Dave said:
Anyone who's seen Egyptian statuary (or read the Wikipedia
entry) knows that the faces of Remesses and other Pharaohs
do not have wrinkled lips or sneers of cold command -- they
look pretty damn mellow, actually.
I'd characterise many of them as "stern and imperturbable", with
exceptions for the likes of Akhenaten and many Late Period pharaohs.
By the way, the appropriate quote from Diodorus Siculus' first
century BC histories is
--
Beside the entrance are three statues, each carved from a single
block of black stone from Syene. One of these, which is seated, is
the largest of any in Egypt, its foot alone measuring over seven
cubits... it is not merely for its size that this work merits
approbation. It is also marvellous because of its artistic quality
and excellent because of the nature of its stone, since in a block of
so great a size there is not a single crack or blemish to be seen.
The inscription on it runs: "King of Kings I am, Ozymandias. If
anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpasss my
works."
--
(quoted second hand from Tyldesley's biography of Ramesses)
In any case, Shelley was a poet and not a historian, and I prefer his
version to Diodorus'.
Rich
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