CAIRO: So reads a mysterious classified ad on a French Internet site, which claims to be selling a lock of hair from Egypt s most famous Pharaoh, and has Egyptologists up in arms. The anonymous seller, who only identifies himself as a resident of Isere in eastern France, posted his ad on the vivastreet.fr website and is willing to prove the item s authenticity with a series of photos, certificates, embalming resin and bandages. He claims the rare object came into his possession because his father was part of a team of French scientists tasked with analyzing the royal mummy some 30 years ago. This could unfortunately be real, said Christian Leblanc, a French archeologist who heads the restoration of the Ramasseum, Ramses II s funeral temple in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor. If so, it is a scandal, it is deplorable and unacceptable, this irresponsible person must be thrown in jail, he told AFP. Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said he was aware of the offer and that the council was looking into the matter.
We ll see what this is all about, he said. In France, a police inquiry was launched to investigate the matter. The lock, if proven authentic, would be considered Egyptian heritage, the sale of which would be diplomatically embarrassing for France. Ramses II s mummy, which is currently housed in Cairo s Egyptian Museum, was sent to Paris on Sept. 12, 1976, for an examination of the cause of its deteriorating condition. The deceased pharaoh, who reigned from 1279 to 1213 BC, was issued an Egyptian passport and was received at Paris s Le Bourget airport with a ceremony, literally, fit for a king. Experts in Paris diagnosed the mummy with a fungal infection and began to treat the body with electromagnetic radiation. Tests showed that Ramses II was approximately 80 years old at the time of his death, was 1.72 meters tall, pale-skinned, and suffered from badly damaged teeth. Paris Musee de L Homme entrusted analysis of the mummy s hair to the laboratories of cosmetics giants L Oreal, who had concluded that Ramses II was a redhead, either naturally or had used henna hair dye. Once the treatment was successfully completed, Ramses II s body was sent back to Egypt. It was the first and last time that a mummy of similar importance had ventured beyond Egyptian soil. On the website, the anonymous seller claims that a team of four researchers including [his] father had been tasked with analyzing the hair, the resin and pieces of the bandages, at a research centre in Grenoble, eastern France. I must be the only one in the world to own such samples, he wrote, attempting to justify the price he is asking – from $2,633 to $3,290 depending on the quantity and quality desired. I find it deeply unusual to want to sell the hair of Ramses II, said radiologist Roger Lichtenberg who was part of the team to analyze the mummy. Cashing in like this is deplorable, he said. According to Leblanc, who had personally signed the documents to transfer the royal mummy to France 30 years ago, the project researchers were strictly forbidden from retaining any samples. If this is real, then it is a researcher, not France, who betrayed the order.
