Ozymandias and the Ramesseum: What a Crumbling Statue Teaches Us About Life

A cartouche with one of Ramesses II's many names. This name is actually his birth name. It reads Ramessu beloved of Amun. Inscribed on the wall of the Ramesseum

I was ten, maybe eleven, when my father read to me one of his favorite poems: “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Let’s start with the poem itself. And here’s a tip: poetry isn’t meant to echo only inside your head. Unless you’re lying next to a sleeping lion you don’t wish to wake, or seated in the hallowed, hushed halls of a library — read this (and all poetry) aloud.

Wandering the columns of the hypostale hall at the Ramesseum

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

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.”

Now, try to picture it.

A great pharaoh stands, robes flapping in the ridiculously hot breeze that courses down the Nile River Valley like the world’s most relentless blast furnace. Like dragon breath. Like really, really hot air.

He stands there, scepter of power in hand, serenely surveying the works his people have built in his name. A great temple. A city. Columns. Obelisks. And on every wall of every structure, as far as the eye can see — his name. Carved, etched, declared. He has quite literally signed his name across the greatest works in the known world.

And in the middle of it all: a statue. Not just any statue — even seated, the figure stands nearly 20 meters high. The greatest statue ever built.

He knows he is great. Not just great — the greatest. He has built things no one has ever built before. And he is so pleased with himself.

He sighs with delight. He loves contemplating just how awesome he is. He is more awesome than the wind is hot. And the wind is really, really hot. So hot.

Fade out on our mighty pharaoh, basking in the glow of his own enduring magnificence.

Pointing out the foot of Ramesses' old statue, all that remains

Now fast-forward. A long, long time later, a weary traveler finally makes it to this same place — the spot once covered in the unimaginable works of a mighty king.

And nothing is left.

Just a fragment of that statue. Ironically, the fragment is the face — the part carved to radiate immortal power and divine permanence. A face that once looked out over his mighty kingdom, sure that he would be the one to outlast time itself.

His greatness is gone.

The hot, dry wind — the same one that once fluttered the pharaoh’s robes — now scours a mostly empty landscape. It still makes you feel like the air itself is trying to suck the moisture from your bones.

But that hot wind is also great for preservation. Hot and dry helps things last. Maybe forever.

And so, if the works of a mighty pharaoh — built in a land that preserves rather than devours — can crumble to dust…

What will I leave behind?

That’s what I wondered as I stood at the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple Ramesses II built for himself on the west bank of the Nile outside Luxor. This is the place that supposedly inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley to write Ozymandias.

This wasn’t the first time travel made me confront this question. But it was the first time I was prepared for it. I’ve been thinking about Ozymandias since I was ten years old.

So, this time, as I stood at the foot of the remains of Ramesses’s broken statue, pondering the meaning of life and what I could possibly hope to accomplish in mine… I knew the right answer. Or at least, I knew my right answer.

I walked over to my wife, wrapped my arm around her, and pulled her close.

She immediately shoved me away.

Did I mention it was hot?