Self-publicist couldn’t stop building statues of himself
THE fame of Rameses II, the third king of the 19th dynasty of Ancient Egypt, is put down to his flair for self-publicity.
He is remembered principally for the colossal statues he commissioned and for his massive building programme.
Dubbed Rameses the Great by the Egyptologists of the 19th century, his reign from 1279 to 1213BC marked the last peak of Egypt’s imperial power.
Rameses, born around 1303BC, was appointed regent at 14 by his father Seti I. He had been made a captain of the army aged just ten. Becoming king in his early 20s, he expanded his empire, leading an army north to recover the lost provinces his father had failed permanently to conquer in modernday Syria and Israel.
In Kadesh, Syria, he was fed false information by two captured enemy spies, which saw Rameses II and his small corps of household troops surrounded by 2,500 enemy Hittite chariots.
He was saved by reinforcements and although he had failed to take Kadesh, the pharaoh had a long poem about his proud last stand carved on temple walls in Egypt.
In Nubia, part of which is now in northern Sudan, Rameses II built six temples, including Abu Simbel, whose image of his face cut into the rocky sides of the Nile Valley may have inspired the vast depictions of American presidents at Mount Rushmore.
The king, who kept a harem of 100 women and had more than 100 children, dedicated Abu Simbel’s smaller temple to his favourite queen, Nefertari. His building projects included the Great Hypostyle Hall, with its roof supported by columns, at Thebes – part of modern-day Luxor – and his own funerary temple, known as the Ramesseum, across the Nile from Luxor. He also built a city – Per Ramessu, also known as Pi-Ramesses – northeast of Cairo where he lived surrounded by gardens and orchards.
Experts say he understood that visibility was central to the success of his reign, and built bombastic structures to project his strength as a leader.
Rameses II lived to about 90. He was originally buried in the Valley of the Kings but his mummy, which has the face of an old man with a long, narrow face, striking nose and large jaw, was moved to the nearby Deir elBahari to thwart looters. Still with its hair, some skin and teeth It was rediscovered in 1881 and is kept in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.
Nine subsequent pharaohs took the name Rameses, as it was seen as an honour to be descended from him.