Pharaoh Ramses II’s sarcophagus in Paris for rare loan

Pharaoh Ramses II’s sarcophagus in Paris for rare loan

The sarcophagus of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II is to return to Paris in April for the first time in almost 50 years, in a rare loan of the relic outside Egypt.

The ornate coffin will be on show in the French capital from April 7 to September 6, the star attraction alongside an exhibition previously shown in San Francisco and which will conclude in Sydney -- minus the sarcophagus.

"I almost wept for joy that I would be seeing him again here when they told me he was coming to Paris," said Dominique Farout, an Egyptologist at the prestigious Ecole du Louvre art history school who is scientific commissioner to the exhibit.

"I was 16 in 1976" when Ramses II was last in Paris, Farout added. "I had a big poster in my bedroom. I went eight times in a row."

Farout said Egyptian authorities had made an exception in loaning the yellow-painted cedar-wood sarcophagus to France. It did not travel to San Francisco and will not be included when the rest of the exhibition packs up and heads to Sydney.

The gesture marks gratitude towards Paris, where scientists preserved Ramses II's mummy by treating it against fungus when it was exhibited in 1976.

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