The great Ramesses II
Ramesses II, third king of the Nineteenth Dynasty, is undoubtedly one of the best-known and most charismatic pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. Countless books have been written and films made about him, yet it never seems enough to pay tribute to his exceptional personality.
Son of the great Seti I and Queen Tuya, his story begins when his father Seti I associated him with his throne and then became the sole pharaoh of Egypt: it was then that he assumed the title of "Mighty Bull beloved of Maat", "Lord of Jubilees", "Protector of the Two Countries and Ruler of the Foreign Countries", "Rich in Years", "Great in Victories", "The Chosen One of Ra", "Beloved of Maat" and others, and began to rule the country distinguishing himself by his energy and determination.
Ramesses II was a very long and eventful reign, the records of which are scattered all over Egypt, which he made an immense construction site, leaving to posterity endless traces of himself. Indeed, Ramesses II in his 67 years of power covered the country with temples, obelisks, columns, pylons, statues and shrines, often usurping those of his predecessors. Recall among them the double rock temple of Abu Simbel in Lower Nubia, consecrated to his beautiful wife Nefertari, the great hypostyle hall of the temple of Amun at Karnak, and the Ramesseum, the millennial dwelling, i.e., his funerary temple erected in West Thebes. Ramesses II lived so long, some 97 years, that he surpassed in longevity his sons and grandsons, who are said to have numbered a hundred or perhaps more, many of whom he had by concubines and secondary brides.
But in spite of his strength and charisma, Ramesses II suffered from being descended from a military family and not from a lineage of pharaohs, and he was committed to wanting to prove his divine origins to the people since a non-royal lineage was contrary to the Egyptian mentality. Moreover, for religious and political reasons he wanted the people to see in him the divine essence of the king and for this reason he had himself depicted alongside the major deities and in the Ramessee he had scenes of theogamy, that is, the divine union of the god Amun with his own mother Tuya, depicted and he was also deified alive. Only thus, by proving his divine origin, did he feel accepted by the Egyptian people. During his reign, Ramesses II consecrated Thebes as the religious capital of Egypt and moved the political capital to the Delta, to Pi-Ramesse, "the city of Ramesses" which stood on the ruins of ancient Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos: today only a few traces of the city remain near modern Qantir.
On the political front Ramesses II wanted to reconquer the territories of Africa and Western Asia, preserve the Egyptian empire from the expansionist aims of neighboring peoples, and above all he wanted to make Egypt the most powerful empire, driven by the ambition to subjugate all of Asia. But to achieve his goal he first had to defeat the Hittites, a people of Asia Minor who posed a serious threat at that time. The Hittite army and the Egyptian army faced each other in the famous battle of Qadesh, in northern Syria, which ended in a nonaggression pact, the first international treaty of which the complete version has survived, while both kings, in their chronicles, celebrated the victory of their armies. The fact that Ramesses II prevented the Hittites from continuing their expansionist policy against Egypt can be considered a victory that the pharaoh celebrated as a triumph, although it had been a battle with neither winners nor losers. And to seal that pact, Ramesses II married two Hittite princesses: it was the beginning of diplomatic marriages.
Ramesses II was buried in the Valley of the Kings, in tomb KV7, which was immediately ransacked: the walls of the tomb are decorated with a few funerary books, while very few surviving objects from his grave goods, which must certainly have been of spectacular wealth and magnificence, have unfortunately survived. In 1881, the mummy of Ramesses II was found in the Cachette of Deir el-Bahari where it had been moved in the late period to save it from the greed of desecrators and was later displayed in the Cairo Museum. Recently the mummy has undergone special treatment against bacteria and fungi that were corroding it and today it is back in the Cairo Museum. When the mummy was brought to Paris for treatment, although dead for 3200 years, Ramesses II was greeted at the airport by a full Presidential Honor Guard as befitting a high personality on an official visit!
Ramesses II was one of the longest reigns in Egyptian history, bringing stability to the empire and wealth to the country: a skillful strategist, valiant warrior, and great builder, Ramesses II was an exceptional man, worshipped in life as a god on earth, who was able to impose himself in the history of his country with boldness and grandeur. Pharaoh of a marvelous kingdom, he left in the history of ancient Egypt an indelible mark of power and grandeur.
