Ramsès II
Ramsès , also called Ramsès Large the , is the third Pharaon of. Manéthon calls it Ramsès (or Ramesses Miamoun, Rampses). It was born with the neighborhoods from -1304/-1305 and reigns of -1279 with -1213.
Genealogy
He is the son of Séthi {{Ier}} and of the queen Mouttouya (or Touy or Touya). He has a brother who names Nebchasetnebet, but this last dies young person, and an older sister, Tia. Certain Egyptologist quotes also another named sister Henutmire. He fights against the Hittites and built a series of temples in Nubie of which most famous are those of Abou Simbel. After the Battle of Qadesh in the year V of its reign, against the army of the emperor of the Hittites, Muwatalli (-1310/-1269), the border on the Oronte is stabilized.
Its 66 years reign is exceptionally long and marks the last great boom of the old Egypt. He is married with a dozen wives (five or six “large wives”):
- Néfertari preferred that it represents on many buildings and for which it makes dig splendid hypogean in the Vallée of the Queens on Western bank of Thèbes and whose construction of Abou Simbel represents the love of the royal couple. With Néfertari it has five wire of which Méry-Atoum (or Mériatoum), Grand Priest of Re, and four girls of which Méritamon (or Mérytamon).
- Iset-nofret or Isis-Nofret, mother of six children of which Bentanat, Khâemouaset and Mérenptah which will be the successor of Ramsès;
- Bentanat (or Bint-Anath),
- Mérytamon (also called the white Queen),
- Iset-Nofret {{II}},
- Nebettaouy,
- Henouittaoui,
- Hénoutimrê;
Its harem will not count less than two hundred concubines. All these women give him a great quantity of boys and girls, one counts some nearly one hundred ten.
Titulature
Reign
The builder
Ramsès is a large builder, it is him which makes pi-Ramsès the “capital” in the east of the Delta of the Nile, equipping it with imposing temples, a large palace, a port and arsenals, thus securing a advanced station to prepare its forwardings in raising, and to reign on an immense empire extending from the fourth cataract in country of Kouch to the borders of Hatti and Mitanni on the Oronte.
It thus completes to restore the size of Egypt of the Thoutmôsis lost following the adventure amarnienne. Thanks to an effective defensive policy (it builds a series of forts in the west of the delta which one found the traces recently) it offers one period of peace to the country thus supporting the development of arts and the trades.
It completes the hypostyle big room of the temple of Amon-Re to Karnak, adds a large court to gantry with the temple of Amon-Min to Louxor, as well as large a pylon preceded by two Obélisque S.
It builds its funerary temple, the Ramesséum, opposite Louxor, which includes/understands two pylons preceding two courses with gantries and a big room Hypostyle. Diodore of Sicily gives us a faithful description of this monument which it names then the Tomb of Ozymandias, forms grecized of the name of crowning of Ramsès: Ouser-Maât-Re.
It also makes build a temple cenotaph with Abydos not far from that of his father whom it completes to decorate. Drawing from the ruins of the old capital of Amarna, it rebuilds the temple of Thot of Hermopolis, the Khemenou antique, by in particular re-using the temples and buildings of the close site.
It also builds with Memphis, increasing the temple of Ptah with the addition on its western axis of a hypostyle big room preceded by a pylon in front of which it draws up colossi, but by also building a series of temples and vaults on the square of the south of the enclosure where it raises at least a large colossus with its effigy which to currently lie on the back (photo below).
In the same way it also restores with Bubastis, where it remakes or decorates the hypostyle room with the temple of Bastet. One recently found there a colossus with the image of one of his royal wives, who today was rectified and is visible in the field of ruin of the ancient city.
On the other hand, it is established today that it also makes remove or rather replace the name of some of its predecessors to put to it his at the place when he restores their monuments. This particular feature gives him a reputation of usurper so much we have examples of statues and monuments re-registered with its name. If this activity is somewhat abusive, it is advisable to recall that many monuments and sanctuaries suffered in the years which preceding the advent of and this fact require a restoration even a complete rebuilding.
One can see this type of “refitting” to the temple of Louxor, where in the court which it makes build in the honor of Amon-Min, it intercalates colossi between the columns of the gantries which borders it, some carved under its reign, others “usurped” of Amenhotep {{III}}.
Fulfilling its role of guarantor of balance between the men and the gods, Ramsès must restore the worships and equip them with goods making it possible to ensure them in all the country.
One of its sons, Khâemouaset, Large priest of Ptah to Memphis and a time heir in title to the Double Crown, is in charge of this mission, traversing the dilapidated sites and registering steles commemorative of this exploit (see for example the restoration undertaken on the pyramid of Ounas of which comprises on its still visible southern coating a text of the prince in the honor of his father and his famous predecessor).
It is him which is also charged with the organization of the great festivals jubilaires of Ramsès, the festivals '' Sed '', until it is replaced in this function by his brother Mérenptah. It is for the occasion of these jubilees that it made build a large square with pi-Ramsès which comprised at least six obelisks of big size.
“Colossi” of Ramsès
Ramsès made set up colossi with its effigy in the large temples built or restored.
Most famous are of course those in frontage of the Temples of Abou Simbel, those which frame the entry of the pylon temple of Louxor, the colossus laid down with Memphis, as that which had trônait for a few decades in full center of the Cairo, on the place which bears its name in front of the central station. Attacked by pollution, this last was transferred the August 25th 2006 towards Gizeh in order to currently be installed in the middle of the Grand Egyptian museum in the course of construction.
The fight then peace with Hittites
Like his father Séthi 1st, he wants to protect Egypt in the East against Hittites from Asia and must face the threat at the beginning of his reign. He operates vigorously in several shifts to secure his backs in Syro Palestine and attacks the town of Qadesh at the time of his 5th year of reign, but gains only one semi victory. Its troops are cut into two by the load of the army hittite and it is found only vis-a-vis the danger. The royal camp is invested and its troops beat a retreat, even flee. Thanks to the intervention of reservists, the “Néarins”, and the forced march of the quotas remained behind, it manages to push back the attack and to drive out the troops of Mouwatalli beyond Oronte. However, contrary to his father and his famous ancestor Thoutmôsis {{III}}, it does not seize the citadel and Qadesh remains with the hands of Hittites.
This important fact of weapons, - of which we have several poured in Egyptian, on papyrus of course, (the poem of Pentaour), but especially on the large historiés tables which it makes carve on the walls of the principal temples of the country (Louxor, Karnak, Ramesseum, Abou Simbel…)-, is considered by the king as a great victory which it offers to Amon which would then have helped it in full distress and abandonment in the middle of an unquestionable danger. Hittites are declared them also victorious on their side, the exit of the battle having more the aspect of a statu-quo of a rout. Ramsès does not push besides further this announced advantage, and prefers to reinforce its positions.
It seems that are Hittites which takes the initiative to propose in Egypt a true proposal for an alliance and peace. Hittites and Égyptiens commit themselves more to be made the war, mutually helping themselves in the event of catastrophe or of invasion. It is undoubtedly about the first peace treaty known in the world. The final treaty would have been concluded only with the 34e year from the reign from Ramsès, when the empire adversary had already changed in the treacherous hands of Hattusil, brother of Mouwatalli, which seized the throne, expelling the son of the former sovereign. We have the Egyptian version of this treaty and that hittite was also found in Hattussa, the capital of the kingdom hittite (in the current one Anatolia in Turkey).
The negotiations lead the two sovereigns to be sent a bulky mail as well as gifts in great number. In this ballet epistolary take part not only the sovereigns but also the queens and the ministers, the such vizier Paser. At this point in time is evoked a possible marriage between Ramsès and a girl of the king Hattousili {{III}}. This practice is current and Ramsès already married a Babylonian princess.
However the negotiation of the marriage is difficult because of the guarantees required by the woman of Hattousili, Puduhepa, which has seems you it a determining influence on her husband. In particular, it requires that its messengers be able to join the princess without obstacles. Is it about the love of an anxious mother for the situation of his/her daughter in the harem of the king or the will to have access to information on the Egyptian interior situation on behalf of a privileged witness? Impossible to say. This regulated problem, from the Egyptian envoys come to Hattousa, the capital hittite to proceed to the oiling of the princess, act which officializes the union.
The princess then takes the road of Egypt with her dowry. Ramsès with pi-Ramsès and it likes her her husband seems T meets. She is re-elected of an Egyptian name, Maât-Hor-Néférou-Re. We are unaware of if it had the least influence on the policy led by her husband; however Ramsès makes build for it a palate with pi-Ramsès. A girl, Néférourê, are born from this union, girl of which we lose the trace quickly. In a letter, sent by Hattousili to Ramsès, the king hittite considers it regrettable that his/her daughter did not design a boy. The princess probably finishes her life in the harem of the king with Gurob in the Fayoum. Its tomb found forever. We also know that Ramsès marries one second princess hittite later years but we are unaware of practically all the context which governs this new union. However this fact is revealing peaceful standardization of the relationship between the two States.
Exploitation of Nubie and the construction of the temples of Abou Simbel
Originating in a family of the delta of the Nile, Ramsès installs its palate and the administrative center of Egypt with pi-Ramsès, but it needs also to continue, like his father, to exploit the resources of Nubie (more in the South): gold to enrich the temples, but also to buy alliances in Asia (the empire hittite is shaken by the rise of the Assyrie young person); wood of which the cedar of Lebanon but also of leather, cattle and especially of the men for the army. As of the first years of its reign, - of aucuns think of a corégence with Séthi 1st-, it intervenes in country of Ouaouat and Koush, reducing traditional inclinations of revolt of the Sudanese tribes. The exploit is reported in the forecourt of the small temple of Beit el-Ouali which it made build into Low-Nubie not far from Assouan.
Careers of the area, which it D-exploits with large scales, it will draw the large obelisks and statues which will decorate its monuments of High and Low-Egypt, but does not forsake the town of Éléphantine and its area.
It then organizes a true architectural program for the area immediately in the south of the first cataract which is the historical border of Egypt with its southernmost neighbor. It restores well-sure the fortresses maintained since the Moyen Empire, in Bouhen, Semna and Koumna, but also founds a series of sanctuaries, which one names hémi-spéos, because to some extent dug in the rock and the other built in masonry, dedicated to the gods dynastic and closely related to the role of the flood.
One will quote in particular:
- the temple of Amon de Ouadi be-Seboua;
- the temple of Ptah de Gerf Hussein;
- the Re temple of Derr;
- two splendid temples of Abou Simbel: one is devoted to its favorite queen Néfertari, the other, largest with the protective gods of the Empire, Amon, Ptah and Re but also… in Ramsès itself, which made there represent in the form of a god with head of falcon.
Ramsès and gods
Ramsès was also a large theologist, taking again on his account the solar initiative started by Akhénaton, but by preserving traditional worships. Wanting also to develop to him through its own person a transborder religion making it possible to gather all the people put under his cut, it supported on the contrary the temples of the large gods of the Empire: Amon, Re, Ptah, Osiris.
Indeed, rather than to erase their worship as did it with its Akhénaton danger, he affirmed them in their central role in the economic life and spiritual of the country, and founded to it his clean, of alive sound, thus joining still more than his ancestors to the dynastic gods and particularly to the god Re. The example of the temples of Nubie is speaking on this subject.
Everywhere it took again the initiative while giving again with the temples and the worships of the gods an unequalled ostentation. The innumerable foundations with its name attest it and its successors had only to complete the company of their prestigious grandfather.
Lastly, conscious of the influence of the god Amon-Re of Thèbes and its clergy on the country, influence who somewhat threatened the royal capacity reason which without any doubt took part in the choice of “the heretic” Akhénaton in his time, it the USA of strategy by as far as possible supporting the temples of Ptah to Memphis and of Re to Héliopolis. In return, it gave pledges of its bona fide to the priests of Karnak by erasing the memory of that which wanted their loss, as well as its descent. Tendency already started by his/her Séthi father who made it represent in his temple of Abydos in front of a list of kings representing their ancestors on the throne of Horus, lists of which are absent the kings of Amarna, until Horemheb, but also Hatchepsout.
It is of its time also that the worships of the big cities of the delta found their importance, by also instituting the new ones, like those of the Eastern gods such as Baal, which will be associated by syncretism with Seth, or Astarté, Anta, Reshef, etc
These worships will be found at that time in all Egypt, of Memphis with Thèbes (Deir el-Médineh), thus proving a mixing of the cultures suitable for one period of assured peace.
End of the reign and the legend
Ramsès had an end of reign endeuillée by the successive disappearance of its heirs and his Grande royal wife Néfertari and dies after a 66 years reign, which corresponds to more half of.
It is buried in the tomb KV7 in the Vallée of the Kings which is not worth visiting any more currently so much it is degraded because dug in a marly layer of the valley which did not resist sporadic well but devastators floods of the drained wadi in which the site of the necropolis was selected royal. A restoration excavations and campaign are currently in hand to perfect our royal knowledge of the tomb. The funerary treasure of Ramsès disappeared for a long time certainly at the time of plunderings which took place at the end of the Nouvel Empire. Thus a brazier in the name of Ramsès was found in the funerary treasure of Psousennès {{Ier}} of with Tanis, and the museums have Ouchebti S with its name, proof characteristic of an old plundering.
In the same way, its mummy was moved by the priests, initially in the tomb of his/her father, then again in the tomb of hiding-place (DB320) found at the end of the 19th century following a rocambolesque investigation of the young whole service of Egyptian antiquities initiated by Mariette.
One found it wrapped in strips by the priests of, and reinstalled in a sarcophagus out of wooden of cedar which had belonged to… Ramsès {{Ier}}, his grandfather. That illustrates how much the Vallée the Kings was the influence of covetousnesses when the Empire of the Ramsès crumbled.
During its débandelettage following its discovery, and the release of its arms, a tension post-mortem suddenly rejected one of its arms in the last gesture, creating the fear and the escape of the assistance come to admire the spectacle…
The skin (momifiée) of Ramsès is with the Egyptian Musée of Cairo and had to be “neat” in the years 1970 bus of mushrooms had developed there in contact with the modern air.
The study of this skin to the Musée of the Man to Paris in 1976-77 revealed that Ramsès was " leucoderme, of Mediterranean type near to that of the Berber africains".
If Ramsès is so known after its death, it is partly because when it was alive, it did everything so that one takes it for a god. He had more than one hundred children of his legitimate or secondary wives. Its 13th sons, Mérenptah or Mineptah, succeeded to him.
It made carve very many statues with its image and made engrave its name on almost all the temples and in particular of other Pharaons, as if it had made them build itself.
Its action in the country of Koush and especially in the syro-Palestinian corridor had to mark the spirits of the time and one still told under the Ptolémées the legend of the extraordinary voyage of “the princess of Bakhtan” come to be offered in marriage to large king d' Égypte, echo remote of the famous marriage with the girl of Hattousil which had then succeeded Mouwatalli on the throne of Hatti.
Is Ramsès the Pharaon of the Exode?
See also: Pharaon of the Exodus
Ramsès is also known general public for very an other reason: the translators of the Bible and a long time the historians after them, indicate it like having been the Pharaon reigning at the time of the Exodus, the escape of the Hebrew , which was also evoked in many films, like the Ten commands . This assumption is based on the following argument: the stele of victory of its successor Mérenptah mentions people Israel installed in Canaan. Moreover it is attested according to the Egyptian sources the existence of a senior official, Ben Azèn, of Semitic origin which would have intervened in a conflict opposing a group of nomads to Egyptian royal officers. The identification with Moïse can seem rather obvious. In addition, the Bible mentions that the Hebrew are compels with drudgeries and build the towns of Pithom and Ramsès. This last city then seems the starting point of the Exode. We know that Ramsès is a large builder and that he undertakes during his reign the construction of a new capital, pi-Ramsès, not far from Avaris, the old capital of the Hyksôs, the Pharaons of Semitic origin. Consequently the reign of Ramsès seems to provide the adequate framework corresponding to the account of the Bible on the exit of the Hebrews of Egypt.
However the identification of Ramsès to the Pharaon of the Exodus appears less obvious when one looks at there more closely. First of all because the mummy of Ramsès, dead nonagenarian, does not present any trace of drowning of course and that it appears at the very least hazardous to take the biblical text in the literal sense. Moreover no document coming from this reign can be put in connection with expulsion, the exit, of Semitic people of the country. Finally the famous Ben Azèn not only forever left Egypt but accurately served the successors of the king until the reign of Ramsès {{III}}.
If one is delayed on the localities mentioned by the account of the exit of Egypt, force is to note that for the majority of enters they nothing does not allow a specific identification at the time of Ramsès. The route given by the book of the Exodus between the starting point, the town of Ramsès, and engloutissement of the Egyptian army gives the following cities: Sukkoth, Etam, pi-Hahiroth, Mig-fraud and Baal-Cefôn. Sites like Etam and pi-Hahiroth are unknown (Etam is perhaps a deformation of Pithom) and Migdol is untraceable in the Egyptian texts. But this last is quoted by Ezéchiel and Jérémie (like Hérodote) like city located in the Delta of the Nile or remain of many Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nabuchodonosor in -587. The name of Baal-Cefôn (Baal of North) is a popular divinity in the oriental party of the the Mediterranean towards the end of including in Egypt. It is plausible that the chapter 14 of the Exodus refers to the temple of Tahpanès where according to Jérémie saw an important Jewish community with the O C. It is seen, the majority of the names mentioned are explained in the more recent context of the times Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian overall of, period or the accounts of the exit of Egypt is put in writing.
The Pharaon of the Exodus does not bear a name. If the writers of the biblical text of this period had considered Ramsès as the reigning Pharaon nothing did not oppose so that it use his name, which is the case for several other sovereigns of Egypt quoted by the Bible. Thus it is impossible to be pressed on the biblical texts to make of Ramsès the Pharaon of the Exodus. As for Manéthon, it locates the banishment of the Hebrew under the reign of some not easily attachable Aménophis at a particular sovereign (perhaps Amenhotep {{III}}). Consequently the identification of the adversary of Moïse in Ramsès is an assumption that nothing historically serious comes to confirm. Undoubtedly is necessary it to see the desire conscious there or not of giving to Moïse an adversary of its stature creating in fact a historical myth.
Burial
Large falls collective was found in the valley of the kings, the KV5, which includes/understands multiple vaults and tombs of the royal children. Its exploration is still not completed.
Scandal
At the end of 2006, a factor of profession and Net surfer at his lost hours, on sale puts via a famous Internet site for a sum of approximately 2500 euros a sample of hair of Ramsès in order to interest some collectors. Quickly identified then stopped by the judicial police the man explains that the sample comes from an analysis laboratory in which his/her father worked who had the honor to analyze the hair of the mummy. For safety reasons this hair was placed in a cupboard leaded while waiting for a fall of the radioactivity of the latter in order to avoid any accident risk. Finally forgotten in the cupboard and ever claimed the hair was carried in the residence of the father at the time of his departure to the retirement then with that of his/her son after his death. Forgotten during a few years, the sample was found by chance then put on sale before being restored with its real owner with a letter of excuses transmitted by official channels and diplomatic to Zahi Hawass general secretary of the council of antiquities.
This business quickly became media extensive in the whole world, the man was not continued.
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