Details of mummy of the pharaoh
Ramesses II. Date: 1912
Location: Cairo Museum.
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At age fourteen, Ramesses II was appointed Prince Regent by his father. He is believed to have taken the throne in his early 20s and to have ruled Egypt from 1279 BC to 1213 BC for a total of 66 years and 2 months. He was once said to have lived to be 99 years old, but it is more likely that he died in his 90th or 92nd year. Ancient Greek writers such as Herodotus attributed his accomplishments to the semi-mythical Sesostris, and he is traditionally believed to have been the Pharaoh of the Exodus due to a tradition started by Eusebius of Caesarea. If he became king in 1279 BC as most Egyptologists today believe, he would have taken the throne on May 31, 1279 BC.

Pharoahs named Ramesses

• Ramesses I - Pharaoh Egypt in 1292-1290 BC, 19th dynasty founder
• Ramesses II, known as "Ramesses the Great - Pharaoh in Egypt 1279-1213 BC
• Ramesses III - Pharaoh Egypt from 1186-1155 BC
• Ramesses IV - Pharaoh Egypt from 1155-1149 BC
• Ramesses V - Pharaoh in Egypt 1149-1145 BC
• Ramesses VI - Pharaoh in Egypt 1145-1137 BC
• Ramesses VII - Pharaoh in Egypt 1137-1130 BC
• Ramesses VIII - Pharaoh in Egypt 1130-1129 BC
• Ramesses IX - Pharaoh in Egypt 1129-1111 BC
• Ramesses X - Pharaoh Egypt from 1111-1107 BC
• Ramesses one - ten - Pharaoh in Egypt 1107-1077 BC

⁷ Then the LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, ⁸ and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁹ And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰ Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." -Ex. 3:7-10 ESV

Pharaoh of Exodus?

This identification has been occasionally disputed but the evidence for another solution is inconclusive:

• Ramesses II was not drowned in the Sea and the biblical account makes no specific claim that the pharaoh was with his army when they were "swept .. into the sea." In fact, Jewish tradition appears to indicate that Pharaoh was the only Egyptian to survive the Red Sea, and later became the King of Nineveh in the Book of Jonah.
• There is nothing in the archaeological records from the time of his reign to confirm the existence of the Plagues of Egypt. This is not surprising since few pharaohs wished to record natural disasters or military defeats (as documented in the Biblical narratives) in the same manner that their rivals documented these events. In addition, no reference to any setbacks were made in royal Egyptian textual records or within the large number of informal Egyptian texts still in existence. For instance, after the serious Egyptian setback at the Battle of Kadesh, Hittites archives uncovered in Boghazkoy, the capital of Hatti, reveal that "a humiliated Ramesses [was] forced to retreat from Kadesh in ignominious defeat" and abandon the border provinces of Amurru and Upi to the control of his Hittite rival without the benefit of a formal truce. Benteshina, the ruler of Amurru who had been Ramesses' ally at Kadesh was deposed and swiftly marched off to Boghazkoy to face an uncertain fate while the Hittite hold over Kadesh was reinforced. By contrast, in Ramesses II's version of events, the Pharaoh fictitiously states--just a day after his narrow escape from death in battle--that "the cowardly Hittite king sent a letter to the Egyptian camp pleading for peace. Negotiators were summoned and a truce was agreed, although Ramesses, still claiming an Egyptian victory..refused to sign a formal treaty. Ramesses returned home to enjoy his personal triumph, which was to be retold many times in prose, as an epic poem and in relief carving[s]." No inconvenient references to Ramesses' loss of Amurru or Upi are preserved in the Egyptian records.
• The dates now ascribed to Ramesses's reign by most modern scholars might not match the dates when Moses was believed to be in Egypt.
• In the 1960's and 1970's, several scholars such as George Mendenhall associated the Israelite's arrival in Palestine more closely with the Hapiru mentioned in the Amarna letters which date to the reign of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten and in the Hittite treaties with Ramesses II. Most scholars today, however, view the Hapiru instead as bandits who attacked the trade and royal caravans that travelled along the coastal roads of Canaan.

On the other hand, Ramesses' own stele erected in the late 13th century BC in the city known to the Bible as Bet-Shan mentions two conquered peoples who came to "make obeisance to him" in his city of Rameses but mentions neither the building of the city nor, as some have written, the Israelites or Hapiru.

In the Bible, the name of the Pharaoh of the Exodus is not given. He is simply called "Pharaoh." Candidates for the identity of the King of Egypt at the time of the Exodus include:

• Amenemhat IV (1815 BC to 1806 BC)
• Tutimaios (circa 1690 BC)- also known as Dudimose
• Ahmose I (1550 BC to 1525 BC)
• Thutmose III (1479 BC to 1425 BC)
• Amenhotep II (1427 BC to 1401 BC)
• Amenhotep IV, also known as Akhenaton (1352 BC – 1336 BC)
• Ramesses II (1279 BC to 1213 BC)
• Merneptah (1213 BC to 1203 BC)

Strongs's H7486. Ra`mĕcec, Raamses or Rameses = "child of the sun"
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Speculation that Ramesses II was the Biblical Pharaoh named Shishak who attacked Judah and seized war bounty from Jerusalem in Year 5 of Rehoboam is untenable because both Ramesses II and his 19th Dynasty successors (ie: Merneptah, Seti II, Siptah & Twosret) retained firm control over Canaan during their reigns. Neither Israel nor Judah could have existed as independent states during this time.

Naming

Tablet of the treaty between Hattusili III of Hatti and Ramesses II of Egypt, contained within the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.
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Life

In his Year 2, Ramesses II decisively defeated the Shardana or Sherden sea pirates who were wreaking havoc along Egypt's Mediterranean coast by attacking cargo-ladden vessels travelling the sea routes to Egypt.

The Sherden people came from the coast of Ionia or south-west Turkey. Ramesses posted troops and ships at strategic points along the coast and patiently allowed the pirates to attack their prey before skillfully catching them by surprise in a sea battle and capturing them all in one fell swoop. Ramesses would soon incorporate these skilled mercenaries into his army where they were to play a pivotal role at the battle of Kadesh.

Ramesses atop chariot, at the Battle of Kadesh, in a relief inside his Abu Simbel temple.
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Battle of Kadesh

Ramesses II only learned of the true nature of his dire predicament when a subsequent pair of Hittite spies were captured, beaten and forced to reveal the truth before him:

When they had been brought before pharaoh his majesty asked 'Who are you?' They replied 'We belong to the king of Hatti. He has sent us to spy on you.' Then his majesty said to them 'Where is he, the enemy from Hatti? I had heard that he was in the land of Khaleb, north of Tunip.' They replied to his majesty 'Lo, the king of Hatti has already arrived, together with the many countries who are supporting him..They are armed with their infantry and their chariots. They have their weapons of war at the ready. They are more numerous than the grains of sand on the beach. Behold, they stand equipped and ready for battle behind the old city of Kadesh.

Ramesses had fallen into a well-laid trap by Muwatalli II whose thousands of infantry and chariotry were hidden well behind the eastern bank of the Orontes river under the command of the king's brother, Hattusili III. The Egyptian army itself had been divided into two main forces – the Re and Amun brigades with Ramesses and the Ptah and Seth brigades – separated from each other by forests and the far side of the Orontes river. The Re brigade was almost totally destroyed by the surprise initial Hittite chariot attack and Ramesses II had barely enough time to rally his own Amun brigade and secure reinforcements from the Ptah Army Brigade (who were just arriving upon the scene of battle) to turn the tide of battle against the Hittites. While Ramesses II had in theory 'won' the battle, Muwatalli II had effectively won the war. Ramesses was compelled to retreat south with the Hittite commander Hattusili III relentlessly harrying the Egyptian forces through the Bekaa Valley; the Egyptian province of Upi was also captured according to the Hittite records at Boghazkoy.

Aftermath

The Kadesh Treaty, the earliest known peace treaty in world history
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The ensuing document (above) is the earliest known peace treaty in world history.

Ramesses II also campaigned south of the first cataract into Nubia. He constructed many impressive monuments, including the renowned archeological complex of Abu Simbel, and the mortuary temple known as the Ramesseum. It is said that there are more statues of him in existence than of any other Egyptian pharaoh, not surprising as he was the second-longest-reigning Pharaoh of Egypt after Pepi II. A colossal statue of Ramesses II was reconstructed and erected on Ramesses Square in Cairo in 1955.

In August 2006, contractors moved the 3,200-year-old statue of him from Ramesess Square to save it from exhaust fumes that were causing the 83-ton statue to deteriorate. The statue was originally taken from a temple in Memphis. The new site will be located near the future Grand Egyptian Museum.

Min Festival

Building activity and monuments

Ramesseum

Ramesseum courtyard
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Oriented northwest and southeast, the temple itself 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 meters high and weighing more than 1000 tons.

The scenes of the great pharaoh and his army triumphing over the Hittite forces fleeing before Kadesh, represented in line with the canons of the "epic poem of Pentaur", can still be made out of 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 rout the Hittites at Kadesh are repeated on the walls. In the upper registers, feast and honor of the phallic god Min, god of fertility.

On the opposite side of the court the few Osiride pillars and columns still left can furnish an idea of the original grandeur. Scattered remains of the two statues of the seated king can also 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 (m 41x 31) still stand in the central rows. They are decorated with the usual scenes of the king before various gods. Part of the ceiling decorated with gold stars on a blue ground has also been preserved. The sons and daughters of Ramesses 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 in 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 is now left but the foundations, once stood to the right of the hypostyle hall. It consisted of a peristyle court with two chapel shrines. The entire complex was enclosed in mud brick walls which started at the gigantic southeast pylon.

Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel - Great Temple of Ramesses II (left) and Small Temple of Nefertari (right)
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Four colossal 20 meter statues of the pharaoh with the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt decorate the facade of the temple which is 35 meters wide and is toped by a frieze with 22 baboons, worshippers of the sun and flank the entrance.

This latter is crowned by a bas-relief representing two images of the king worshiping Ra Harakhti, whose statue stands in a large niche. This god is holding the hieroglyph user in his right hand and a feather while Ma'at, the goddess of truth and justice) in on his left; this is nothing less than a gigantic cryptogram for Ramesses II`s throne nane, User-Maat-Re. Next to the legs of the colossi, there are other statues no higher than the knees of the pharaoh. These depict Nefertari, Ramesses`s chief wife and queen mother Mut-Tuy, princes Amun-her-khepeshef, Ramesses, and the princesses Bintanath, Nebettawy and Meritamen.

The temple is complex in structure and quite unusual because of its many side chambers. The hypostyle hall (sometimes also called pronaos) is 18 meters long and 16,7 meters wide and is supported by eight huge Osirid pillars depicting the deified Ramesses linked to the god Osiris, the god of the Underworld, to indicate the everlasting nature of the pharaoh. The colossal statues along the left-hand wall bear the white crown of Upper Egypt, while those on the opposite side are wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt(pschent). The bas-reliefs on the walls of the pronaos depict battle scenes in the military campaigns the ruler waged. Much of the sculpture is given to the Battle of Kadesh, on the Orontes river in present-day Syria, in which the Egyptian king fought against the Hittites. The most famous relief shows the king on his chariot shooting arrows against his fleeing enemies, who are being taken prisoner. From the hypostyle hall, one enters the second pillared hall, which has four pillars decorated with beautiful scenes of offerings to the gods. This hall gives access to a transverse vestibule in the middle of which is the entrance to the sanctuary. Here, on a black wall, are rock cut sculptures of four seated figures: Ra Harakhti, the deified king Rameses,and the gods Amun Ra and Ptah. Ra Harakhti, Amun Ra and Ptah were the main divinities in that period and their cult centers were at Heliopolis, Thebes and Memphis respectively.

The axis of the temple was positioned by the ancient Egyptian architects in such a way that twice a year on October 20 and February 20, the rays of the sun would penetrate the sanctuary and illuminate the sculpture on the back wall, except for the statue of Ptah, the god connected with the Underworld, who always remained in the dark. It is quite logical to assume that these dates had some relation to a great event, such as the jubilee celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the pharaoh's rule. In fact, according to calculations made on the basis of the heliacal rising of the star Sirius (Sothis) and inscriptions found by archaeologists, this date must have been October 22. This image of the king was enhanced and revitalized by the energy of the solar star, and the deified Ramesses Great could take his place next to Amun Ra and Ra Harakhti.

The temple of Hathor and Nefertari, also known as the Small Temple, was built about one hundred meters northeast of the temple of Ramesses II and was dedicated to the goddess Hathor and Ramesses II`s chief consort, Nefertari. This was in fact the first time in ancient Egyptian history that a temple was dedicated to a queen. The rock-cut facade is decorated with two groups of colossi that are separated by the large gateway. The statues, slightly more than ten meters high, are of the king and his queen. On the other side of the portal are two statues of the king, wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt (south colossus) and the double crown (north colossus); these are flanked by statues of the queen and the king. What is truly surprising is that for the only time in Egyptian art, the statues of the king and his consort are equal in size. Traditionally, the statues of the queens stood next to those of the pharaoh, but were never taller than his knees. This exception to such a long standing rule bears witness to the special importance attached to Nefertari by Ramesses, who went to Abu Simbel with his beloved wife in the 24th year of his reign. As the Great temple of the king, there are small statues of princes and princesses next to their parents. In this case they are positioned symmetrically: on the south side (at left as you face the gateway) are, from left to right, princes Meryatum and Meryre, princesses Merytamun and Henttawi, and princes Rahirwenemef and Amun-her-khepeshef, while on the north side the same figures are in reverse order. The plan of the Small Temple is a simplified version of that of the Great Temple.

As the larger temple dedicated to the king, the hypostyle hall or pronaos is supported by six pillars; in this case, however, they are not Osirid pillars depicting the king, but are decorated with scenes with the queen playing the sinistrum (an instrument sacred to the goddess Hathor), together with the gods Horus, Khnum, Khonsu, and Thoth, and the goddesses Hathor, Isis, Maat, Mut of Asher, Satis and Taweret; in one scene Ramesses is presenting flowers or burning incense. The capitals of the pillars bear the face of the goddess Hathor; this type of column is known as Hathoric. The bas-reliefs in the pillared hall illustrate the deification of the king, the destruction of his enemies in the north and south (in this scenes the king is accompanied by his wife), and the queen making offerings to the goddess Hathor and Mut. The hypostyle hall is followed by a vestibule, access to which is given by three large doors. On the south and the north walls of this chamber there are two graceful and poetic bes-reliefs of the king and his consort presenting papyrus plants to Hathor, who is depicted as a cow on a boat sailing in a thicket of papyri. On the west wall, Ramesses II and Nefertari are depicted making offerings to god Horus and the divinities of the Cataracts - Satis, Anubis and Khnum.

The rock cut sanctuary and the two side chambers are connected to the transverse vestibule and are aligned with the axis of the temple. The bas-reliefs on the side walls of the small sanctuary represent scenes of offerings to various gods made either by the pharaoh or the queen. On the back wall, which lies to the west along the axis of the temple, there is a niche in which Hathor, as a divine cow, seems to be coming out of the mountain: the goddess is depicted as the Mistress of the temple dedicated to her and to queen Nefertari, who is intimately linked to the goddess. Each temple has its own priest that represents the king in daily religious ceremonies. In theory, the Pharaoh should be the only celebrant in daily religious ceremonies performed in different temples throughout Egypt. In reality, the high priest also played that role. To reach that position, an extensive education in art and science was necessary, like the one pharaoh had. Reading, writing, engineering, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, space measurement, time calculations, were all part of this learning. The priests of Heliopolis, for example, became guardians of sacred knowledge and earned the reputation of wise men.

Tomb of Nefertari

Mummy

Mummy of Ramesses II

Mummy of Ramesses II.
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Tomb KV5

The unwrapped mummy of Ramesses II, photographed in 1889 by the German Egyptologist Emil Brugsch (1842-1930).
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"no intact burials have been discovered and there have been little substantial funeral debris: thousands of potsherds, faience shabti figures, beads, amulets, fragments of Canopic jars, of woooden coffins..but no intact sarcophagi, mummies or mummy cases, suggesting that much of the tomb may have been unused. Those burials which were made in KV5 were thoroughly looted in antiquity, leaving little or no remains."

Notes

• Clayton (1994) p. 146
• Tyldesly (2001) p. xxiv
• "Mortuary temple of Ramesses II at Abydos". Retrieved on 2008-10-28.
• Anneke Bart. "Temples of Ramesses II". Retrieved on 2008-04-23.
• "Ozymandias". Retrieved on 2008-03-30.
• Putnan (1990)
• "LINE OF FIRE: Ramesses, Warrior Pharaoh". The History Channel. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
• Rice (1999) p.165
• von Beckerath (1997), pp.108 and 190
• Brand (2000), pp.302-305
• O'Connor & Cline (1998) p.16
• Christian LEBLANC. "http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Gerard_Flament/ramstomb.htm". Retrieved on 2008-04-23.
• Rice (1999) p.166
• Grimal (1992) pp.250–253
• Tyldesley (2000), pp.53
• "The Naue Type II Sword". Retrieved on 2008-05-30.
• Grimal (1994) pp. 253ff
• Tyldesley, Ramesses, p.68
• Kuhrt (1995) p.258
• Guy Lecuyot. "THE RAMESSEUM (EGYPT), RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH". Retrieved on 2008-04-10.
• Lichtheim (1976) p.62
• Grimal (1992) p.256
• Kitchen (1996) p.26
• Kitchen (1979) p.223–224
• Kitchen (1996) p.33
• Kitchen (1996) p.47
• Kitchen (1996) p.46
• Kitchen (1982) p.68
• Kitchen (1982) p.74
• Grimal, op. cit., p.256
• Kitchen (1983) p.73–79 & 62–64
• Grimal, (1992) p.257
• Stieglitz (1991) p.45
• Kitchen (1982) p.215
• "Beit el-Wali". University of Chicago. Retrieved on 2008-04-21.
• Ricke & Wente (1967)
• Geoff Edwards. "Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham". Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
• "Sed festival". The Global Egyptian Museum. Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
• Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards. "Chapter XV: Rameses the Great". Retrieved on 2008-04-23.
• Wolfhart Westendorf, Das alte Ägypten, 1969
• Kitchen (1982) p.119
• Kitchen (2003) p.255
• Kitchen (1982) p.230
• Manfred Bietak (1995)
• Diodorus Siculus. The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian, Ch.11, p.33.
• Skliar (2005)
• "À l'école des Scribes" (in fr). Retrieved on 2008-04-21.
• Kitchen (1982) p.64–5
• Siliotti (1994)
• Tomb of Ramesses II sons
• Tyldesley (2000) p.161–162
• "Giant Ramesses statue gets new home". BBC NEWS (2006-08-25). Retrieved on 2008-07-05.
• Hawass, Zahi. "The removal of Ramesses II Statue". Retrieved on 2007-03-17.
• Tyldesley (2000) p.14
• John Ray. "Ramesses the Great". BBC. Retrieved on 2008-05-15.
• Stephanie Pain. "Ramesses rides again". New Scientist. Retrieved on 2008-05-15.
• Bob Brier, The Encyclopedia of Mummies, Checkmark Books, 1998., p.153
• Can. Assoc. Radiol. J. 2004 Oct;55(4):211–7, PMID 15362343
• Brier, op. cit., p.153
• Exodus 14
• "Psalm 136". Retrieved on 2008-05-30.
• "Psalm 136:15". Retrieved on 2008-05-30.
• Mendenhall, "The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine," Biblical Archaeologist (25, 1962)
• Stephen L. Caiger, "Archaeological Fact and Fancy," Biblical Archaeologist, (9, 1946).
• Kitchen (2003) pp.10, 32–34 & 607
• The Epigraphic Survey, Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak III: The Bubastite Portal, Oriental Institute Publications, vol. 74 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954)
• Michael S. Sanders. "THE REVISED CHRONOLOGY". Retrieved on 2008-05-30.
• RPO Editors. "Percy Bysshe Shelley : Ozymandias". University of Toronto Department of English. University of Toronto Libraries, University of Toronto Press. Retrieved on 2006-09-18.
• John Ray. "Ramesses the Great". BBC history. Retrieved on 2008-05-30.

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