I believe Shelley wrote this story in the third person to put the reader into a frame of mind that this traveler is immortal or extremely old. Considering Shelley's age at the time this poem was written, he probably felt that he wasn't aged enough to speak personally of this timeless statue or maybe he didn't think he ever would be. Their is a focus on agelessness in Shelley's Ozymandias and writing it this way just helps drive the point home. Also, maybe he's trying to say that this traveler is the sculptor himself considering the way he has such personal insight into the themes, emotions, and ideas behind it. I don't always understand old writing but "yet outlive" may mean the sculptor has yet to outlive him and he wanted to tell someone how well he portrayed the king and his "passions." Either way, the effect is much greater, telling of an antique land, from someone who may be quite old or immortal himself.
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