s daily water consumption — including drinking, washing and cooking — averaged under 2 liters (about 67 ounces), far lower than the recommended 15 liters a day.
COGAT said it’s coordinating with the UN to repair sewage facilities and Gaza’s water system. Israel has opened three water lines “pumping millions of liters daily” into Gaza, it said.
But people often wait hours in line to collect potable water from delivery trucks, hauling back to their families whatever they can carry. The scarcity means families often wash with dirty water.
This week, Dalloul said, he lined up for water from a vendor. “We discovered that it was salty, polluted, and full of germs. We found worms in the water. I had been drinking from it,” he said. “I had gastrointestinal problems and diarrhea, and my stomach hurts until this moment.”
The World Health Organization declared an outbreak of Hepatitis A that, as of early June, had led to 81,700 reported cases of jaundice — a common symptom. The disease spreads primarily when uninfected people consume water or food contaminated with fecal matter.
Because wastewater treatment plants have shut down, untreated sewage is seeping into the ground or being pumped into the Mediterranean Sea, where tides move north toward Israel.
“If there are bad water conditions and polluted groundwater in Gaza, then this is an issue for Israel,” said Rose, of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. “It has in the past prompted actions by Israel to try and ameliorate the situation.”
COGAT said it’s working on “improving waste management processes” and examining proposals to establish new dumps and allow more garbage trucks into Gaza.
Where can garbage go?
Standing barefoot on a street in the Nuseirat refugee camp, 62-year-old Abu Shadi Afana compared the pile of garbage next to him to a “waterfall.” He said trucks continue to dump rubbish even though families live in tents nearby.
“There is no one to provide us with a tent, food, or drink, and on top of all of this, we live in garbage?” Afana said. Trash attracts bugs he’s never seen before in Gaza — small insects that stick to his skin. When he lies down, he said, he feels like they’re “eating his face.”
There are few other places for the garbage to go. When Israel’s military took control of a 1-kilometer (0.6-mile) buffer zone along its border with Gaza, two main landfills east of the cities of Khan Younis and Gaza City became off-limits.
In their absence, informal landfills have developed. Displaced Palestinians running out of areas to shelter say they’ve had little choice but to pitch tents near trash piles.
Satellite images from Planet Labs analyzed by The Associated Press show that an informal landfill in Khan Younis that sprung up after Oct. 7 appears to have doubled in length since January. Since the Rafah evacuation, a tent city has sprung up around the landfill, with Palestinians living between piles of garbage.
Cholera fears
Doctors in Gaza fear cholera may be on the horizon.
“The crowded conditions, the lack of water, the heat, the poor sanitation — these are the preconditions of cholera,” said Joanne Perry, a doctor working in southern Gaza with Doctors Without Borders.
Most patients have illnesses or infections caused by poor sanitation, she said. Scabies, gastrointestinal illnesses and rashes are common. Over 485,000 diarrhea cases have been reported since the war’s start, WHO says.
“When we go to the hospital to ask for medicine for diarrhea, they tell us it is not available, and I go to buy it outside the hospital,” Al-Hurkali said. “But where do I get the money?”
COGAT says it’s coordinating delivery of vaccines and medical supplies and is in daily contact with Gaza health officials. COGAT is “unaware of any authentic, verified report of unusual illnesses other than viral illnesses,” it said.
With efforts stalled to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Dalloul says he’s lost hope that help is on the way.
“I am 21 years old. I am supposed to start my life,” he said. “Now I just live in front of the garbage.”
In the searing heat of the Gaza summer, Palestinians are surrounded by sewage and garbage
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In the searing heat of the Gaza summer, Palestinians are surrounded by sewage and garbage
- Children trudge through water contaminated with sewage and scale growing mounds of garbage in Gaza’s tent camps for displaced families
- Aid groups say it’s made grim living conditions worse and raised health risks for hundreds of thousands of people
US has sent Israel thousands of 2,000-pound bombs since Oct. 7
- US has transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles
- 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions have also been sent, according to top officials
WASHINGTON: The Biden administration has sent to Israel large numbers of munitions, including more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles, since the start of the war in Gaza, said two US officials briefed on an updated list of weapons shipments.
Between the war’s start last October and recent days, the United States has transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
While the officials didn’t give a timeline for the shipments, the totals suggest there has been no significant drop-off in US military support for its ally, despite international calls to limit weapons supplies and a recent administration decision to pause a shipment of powerful bombs.
Experts said the contents of the shipments appear consistent with what Israel would need to replenish supplies used in this eight-month intense military campaign in Gaza, which it launched after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas who killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
“While these numbers could be expended relatively quickly in a major conflict, this list clearly reflects a substantial level of support from the United States for our Israeli allies,” said Tom Karako, a weapons expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, adding that the listed munitions were the type Israel would use in its fight against Hamas or in a potential conflict with Hezbollah.
The delivery numbers, which have not been previously reported, provide the most up-to-date and extensive tally of munitions shipped to Israel since the Gaza war began.
Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire since the start of the Gaza war, and concern is rising that an all-out war could break out between the two sides.
The White House declined to comment. Israel’s Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The shipments are part of a bigger list of weapons sent to Israel since the Gaza conflict began, one of the US officials said. A senior Biden administration official on Wednesday told reporters that Washington has since Oct. 7 sent $6.5 billion worth of security assistance to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks claimed that Washington was withholding weapons, a suggestion US officials have repeatedly denied even though they acknowledged some “bottlenecks.”
The Biden administration has paused one shipment of the 2,000-pound bomb, citing concern over the impact it could have in densely populated areas in Gaza, but US officials insist that all other arms deliveries continue as normal. One 2,000-pound bomb can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.
Reuters reported on Thursday that the United States is discussing with Israel the release of a shipment of large bombs that was suspended in May over worries about the military operation in Rafah.
International scrutiny of Israel’s military operation in Gaza has intensified as the Palestinian death toll from the war has exceeded 37,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, and has left the coastal enclave in ruins.
Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to its longtime ally. While Biden has warned that he would place conditions on military aid if Israel fails to protect civilians and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, he has not done so beyond delaying the May shipment.
Biden’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas has emerged as a political liability, particularly among young Democrats, as he runs for re-election this year. It fueled a wave of “uncommitted” protest votes in primaries and has driven pro-Palestinian protests at US universities.
While the United States provides detailed descriptions and quantities of military aid sent to Ukraine as it fights a full-scale invasion of Russia, the administration has revealed few details about the full extent of US weapons and munitions sent to Israel.
The shipments are also hard to track because some of the weapons are shipped as part of arms sales approved by Congress years ago but only now being fulfilled.
One of the US officials said the Pentagon has sufficient quantities of weapons in its own stocks and had been liaising with US industry partners who make the weapons, such as Boeing Co. and General Dynamics as the companies work to manufacture more.
Regime threatening destruction deserves destruction: Israel FM to Iran
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said this week they prefer a diplomatic path to resolving the situation
JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that Iran’s message of an “obliterating war” made it worthy of destruction.
“A regime that threatens destruction deserves to be destroyed,” Katz said in a post on X. He also said Israel will act with full force against Iran-backed Hezbollah if it does not stop firing at Israel from Lebanon and move away from the border.
Iran’s UN mission said on Friday that if Israel embarks on a “full-scale military aggression” in Lebanon, “an obliterating war will ensue.”
The Iranian mission also said in the post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that in such an event “all options, incl. the full involvement of all resistance fronts, are on the table.”
Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israel since October, in parallel with the Gaza war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said this week they prefer a diplomatic path to resolving the situation.
Though Katz is a member of Israel’s security cabinet, war policy has largely been led by Netanyahu and a small circle of ministers that includes Gallant, who visited Washington this week for talks on Gaza and Lebanon.
Sudan’s RSF says it has taken capital of southeastern state
- Capture of key city follows days of fighting, with forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan using aircraft
- Sennar state, which links central Sudan to the army-controlled southeast, is already home to more than a million displaced people
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Paramilitary forces battling Sudan’s regular army for more than a year said Saturday they had taken a key state capital in the southeast, prompting thousands to flee, witnesses said.
“We have liberated the 17th Infantry Division from Singa,” the capital of Sennar state, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced on X.
Residents confirmed to AFP: “The RSF have deployed in the streets of Singa,” and witnesses reported aircraft from the regular army flying overhead and anti-aircraft fire.
Earlier Saturday, other witnesses said there was fighting in the streets and “rising panic among residents seeking to flee.”
Sudan has been gripped by war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the RSF led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The conflict in the country of 48 million has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The latest RSF breakthrough means the paramilitaries are tightening the noose around Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where the army, government and UN agencies are now based.
The RSF controls most of the capital Khartoum, Al-Jazira state in the center of the country, the vast western region of Darfur and much of Kordofan to the south.
Sennar state is already home to more than one million displaced Sudanese. It connects central Sudan to the army-controlled southeast.
Posts on social media showed thousands of people fleeing in vehicles and on foot, and witnesses told AFP “thousands of people have taken refuge on the east bank of the Blue Nile” river east of Singa.
RSF forces are also besieging the town of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.
On Thursday, a report cited by the United Nations said nearly 26 million people in war-torn Sudan are facing high levels of “acute food insecurity.”
The reasons behind the thawing of ties between Ankara and Damascus
- Gaza war creates new regional dynamics for Assad regime, necessitates closer relations with Turkiye, says expert
- Erdogan signals possible policy shift as Turkiye considers rapprochement with Syria
ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signaled a possible restoration of relations with Syria’s Assad regime in a surprising move that marks a significant departure from years of hostility between the two nations.
Erdogan’s comments, which were made after Friday prayers, suggest a willingness to revive diplomatic ties with Damascus, emphasizing historical precedent and family ties as potential foundations for future engagement.
“There is no reason why it should not happen,” Erdogan said.
“Just as we kept our relations very lively in the past, we even had talks between our families with Assad. It is certainly not possible to say that this will not happen in the future. It can happen; the Syrian people are our brothers.”
The Turkish leader’s comments echo similar sentiments recently expressed by Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has indicated his willingness to pursue steps toward normalization, provided they respect Syria’s sovereignty and contribute to counter-terrorism efforts.
The remarks came during a meeting with Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to Syria.
The concurrent statements are seen as part of a broader effort to reconcile Ankara and Damascus, but the path to rapprochement remains fraught with uncertainty and complexity.
Erdogan, then prime minister of Turkiye, hosted Assad in 2009 for a family holiday in the Aegean resort of Bodrum, and they enjoyed amicable visits to nurture their friendship.
But since severing all ties with the Assad regime in 2011, Turkiye has been a vocal supporter of his opponents in Syria and called for the ousting of Assad from power.
Ankara’s involvement has escalated with several cross-border military operations and the establishment of a safe zone in northern Syria, in which Turkish troops are stationed.
The Turkish and Syrian foreign ministers met in Moscow last year, marking the highest-level contact between the two countries since the start of the Syrian Civil War.
But the talks, along with an earlier meeting between the two countries’ defense ministers, did not bring about any change in bilateral relations.
Oytun Orhan, coordinator of Levant studies at the Ankara-based think tank ORSAM, says there is a glimmer of hope for a resumption of the dialogue process.
He told Arab News: “There have been some developments in recent weeks. It is said that Turkish and Syrian officials could meet in Baghdad with the mediation of Iraq, and surprising developments in Turkish-Syrian relations are expected in the coming period.”
Efforts were being made to bring the parties together, he added.
Orhan believes that with Russia’s softening position in Ukraine, the Kremlin has begun to pay more attention to Turkish-Syrian relations, and the Gaza conflict also requires new regional dynamics and presents new security challenges for the Assad regime, which necessitates closer Turkish-Syrian relations.
He said: “Discussions about a possible US withdrawal after the upcoming presidential elections are another factor to consider.”
The Assad regime has recently been in talks with the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units and “is trying to corner Turkiye by signaling that it could reach an agreement with the YPG if Turkiye does not accept its conditions, while at the same time opening channels with Turkiye,” he added.
Ankara considers the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, a terrorist group closely linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has been waging a decades-long insurgency in southeast Turkiye.
Experts say that both parties are trying to consolidate their positions in line with regional changes and consider their red lines for domestic security concerns.
But Orhan does not expect Turkish troops to withdraw in the short term, and added: “First, there may be an agreement between the parties on how to deal with the YPG.
“At that point Turkiye may have to take some steps regarding its relationship with the opposition. However, there will not be a situation where the Syrian opposition is completely abandoned or its support is cut off. A gradual road map can be agreed.”
Orhan expects that a mechanism of guarantees involving Russia or even Iran could be agreed upon for a road map for withdrawal from Syria.
He said: “Gradual steps will be taken based on criteria such as the complete elimination of the PKK/YPG threat and the creation of conditions for the safe return of Syrian refugees to their country.
“A common will against the PKK is not very likely at this stage because the Syrian regime still wants to use the YPG as a trump card against Turkiye. It believes that after a possible US withdrawal, it can reach an agreement with the YPG and solve this problem with minor concessions.”
Experts believe a partnership between Ankara and Damascus, like the one between Iraq and Turkiye, is unlikely at the moment.
But Orhan believes common ground can be found in the fight against the PKK, depending on the gradual steps taken by Turkiye.
He said: “Instead of a joint military operation, Turkiye’s continued military moves against the YPG, followed by an agreement on areas that Syrian regime forces can retake and control, can be agreed upon.”
Turkiye currently hosts 3.1 million Syrian refugees, according to official figures. One of Ankara’s expectations from a possible rapprochement between Turkiye and Syria would be the safe return of these refugees to their homeland.
Orhan said: “The return of Syrian refugees can only be possible after a lasting solution in Syria.
“It is a long-term, difficult problem to solve. From the Assad regime’s point of view, it sees this as a bargaining chip and a burden on Turkiye’s shoulders.”
He added that the return of Syrian refugees was also seen as providing a risk factor for the Assad regime.
The refugees are seen as “people who fled the country, and it is questionable how willing Assad is to repatriate them,” said Orhan.
Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and current chairman of the Istanbul-based think tank EDAM, has spoken of the profound shifts in regional security dynamics in the wake of the war in Gaza and amid uncertainties surrounding US policy in the Middle East, particularly in Syria.
He told Arab News: “For Syria, which now faces an even more unpredictable security environment, this forces the Syrian leadership to reassess its position for negotiations with Turkiye in response to the evolving geopolitical realities.”
Ulgen believes that from Turkiye’s point of view, this represents a potentially favorable opportunity, provided that Syria is willing to reconsider the terms of engagement that have so far prevented meaningful dialogue.
He added: “Until now, these conditions have been a major obstacle to starting a substantive negotiation process.”
Ulgen said that Syria’s willingness to revise these conditions will be crucial in determining whether formal negotiations can begin.
He added: “The critical question now is whether Damascus will stick to its preconditions, some of which may prove untenable, such as the demand for an immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops from border areas.”
Progress in reconciliation efforts would depend on the lifting of such conditions, Ulgen said.
How a sarcophagus fragment helped solve an ancient Egyptian mystery
- A humble piece of granite in the floor of a monastery was found to bear the name of one of Egypt’s most famous rulers
- Ramses II, who ruled from 1279 to 1213 B.C., is regarded as one of the most powerful warrior-pharaohs of ancient Egypt
LONDON: During excavations carried out at the ancient site of Abydos in Egypt in 2009, archaeologists made an unexpected discovery — the remains of a lost Coptic monastery, believed to have been founded in the fifth century by the leader of the Coptic church, Apa Moses.
That was fascinating enough, but even bigger surprises would emerge.
Deep within the excavated ruins of the monastery, archaeologists from the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities made a discovery that shone a light on the tensions that existed between the early Coptic church and the remnants of Egypt’s “pagan” past.
Pressed into service as a humble doorstep within the monastery was a piece of red granite, 1.7 meters long and half as wide.
A partial inscription revealed it was part of the sarcophagus of Menkheperre, the high priest of Amun-Ra, the ancient Egyptian god of the sun and the air, who ruled the south of Egypt between 1045 and 992 B.C.
The find seemed to solve one mystery — where Menkheperre had been buried. Previously it was thought that he must have been entombed near his power base at Thebes, in a grave yet to be discovered. Now, it seemed, he had been laid to rest in Abydos.
The existence of a fragment of his sarcophagus, set within the floor of the monastery, as the authors of a paper published in 2016 surmised, owed something to Apa Moses’ “persecution of local pagan temples,” and was “perhaps the result of the fervor with which his followers dismantled pagan structures and tombs throughout Abydos.”
And that is where the story might have ended, but for Frederic Payraudeau, an Egyptologist at Sorbonne University in Paris.
Ayman Damrani and Kevin Cahail, the Egyptian and American archaeologists who had discovered the fragment, recognized from the outset that the sarcophagus had another occupant before Menkheperre.
They saw that earlier inscriptions had been overwritten and suggested the original owner might have been an unknown royal prince.
The fragment, made of hard red granite, represented “a much greater allocation of time and resources involved in its construction,” they wrote, than would have been expended on the sarcophagus of even a high official.
This suggested the original owner “had access to royal-level workshops and materials,” and might, they concluded, have been a prince by the name of Meryamunre or Meryamun.
“When I read this article, I was very interested because I am a specialist of this period,” said Payraudeau, “and I was not really convinced by the reading of the inscriptions.”
He added: “I already suspected that this fragment was from the sarcophagus of a king, partly because of the quality of the object, which is very well carved, but also because of the decoration.”
This consisted of scenes from the Book of Gates, an ancient Egyptian funerary text reserved almost exclusively for kings.
“It is known in the Valley of the Kings on the walls of the tombs, and on the sarcophagi of the kings, and it was used only by one person, who was not a king, in a later period.
“But this is an exception, and it would have been very strange for a prince to have used this text — and especially a prince that we hadn’t heard of.”
The photographs published with the paper were of too low quality to confirm his suspicions, so he asked the author to send him high-resolution copies. “And when I saw the enlarged photographs of the objects, I could clearly see the cartouche of a king.”
A cartouche is an oval frame, underscored at one end and containing a name written in hieroglyphics, that was used to indicate royalty. This one read “User-Maat-Ra Setep-en-Ra.”
Translated roughly as “The justice of Ra is powerful, Chosen of Ra,” it was the throne name of one of the most famous rulers of ancient Egypt — Ramses II.
Ramses II, who ruled from 1279 to 1213 B.C., is regarded as one of the most powerful warrior-pharaohs of ancient Egypt, famed for having fought many battles and created many temples, monuments and cities, and known to generations of subsequent rulers and their subjects as the “great ancestor.”
His was the longest reign in Egyptian history, and he is depicted in more than 300 often colossal statues found across the ancient kingdom.
On his death, after a reign that lasted 67 years, he was buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Because many of the tombs were later looted, one of his successors, Ramses IX, who ruled from 1129 to 1111 B.C., had many of the remains moved for safekeeping to a secret tomb in Deir El-Bahari, a necropolis on the Nile opposite the city of Luxor.
There they lay undisturbed for almost 3,000 years until their chance discovery by a goat-herder in about 1860.
It was not until 1881 that Egyptologists got wind of the extraordinary find, and there among the more than 50 mummies of pharaohs, each labeled with the details of who they were and where they had been originally buried, was Ramses II.
He was in a beautifully carved cedar-wood coffin. Originally, this would ordinarily have been placed inside a golden coffin — lost to antiquity — which in turn would have been housed within an alabaster sarcophagus, which itself was then placed inside a stone sarcophagus.
Small fragments of the alabaster sarcophagus, which had presumably been shattered by looters, were found in his original tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Of the granite sarcophagus, however, there was no sign — until now.
The looting of graves and the reusing of sarcophagi was a result of social and economic upheaval in ancient Egypt. “The sarcophagus was intended to be used by the owner for eternity,” said Payraudeau.
But with the death of Ramses XI in 1077 B.C., at the end of a long period of prosperity, there was a civil war and then a long period of unrest, he said.
“This was the Third Intermediate Period, which saw much looting of the necropolizes because the Egyptians knew that there was gold, silver and other valuable materials, such as wood, in the tombs.”
In addition to ordinary grave robbers, even the authorities took part in the looting, recycling sarcophagi for their own use. That is how Menkheperre came to be buried in a sarcophagus previously used by Ramses II.
Payraudeau is not convinced that the use of a fragment of the sarcophagus in the building of the fifth-century Coptic monastery was necessarily an act of disrespect.
“When they built this monastery, they didn’t know that they were reusing the sarcophagus of Ramses, because by this time no one had been able to read hieroglyphs for about 500 years.”
It would be 1799 before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, which, with a royal decree written in three languages, including ancient Greek, provided the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphic script.
The one remaining mystery now, said Payraudeau, was where in Abydos Menkheperre was originally buried.
“Somewhere there must be the undiscovered remains of the tomb of the high priest,” he said.
“Maybe it was completely destroyed. But I can’t let go of the idea that perhaps they reused the parts of the sarcophagus which were suitable to use as pavements and so on, and that the lid, which would have been far harder to reuse, might still be lying intact somewhere in Abydos.”
In 1817, about 3,000 years after the death of Ramses II, archaeological discoveries in Egypt inspired the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley to write a sonnet reflecting on how the once seemingly eternal power of the great king the ancient Greeks knew as Ozymandias had turned to dust.
Reflecting on an inscription on the pedestal of a shattered, fallen statue, part of the poem reads: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains, round the decay, of that colossal wreck. Boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.”
In fact, not only has Ramses II’s fame grown in the 3,236 years since he was entombed in the Valley of the Kings, he has also become the most traveled of the ancient pharaohs.
In 1976, after it was noticed that his mummified remains were starting to decay, Ramses was sent to the Musee de l’Homme in Paris for restoration, along with a whimsical “passport” that gave his occupation as “King (deceased).”
Since then, he has been seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors to numerous exhibitions around the world, including a return visit to Paris last year.
If the lid of his sarcophagus were discovered, it could be reunited with the mummy and its coffin, and the Ozymandias show would doubtless grow ever more popular, continuing to confound Shelley’s poetic prediction that the Great Ancestor would be forgotten, swallowed up by the sands of time.
