Shelley began writing his poem in 1817, soon after the announcement of the British Museum's acquisition of a large fragment of a statue Ramesses II from the thirteenth-century BCE, and some scholars consider that Shelley was inspired by this.
Additional public art projects sponsored by Marsh were a supposed remains of a giant statue called "Ozymandias" and the "Floating Mesa," a huge natural mesa with a narrow white band wrapped on top of it.