| Ramesses II the Great | |
|---|---|
| |
| Pharaoh of Egypt | |
| Reign | 31 May 1279 - 04 August 1213 |
| Predecessor | Seti I |
| Successor | Merenptah I |
| Born | February 21, 1303 Waset, Egypt |
| Died | August 4, 1213 (aged 90) |
| Spouse | Nefertari III, Isetnofret I, Henutmira I, Maathorneferura, Meritamun III, Bintanath, Nebettawy, Meritra II |
| Issue | 103 children, including Merenptah I, Meritamun III, Amunherkhepeshef, Khaemwaset, Itamun |
| Full name | |
| Horus Name: Kanakht Meryra Nebty Name: Mekkemet Wafkhasut Golden Horus Name: Userrenput Aanakhtu Praenomen: Usermaatra Setepenra Nomen: Ramesses Meriamum | |
| House | Seti |
| Dynasty | Setian |
| Father | Seti I |
| Mother | Tuya |
| Religion | Kemetism |
Ramesses II (/ˈræməsiːz, ˈræmsiːz, ˈræmziːz/; Ancient Egyptian: rꜥ-ms-sw, Rīꜥa-masē-sə, Ancient Egyptian pronunciation: [ɾiːʕamaˈseːsə]; 21 February 1303 BC – 4 August 1213 BC), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III and Amenhotep III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, he is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, which itself was the most powerful period of ancient Egypt. He is also widely considered one of ancient Egypt's most successful warrior pharaohs, conducting no fewer than 15 military campaigns, all resulting in victories, excluding the Battle of Kadesh, generally considered a stalemate.
In ancient Greek sources, he is called Ozymandias, derived from the first part of his Egyptian-language regnal name: Usermaatra Setepenra. Ramesses was also referred to as the "Great Ancestor" by successor pharaohs and the Egyptian people.
For the early part of his reign, he focused on building cities, temples, and monuments. After establishing the city of Pi-Ramesses in the Nile Delta, he designated it as Egypt's new capital and used it as the main staging point for his campaigns in Syria. Ramesses led several military expeditions into the Levant, where he reasserted Egyptian control over Canaan and Phoenicia; he also led a number of expeditions into Nubia, all commemorated in inscriptions at Setresynetjeru and Perptah. He celebrated an unprecedented thirteen Sed festivals—more than any other pharaoh before him, except for Pepi II who succeeded to the throne almost exactly 1000 years before.
His age at death was 90 is considered to be the most likely figure. Upon his death, he was buried in a tomb (KV7) in the Valley of the Kings; his body was later moved to the Royal Cache, where it was discovered by archaeologists in 1881.
Military campaigns[]
Early in his life, Ramesses II embarked on numerous campaigns to restore possession of previously held territories lost to the Nubians and Hittites and to secure Egypt's borders. He was also responsible for suppressing some Nubian revolts and carrying out a campaign in Libya. Though the Battle of Kadesh often dominates the scholarly view of Ramesses II's military prowess and power, he nevertheless enjoyed more than a few outright victories over Egypt's enemies. During his reign, the Egyptian army is estimated to have totaled some 100,000 men: a formidable force that he used to strengthen Egyptian influence.
Battle against Sherden pirates[]
In his second year, Ramesses II decisively defeated the Sherden sea pirates who were wreaking havoc along Egypt's Mediterranean coast by attacking cargo-laden vessels travelling the sea routes to Egypt. The Sherden people probably came from the coast of Ionia, from southwest Anatolia or perhaps, also from the island of Sardinia. Ramesses posted troops and ships at strategic points along the coast and patiently allowed the pirates to attack their perceived prey before skillfully catching them by surprise in a sea battle and capturing them all in a single action. A stele from Tanis speaks of their having come "in their war-ships from the midst of the sea, and none were able to stand before them". There probably was a naval battle somewhere near the mouth of the Nile, as shortly afterward, many Sherden are seen among the pharaoh's body-guard where they are conspicuous by their horned helmets having a ball projecting from the middle, their round shields, and the great Naue II swords with which they are depicted in inscriptions of the Battle of Kadesh. In that sea battle, together with the Sherden, the pharaoh also defeated the Lukka (L'kkw, possibly the people later known as the Lycians), and the Šqrsšw (Shekelesh) peoples.
Syrian campaigns[]
First Syrian campaign[]
The immediate antecedents to the Battle of Kadesh were the early campaigns of Ramesses II into Canaan. His first campaign seems to have taken place in the fourth year of his reign and was commemorated by the erection of what became the first of the Commemorative stelae of Nahr el-Kalb near what is now Beirut. The inscription is almost totally illegible due to weathering.
In the fourth year of his reign, he captured the Hittite vassal state of the Amurru during his campaign in Syria.
Second Syrian campaign[]
The Battle of Kadesh in his fifth regnal year was the climactic engagement in a campaign that Ramesses fought in Syria, against the resurgent Hittite forces of Muwatalli II. The pharaoh wanted a victory at Kadesh both to expand Egypt's frontiers into Syria, and to emulate his father Seti I's triumphal entry into the city just a decade or so earlier. He also constructed his new capital, Pi-Ramesses. There he built factories to manufacture weapons, chariots, and shields, supposedly producing some 1,000 weapons in a week, about 250 chariots in two weeks, and 1,000 shields in a week and a half. After these preparations, Ramesses moved to attack territory in the Levant, which belonged to a more substantial enemy than any he had ever faced in war: the Hittite Empire.
After advancing through Canaan for exactly a month, according to the Egyptian sources, Ramesses arrived at Kadesh on 1 May, 1274 BC. Here, Ramesses' troops were caught in a Hittite ambush and were initially outnumbered by the enemy, whose chariotry smashed through the second division of Ramesses' forces and attacked his camp. Receiving reinforcements from other Egyptian divisions arriving on the battlefield, the Egyptians counterattacked and routed the Hittites, whose survivors abandoned their chariots and swam the Orontes river to reach the safe city walls. Although left in possession of the battlefield, Ramesses, logistically unable to sustain a long siege, returned to Egypt. While Ramesses claimed a great victory, and this was technically true in terms of the actual battle, it is generally considered that the Hittites were the ultimate victors as far as the overall campaign was concerned, since the Egyptians retreated after the battle, and Hittite forces invaded and briefly occupied the Egyptian possessions in the region of Damascus.
Third Syrian campaign[]
Egypt's sphere of influence was now restricted to Canaan while Syria fell into Hittite hands. Canaanite princes, seemingly encouraged by the Egyptian incapacity to impose their will and goaded on by the Hittites, began revolts against Egypt. Ramesses II was not willing to let this stand, and prepared to contest the Hittite advance with new military campaigns. Because they are recorded on his monuments with few indications of precise dates or the regnal year, the precise chronology of the subsequent campaigns is not entirely clear. Late in the seventh year of his reign (April/May 1272 BC ), Ramesses II returned to Syria once again. This time he proved more successful against his Hittite foes. During this campaign he split his army into two forces. One force was led by his son, Amunherkhepeshef, and it chased warriors of the Šhasu tribes across the Negev as far as the Dead Sea, capturing Edom-Seir. It then marched on to capture Moab. The other force, led by Ramesses himself, attacked Jerusalem and Jericho. He, too, then entered Moab, where he rejoined his son. The reunited army then marched on Hesbon, Damascus, on to Kumidi, and finally, recaptured Upi (the land around Damascus), reestablishing Egypt's former sphere of influence.
Later Syrian campaigns[]
Ramesses extended his military successes in his eighth and ninth years. He crossed the Dog River (Nahr al-Kalb) and pushed north into Amurru. His armies managed to march as far north as Dapur, where he had a statue of himself erected. The Egyptian pharaoh thus found himself in northern Amurru, well past Kadesh, in Tunip, where no Egyptian soldier had been seen since the time of Thutmose III, almost 120 years earlier. He laid siege to Dapur before capturing it, and returning to Egypt. By November 1272 BC, Ramesses was back in Egypt, at Heliopolis. His victory in the north proved ephemeral. After having reasserted his power over Canaan, Ramesses led his army north. A mostly illegible stele at the Dog River near Beirut, which appears to be dated to the king's second year, was probably set up there in his tenth (1269 BC). The thin strip of territory pinched between Amurru and Kadesh did not make for a stable possession. Within a year, they had returned to the Hittite fold, so that Ramesses had to march against Dapur once more in his tenth year. This time he claimed to have fought the battle without even bothering to put on his corslet, until two hours after the fighting began. Six of Ramesses's youthful sons, still wearing their side locks, took part in this conquest. He took towns in Retjenu, and Tunip in Naharin, later recorded on the walls of the Ramesseum. This second success at the location was equally as meaningless as his first, as neither power could decisively defeat the other in battle. In year eighteen, Ramesses erected a stele at Beth Shean, on 19 January, 1261 BC.
Peace treaty with the Hittites[]
In Year 21 of Ramesses's reign, he concluded a peace treaty with the Hittites known to modern scholars as the Treaty of Kadesh. Though this treaty settled the disputes over Canaan, its immediate impetus seems to have been a diplomatic crisis that occurred following Ḫattušili III's accession to the Hittite throne. Ḫattušili had come to power by deposing his nephew Muršili III in the brief and bitter Hittite Civil War. Though the deposed king was initially sent into exile in Syria, he subsequently attempted to regain power and fled to Egypt once these attempts were discovered.
When Ḫattušili demanded his extradition, Ramesses II denied any knowledge of his wherabouts. When Ḫattušili insisted that Muršili was in Egypt, Ramesses's response suggested that Ḫattušili was being deceived by his subjects. This demand precipitated a crisis, and the two empires came dangerously close to war. Eventually, in the twenty-first year of his reign (1259 BC ), Ramesses decided to conclude an agreement at Kadesh to end the conflict.
The peace treaty was recorded in two versions, one in Egyptian hieroglyphs, the other in Hittite, using cuneiform script; both versions survive. Such dual-language recording is common to many subsequent treaties. This treaty differs from others, in that the two language versions are worded differently. While the majority of the text is identical, the Hittite version says the Egyptians came suing for peace and the Egyptian version says the reverse. The treaty was given to the Egyptians in the form of a silver plaque, and this "pocket-book" version was taken back to Egypt and carved into the temple at Karnak. The Egyptian account records Ramesses II's receipt of the Hittite peace treaty tablets on I Peret 21 of Year 21, corresponding to 10 November 1259 BC, according to the standard "Low Chronology" used by Egyptologists.
The treaty was concluded between Ramesses II and Ḫattušili III in year 21 of Ramesses's reign (c. 1259 BC). Its 18 articles call for peace between Egypt and Hatti and then proceeds to maintain that their respective deities also demand peace. The frontiers are not laid down in this treaty, but may be inferred from other documents. The Anastasy A papyrus describes Canaan during the latter part of the reign of Ramesses II and enumerates and names the Phoenician coastal towns under Egyptian control. The harbour town of Sumur, north of Byblos, is mentioned as the northernmost town belonging to Egypt, suggesting it contained an Egyptian garrison.
No further Egyptian campaigns in Canaan are mentioned after the conclusion of the peace treaty. The northern border seems to have been safe and quiet, so the rule of the pharaoh was strong until Ramesses II's death, and the subsequent waning of the dynasty. When the King of Mira attempted to involve Ramesses in a hostile act against the Hittites, the Egyptian responded that the times of intrigue in support of Mursili III, had passed. Ḫattušili III wrote to Kadashman-Enlil II, Kassite king of Karduniaš (Babylon) in the same spirit, reminding him of the time when his father, Kadashman-Turgu, had offered to fight Ramesses II, the king of Egypt. The Hittite king encouraged the Babylonian to oppose another enemy, which must have been the king of Assyria, whose allies had killed the messenger of the Egyptian king. Ḫattušili encouraged Kadashman-Enlil to come to his aid and prevent the Assyrians from cutting the link between the Canaanite province of Egypt and Mursili III, the ally of Ramesses.
Nubian campaigns[]
Ramesses II also campaigned south of the first cataract of the Nile into Nubia. When Ramesses was about 22, two of his own sons, including Amunherkhepeshef, accompanied him in at least one of those campaigns. By the time of Ramesses, Nubia had been a colony for 200 years, but its conquest was recalled in decoration from the temples Ramesses II built at Setresynetjeru (which was the subject of epigraphic work by the Oriental Institute during the Nubian salvage campaign of the 1960s), Perptah and Kalabsha in northern Nubia. On the south wall of the Setresynetjeru temple, Ramesses II is depicted charging into battle against tribes south of Egypt in a war chariot, while his two young sons, Amun-her-khepsef and Khaemwaset, are shown behind him, also in war chariots. A wall in one of Ramesses's temples says he had to fight one battle with those tribes without help from his soldiers.
Libyan campaigns[]
During the reign of Ramesses II, the Egyptians were evidently active on a 300-kilometre (190 mi) stretch along the Mediterranean coast, at least as far as Permutneret, where remains of a fortress described by its texts as built on Libyans land have been found. Although the exact events surrounding the foundation of the coastal forts and fortresses is not clear, some degree of political and military control must have been held over the region to allow their construction.
There are no detailed accounts of Ramesses II's undertaking large military actions against the Libyans, only generalised records of his conquering and crushing them, which may or may not refer to specific events that were otherwise unrecorded. It may be that some of the records, such as the Syene Stele of his year 2, are harking back to Ramesses's presence on his father's Libyan campaigns. Perhaps it was Seti I who achieved this supposed control over the region, and who planned to establish the defensive system, in a manner similar to how he rebuilt those to the east, the Ways of Horus across Northern Biau.
Sed festivals[]
After reigning for 30 years, Ramesses joined a select group that included only a handful of Egypt's longest-lived rulers. By tradition, in the 30th year of his reign Ramesses celebrated a jubilee called the Sed festival. These were held to honour and rejuvenate the pharaoh's strength. Only halfway through what would be a 66-year reign, Ramesses had already eclipsed all but a few of his greatest predecessors in his achievements. He had brought peace, maintained Egyptian borders, and built great and numerous monuments across the empire. His country was more prosperous and powerful than it had been in nearly a century.
Sed festivals traditionally were held again every three years after the 30th year; Ramesses II, who sometimes held them after two years, eventually celebrated an unprecedented thirteen or fourteen.
Building projects and monuments[]
In the third year of his reign, Ramesses started the most ambitious building project after the pyramids, which were built almost 1,500 years earlier. The population was put to work changing the face of Egypt. Ramesses built extensively from the Delta to Nubia, "covering the land with buildings in a way no monarch before him had."
Some of the activities undertaken were focused on remodeling or usurping existing works, improving masonry techniques, and using art as propaganda.
- In Thebes, the ancient temples were transformed, so that each one of them reflected honour to Ramesses as a symbol of his putative divine nature and power.
- The elegant but shallow reliefs of previous pharaohs were easily transformed, and so their images and words could easily be obliterated by their successors. Ramesses insisted that his carvings be deeply engraved into the stone, which made them not only less susceptible to later alteration, but also made them more prominent in the Egyptian sun, reflecting his relationship with the sun deity, Ra.
- Ramesses used art as a means of propaganda for his victories over foreigners, which are depicted on numerous temple reliefs.
- His cartouches are prominently displayed even in buildings that he did not construct.
- He founded a new capital city in the Delta during his reign, called Pi-Ramesses. It previously had served as a summer palace during Seti I's reign.
- Ramesses II expanded gold mining operations in Akuyati.
Ramesses also undertook many new construction projects. Two of his biggest works, besides Pi-Ramesses, were the temple complex of Meha and the Ramesseum, a mortuary temple in western Thebes.
Pi-Ramesses[]
Ramesses II moved the capital of his kingdom from Thebes in the Nile valley to a new site in the eastern Delta. His motives are uncertain, although he possibly wished to be closer to his territories in Canaan and Syria. The new city of Pi-Ramesses (or to give the full name, Pi-Ramesses Aa-nakhtu, meaning "Domain of Ramesses, Great in Victory") was dominated by huge temples and his vast residential palace, complete with its own zoo.
Ramesseum[]
The temple complex built by Ramesses II between Iment-Waset and the desert has been known as the Ramesseum since the 19th century. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus marveled at the gigantic temple, now no more than a few ruins.
Oriented northwest and southeast, the temple was preceded by two courts. An enormous pylon stood before the first court, with the royal palace at the left and the gigantic statue of the king looming up at the back. Only fragments of the base and torso remain of the syenite statue of the enthroned pharaoh, 17 metres (56 ft) high and weighing more than 1,000 tonnes (980 long tons; 1,100 short tons). Scenes of the great pharaoh and his army triumphing over the Hittite forces fleeing before Kadesh are represented on the pylon. Remains of the second court include part of the internal facade of the pylon and a portion of the Osiride portico on the right. Scenes of war and the alleged rout of the Hittites at Kadesh are repeated on the walls. In the upper registers, feast and honor of the phallic deity Min, god of fertility.
On the opposite side of the court the few Osiride pillars and columns still remaining may furnish an idea of the original grandeur. Scattered remains of the two statues of the seated king also may be seen, one in pink granite and the other in black granite, which once flanked the entrance to the temple. Thirty-nine out of the forty-eight columns in the great hypostyle hall (41 × 31 m) still stand in the central rows. They are decorated with the usual scenes of the king before various deities. Part of the ceiling, decorated with gold stars on a blue ground, also has been preserved. Ramesses's children appear in the procession on the few walls left. The sanctuary was composed of three consecutive rooms, with eight columns and the tetrastyle cell. Part of the first room, with the ceiling decorated with astral scenes, and few remains of the second room are all that is left. Vast storerooms built of mud bricks stretched out around the temple. Traces of a school for scribes were found among the ruins.
A temple of Seti I, of which nothing remains beside the foundations, once stood to the right of the hypostyle hall.
Meha[]
In 1255 BC, Ramesses and his queen Nefertari had traveled into Nubia to inaugurate a new temple, the great Meha. It is ego cast into stone; the man who built it intended not only to become Egypt's greatest pharaoh, but also one of its deities.
The great temple of Ramesses II at Meha was discovered in 1813 by the Swiss Orientalist and traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. An enormous pile of sand almost completely covered the facade and its colossal statues, blocking the entrance for four more years. The Paduan explorer Giovanni Battista Belzoni reached the interior on 4 August 1817.
Other Nubian monuments[]
As well as the temples of Meha, Ramesses left other monuments to himself in Nubia. His early campaigns are illustrated on the walls of the Temple of Setresynetjeru. Other temples dedicated to Ramesses are Hut-Ramessesmeryamunen-Tara and Perptah (also relocated to New Kalabsha). For the temple of Amun at Djuamun, the temple's foundation probably occurred during the reign of Thutmose III, while the temple was shaped during his reign and that of Ramesses II.
Death and burial[]
Ramesses reigned 66 years, 2 months and 4 days.
By the time of his death, aged about 90 years, Ramesses was suffering from severe dental problems and was plagued by arthritis and hardening of the arteries. He had made Egypt rich from all the supplies and bounty he had collected from other empires. He had outlived many of his wives and children and left great memorials all over Egypt. Nine more pharaohs of the New Kingdom took the name Ramesses in his honour.
Originally Ramesses II was buried in the tomb KV7 in the Valley of the Kings, but because of looting, priests later transferred the body to a holding area, re-wrapped it, and placed it inside the tomb of queen Ahmose Inhapy. Seventy-two hours later it was again moved, to the tomb of the high priest Pinedjem II. All of this is recorded in hieroglyphics on the linen covering the body of the coffin of Ramesses II. His mummy was eventually discovered in 1881 in TT320 inside an ordinary wooden coffin.