The name Ozymandias keeps coming into my thoughts. What was he

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Statue of Ramses II at Abu Simbel, Egypt

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And on the pedestal these words appear:

'Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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Q.� So what's that all about then

A.� Ozymandias, or Ramses II, was a pharaoh who built many great statues and palaces during the 13th Century BC. But after his death he was soon forgotten, and many of his great works lay in ruins. What was once a great man was now a small piece of history, said Shelley.

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Q.� So he built plenty

A.� Yes. Ramses II (the Great) was one of the most prolific builders of ancient Egypt. Over his 67-year rule, he built more monuments and major statues than any other Egyptian king. These include Abu Simbel, Karnak and Luxor Temples, the Ramesseum, and many others. He also commissioned the largest monolithic statue, a red-granite seated statue of himself at the Ramesseum. This is the fallen idol that inspired Shelley. But other statues of Ozymandias (the Greek form of User-maat-Re, before you ask) keep turning up.

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Q.� Such as

A.� In 1996 archaeologists at the Giza Plateau unearthed a unique 3.5-ton pink granite statue believed to portray Ramses II. They literally stumbled upon it during routine excavations around the foot of the pyramid of Mycerinos. The double-headed statue is more than 11ft tall, and portrays Ramses two ways: as king and as Re-Harakhti, the sun god.

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Q.� Where was it found

A.� The incomplete figure was sandwiched between limestone bricks and coated in centuries-old dust and sand in what archaeologists believe was a workshop.

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Q.� And it's an important find

A.� Yes. Egyptologists hope the discovery will help fill gaps in the mysterious history of the Giza Plateau. Ali Hassan, then under secretary of state for archaeology, said: 'Ramses was a preserver and restorer of the Sphinx, and that explains to us the unique form of the statue which shows Ramses as the pharaoh and then with the disc of the sun as the god Re-Harakhti of the Giza Plateau.'

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Q.� So when did he reign

A.� It's generally thought Ramses II reigned about 1200BC - almost 1,400 years after Mycerinos' pyramid was built. By the Ramses II era, the kingdom's capital had moved south to Memphis, where several monuments to the megalomaniac king, have been discovered.

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By Steve Cunningham