# Where the objects went Source: https://luxor101.com/journal/where-the-objects-went Language: en Explainer Reading time 3 min # Where the objects went Objects from Thebes are held in Luxor, elsewhere in Egypt and abroad. Each has its own history of discovery and movement; a museum label and object record can help you trace it. After visiting a temple or tomb, a museum can supply a different kind of encounter: a face at eye level, a polished stone surface, a relief seen without the scale of an entire building around it. Luxor Museum is a useful place to make those connections. Opened in 1975, it brings together material from ancient Thebes and its wider setting. Sculpture recovered from the Luxor Temple cachette helps connect individual royal images with the site in which they were found. These objects do not show how every temple surface once looked, but they offer a closer view of particular materials and workmanship. Reassembled talatat (a small standardised sandstone block, sized for one man to carry, from Akhenaten’s Theban temples)—the small blocks used in Akhenaten’s building projects—tell another story. Some were reused inside later structures at Karnak. Their recovery and reconstruction reveal how dismantling could both destroy a building and preserve pieces of its decoration. Objects from Thebes are also held in other Egyptian and overseas museums. Their histories differ: excavation, earlier divisions of finds, collection, sale, gift and removal all require case-by-case attention. A statue’s current location alone does not explain how it got there. One familiar example is the Younger Memnon from the Ramesseum. Removed in 1816, it arrived in London in 1818 and entered display at the British Museum in 1819. Another is the Luxor Temple obelisk erected in Paris in 1836. Following such objects connects the monuments with the history of archaeology and collecting. Leave time for a few pieces rather than treating the museum as a checklist. Read provenance and identification labels, including any uncertainty they record. Current gallery access, opening hours and display locations need checking; this guide does not promise that a particular object will be on view. ## Follow one object: the Younger Memnon Follow one object: the Younger Memnon | Evidence to follow | What to notice or check | | --- | --- | | Object | The head and upper body of a colossal Ramesses II statue, British Museum EA19. | | Original setting | The Ramesseum. Its surviving inscriptions name the king and connect the image with Amun-Re. | | Movement | Removed by Belzoni for Henry Salt. The museum’s acquisition record is one part of the evidence for its later history. | | Present collection | The British Museum holds it. Check the museum’s current display information before planning a visit around it. | > An object’s history includes where it was found and how it reached the museum. Approximate reading time, calculated from the English text at 200 words per minute. Arabic reading time may differ. Look for this ## At Luxor Museum, look for this. Explore related details in the site’s field guide. Current access still needs checking. 1. 1 ### The statues that were buried under a temple floor The main gallery, on the ground floor The statues found beneath Luxor Temple’s court in 1989 preserve details such as polished stone, crisp carving and carefully worked faces. Look at the individual surfaces rather than assuming every object survived in the same condition. Fact — the find, the date and the statues. Uncertain — why they were buried, which is not settled. The polish on a quartzite statue shows the finish achieved on that particular stone. It gives you a useful comparison with weathered sculpture outdoors, but cannot reconstruct the original appearance of every temple or object. 2. 2 ### A demolished building, put back together The Akhenaten gallery A long reconstructed wall of small sandstone blocks, carved in shallow relief: the king and Nefertiti offering under the rayed disc of the Aten, and — unusually — scenes of the temple’s own workshops, kitchens and stores. Fact — the talatat blocks, their origin and their recovery from the Ninth Pylon (a monumental gateway formed by two massive towers). Interpretation — the placing of individual blocks within the reconstruction. Akhenaten’s temples at Karnak were pulled down after his death and their blocks buried as fill inside later pylons. This wall was reassembled out of those blocks. You are looking at a building that was deliberately destroyed, taken back out of the thing that destroyed it. 3. 3 ### Two royal mummies, one of them probably The wing added in 2004 The museum’s later expansion included royal mummy displays. Confirm which galleries and displays are currently accessible; conservation cases protect fragile remains. Uncertain Fact — the two mummies, their display and the 2003 return. Uncertain — the identification of the second as Ramesses I. The two identifications are not equally certain, and it is worth knowing which is which. The first rests on the mummy having been found labelled in the royal cache at Deir el-Bahari. The second rests on physical and circumstantial evidence: it is probable, and it is not proved. 4. 4 ### Notice how little is in the room Anywhere in the main gallery — stop in the middle and look around rather than at a case Dark walls, no daylight, a single directed light on each object, and a great deal of empty space between one piece and the next. Interpretation Fact — the display design itself. Interpretation — the curatorial reasoning behind it. Leave room to look slowly at a few objects. Matching a statue or relief with a site you have visited often makes both more memorable. [Open the Luxor Museum guide](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/luxor-museum) Look closely, photograph only where permitted, and keep hands and bags clear of ancient surfaces. Follow barriers and conservation instructions. Continue reading ## Where this leads. 1–1 / 8 [Museum · East bank ### Luxor Museum A museum that brings objects from ancient Thebes into focus, from royal sculpture to reconstructed temple reliefs. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/luxor-museum)[Temple · East bank ### Luxor Temple A temple of Amun in the heart of today’s city, shaped by royal ritual and the annual Opet festival. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/luxor-temple)[Temple complex · East bank ### Karnak Temple Complex Two thousand years of building, rebuilding and royal ambition, gathered around the temples of Amun. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/karnak)[Temple · West bank ### The Ramesseum Ramesses II’s mortuary temple, largely collapsed — including the colossus that put “Ozymandias” into English. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/ramesseum)[Person ### Amenhotep III A king whose monumental building programme reshaped Thebes. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/amenhotep-iii)[Person ### Horemheb The general who took the throne and set about deleting the four reigns before him. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/horemheb)[Person ### Akhenaten The king who shut the temples — and whose own buildings were used as rubble. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/akhenaten)[Person ### Ramesses II Sixty-six years on the throne, and his name cut into everything within reach. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/ramesses-ii) Sources & further reading 5 Tier 1 The Younger Memnon, EA19 — Ramesses II statue from the Ramesseum The British Museum Tier 2 Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb and the Egyptian Counter-Reformation, Aidan Dodson American University in Cairo Press Tier 2 The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson British Museum Press Tier 2 Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings, Bertha Porter and Rosalind L. B. Moss Griffith Institute, University of Oxford Tier 2 Scanning the Pharaohs: CT Imaging of the New Kingdom Royal Mummies, Zahi Hawass and Sahar N. Saleem American University in Cairo Press Source review is incomplete. Consultation dates are shown only for checked references. Published works and institutional references for further reading. [Sources and review status](mailto:corrections@egyptmore.com?subject=Luxor101%20correction) [All stories](https://luxor101.com/journal)