In 1974, the legendary pharaoh Ramesses II was issued a valid Egyptian passport so that his 3,000-year-old mummy could be flown to Paris for necessary repair.
Ramesses II is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom. His successors and later Egyptians called him the “Great Ancestor”. On his death, he was buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings; his body was later moved to a royal cache where it was discovered in 1881, and is now on display in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities.
In 1975, Maurice Bucaille, a French doctor studying his remains said that the mummy was threatened by fungus and needed urgent treatment to prevent total decay. French laws dictated that entry and transportation through the country required a valid passport. To comply with local laws, the Egyptian government issued a passport to the Pharaoh.
