this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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History Ruins

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What is a ruin? We’re running off of “You know it when you see it” at the moment. Ruins should be non-functioning structures of some age, or their function reduced to tourism and the like.

Generally speaking, specific items from a ruin should go to !historyartifacts@lemmy.world

Illustrations of ruins (or their reconstructions) should go to !historyillustrations@lemmy.world

Photos of ruins back when they were functioning should go to !HistoryPorn@lemmy.world

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[–] kalkulat@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Spookky! I think the following may be -almost- the biggest (but unfinished) Rameses statue ... it's in Memphis.

https://liliontheloose.com/2017/03/06/museum-colossus-ramses-ii/

Looks like it's about a meter shorter than this one. Both found, buried or in pieces, in the 1800s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Ramesses_II

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The Abu Simbel statues seem to be biggest in the world, about 2x the height of the one in the WP link.

As for the ones in the OP pic, assuming it's not stretched horizontally, they certainly have the most unusual proportions I've ever seen in Egyptian statuary. That is-- squat, unusually thick front-to-back, and with disproportionally large heads. Interesting!

[–] kalkulat@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Ah, thanks. However, seen from different angles, the statues still appear unusually squat to me, as if the figures were little more than 5' tall.

Checking with Google's AI, I'm surprised to learn (tentatively) that the average Ancient Egyptian male was in fact about 5'6," which creates a little bit of a mystery, here. What's more, Rameses II himself evidently stood about 5'11" in his prime(!)

[–] kalkulat@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

¯_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯

Agreed. Good question! Were the 5x-lifesize ones trying to compensate? Beyond my pay-grade! Haven't ever seen one, and haven't seen much actual data on these figures. (Maybe Zawi's got that cornered!)