PHILADELPHIA — How do you move a priceless, 25,000-pound sphinx? Very carefully.
The largest sphinx in the western hemisphere is on the move for the first time in nearly 100 years.
The Penn Museum in Philadelphia is relocating its 3,000-year-old sphinx of famed Pharaoh Ramses II from the Egypt Gallery where it’s resided since 1926. The sphinx’s slow, painstaking journey began Wednesday morning. It’s moving about 250 feet to a featured location in the museum’s new entrance hall.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, June 12 @ 10am: join us for #SphinxWatch2019 as we #MoveTheSphinx. The Sphinx is ready to leave the gallery! pic.twitter.com/CWBIdmY4Yo
— Penn Museum (@pennmuseum) June 12, 2019
Museum officials are using air dollies to move the statue through a series of doorways, windows, hairpin turns and tight squeezes.
The Sphinx is soaking up the sun! #MoveTheSphinx (#SphinxMove2019 livestream returning to Facebook soon!) pic.twitter.com/gLyPulJBle
— Penn Museum (@pennmuseum) June 12, 2019
Museum director Julian Siggers says the sphinx has been the museum’s unofficial mascot for a long time, and its new location will put it “front and center.”
At #SphinxWatch2019 with a bunch of archaeologists watching them move a 12 ton Egyptian Sphinx across a courtyard. pic.twitter.com/YKQ6VYdtLV
— kyle cassidy (@kylecassidy) June 12, 2019
It weighs 25 thousand pounds, even in time lapse it is slow going. It’s moving day for the Penn Museum’s Sphinx , crews are carefully moving the 3000 year old Egyptian artifact up a ramp to what will be the Sphinx’s new home the Museum’s redesigned main entrance hall. pic.twitter.com/aFVDNOTrBj
— John Rawlins (@JRawlins6abc) June 12, 2019
