Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
Voice of America is funded by the US Federal Government and content it
exclusively produces is in the public domain.

Egypt's Ramses Statue Moves to New Home
---------------------------------------

http://enews.voanews.com/t?r=279&ctl=13A62EA:A6F02AD83191E16006F7A881A97E57989574F7DCC14957C0 Egypt's Pharaoh
Ramses II has left the polluted city of Cairo for a new home near the
Great Pyramids





The giant statue of Pharaoh Ramses II is moved Friday Aug 25, 2006,
from a congested downtown square to its new home near the more
peaceful Great PyramidsEgypt's Pharaoh Ramses II has left the polluted
city of Cairo for a new home near the Great Pyramids.

The more than 80-ton statue of the ancient Egyptian warrior king was
moved Friday from Ramses Square in downtown Cairo to the site where
Egypt plans to build a Grand Museum in about five years.

Egypt's antiquities officials say they plan to restore the more than
3,200-year-old statue, then house it in the museum.

Officials rehearsed the move before slowly taking the statue on a
10-hour journey on huge flat-bed trucks.

The statue was brought to Cairo in the early 1950s from a temple at
the site of the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.

Cairo's automobile exhaust fumes and other environmental hazards were
causing it to deteriorate.


.