Ramesses the Great: Death of a Dynasty

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Продолжение следует... Kia. Movement that inspires. Den här produkten är inte riskfri. Den används med nikotin som är beroendeframkallande, endast för användningen av vuxna. Är du trätt på lukten av rök? Icos lämnar ingen lukt av rök i kläder, händer eller hår, ingen aska och ingen andrahansrök. Icos finns att köpa på ios.com. Besök ios.com för mer information. I met a traveller from an antique land who said, Two vast and trunkless legs of stone sand in the desert. Near them on the sand.

A shattered visage lies, whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell that it's Read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things. And the heart that fed, and on the pedestal these words appear. My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty. That was the poem Ozymandia. Published by the English poet Percy Shelley in eighteen eighty one.

It was inspired by the impending arrival in London of a colossal ancient Egyptian statue, the head of a pharaoh who had lived 3,000 years earlier, and whose fascinating story was only then just.

The Greeks called this figure Osimandias, but we know him today by his actual name, Ramesses. Pharaoh Ramesses II, Ramesses the Great. In last week's episode, we explored How Ramesses' dynasty Came to rule Egypt after a period of turmoil and decline How first Ramesses' grandad and then his father, Seti I, set about consolidating their power, paving the way for young Ramesses to inherit an Egypt ready to show its mighty.

We ended by looking into Ramesses' earliest years on the throne, epitomized by his famous clash against the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh. A battle that he would go on to immortalize in great water reliefs across his kingdom. Now, we're continuing the story. What do we know about the rest of his reign? How did he want to do it? We'll also cover what happened after this titan's death, how his successors soon faced new troubles.

This is the continued story of the Ramasid dynasty. With our guest, Dr. Campbell Price. Campbell, welcome back to the show. Hello, Tristan. Hello again. It feels like a long time. It hasn't been. It hasn't. We did, of course, last time we chatted about the rise of Ramesses and looking at his background and how his granddad and his dads consolidate the position and then he rises to the fore.

And Kadesh, the Bass of Kadesh, five years in, is almost a humiliation for him, but he's able to transform it. You know, as a base for then him becoming, in our eyes at least, later on, one of the most well known, arguably successful pharaohs of all. Yeah, I think we've covered the prelude to greatness. you know, being on the shoulders of giants because I think Ramesses II owes a lot to his father and to his grandfather.

But Kadesh is undoubtedly a turning point'cause as you said, he's he's he's going back and trying to win some grudge matches. Doesn't succeed. in real terms doesn't succeed with an outright victory, but is able to spin the story. And again, I'm very skeptical of using a modern term like propaganda. So when you see the walls of temples where Ramesses II is talking about Kadesh, the fact that he writes that not he himself, but he commissions that to be carved on a temple wall makes it so.

It seems strange to a modern point of view. But that is in some ways maybe anticipating a victory that he thinks maybe he will have in actuality in the future. But that doesn't really matter. The gods know the truth. And he's carved it on the wall of the god's house. So by writing anything in hieroglyphs which are known as the words of the gods, You make it so. Oh, okay. So it wasn't as if he thought he was deceiving the gods by spinning it. No. I don't think you can deceive a god. Right.

Omniscient and so in his eyes he's rewriting history and making that truth. Um he's Kadesh to be more of a a success than it really was. And I think he j genuinely believed it. You know, I he believed that yeah, as you said before, he snatched a victory from the jaws of real defeat. Absolutely. But he's catastrophe. In his own head, that draw

Is something to be proud of. So I think that sets in motion a series of Revisitations. Of the the theme of victory over these vassal states in the Levant. So he goes back because remember his reign is 66 years.

when he's young and you know he's got the fire in him, he's gonna go back several times as we know he does. I love this idea that Ramesses and over time he just keeps telling himself that it's actually really good for him and then he ultimately leads himself to believe it. Yeah. Knows the chance. But of course So you have that pivotal moment of Kadesh early on in his reign as a key moment in his expansionism or attempted expansionism. External conflict.

He returns. He does more external fighting, more wars abroad following that. Yes, so he keeps going back. to those vassal states into what is now modern Syria. So that's where Kaddish is. And there are clearly Yeah. He's he's fighting against the the the Hittites and there are various changes in leadership. So there does come a point in the twenties, Regnal years twenty and up, where maybe he's a little bit older and maybe he's thinking, I don't want to keep going back.

And that is when you get a more decisive treaty and you get a sense that other states in the ancient Levant are more used to compromise, whereas the Egyptians want all or nothing. Maybe th that's just the nature of what's recorded or maybe that's actually the the social reality, the political reality in other parts of the world. But in Egypt, they accept a peace treaty which is sealed by a marriage, a diplomatic marriage. And this is fascinating because we do have an insight into

the exchanges between the royal courts. And so you have Ramesses II, who is a very wealthy individual who's commissioning all these temples and statues and is really, you know, is one of the great rulers of the ancient world. pleading w with not pleading, but kind of pleading pleading poverty and saying he wants the dowry of the incoming bride. to be more than what is being offered. And so it seems that the bride's mother, the queen mother essentially,

Is doing the hard is pushing the hard bargaining. So we shouldn't just imagine these conflicts are played out in the battlefield. Yes, th they are, and there are repeated attempts to to secure Kadesh, but laterally, maybe when the fight, the fire leaves Ramesses, a bit he is more content to seal things with a diplomatic marriage. And that is a one sided thing, because the king of Egypt would never give a daughter of his own, a pr an Egyptian princess is never sent to a non Egyptian court.

but it is acceptable for a non Egyptian princess with a hefty dowry. To come. to Egypt and that is considered a victory. But that is interesting, the fact that that's maybe some fifteen years after the Bass of Kadesh. So there's still a long period of time when Ramesses is going back up to Syria, the area around Kadesh again and again to try and get that elusive

total victory over the Hittites, that all or nothing feeling, that all or nothing idea. But ultimately, as he gets a bit older, maybe he's a bit tired of going up to a Kadesh again and again, he ultimately decides to get

some sort of compromise and the Hittite's just like, Yeah, we kinda want to compromise too now. Yeah, let's just call it a draw and will be mutually beneficial. I think what actually happens in terms of on the ground, you know, we're talking about relatively small areas of of of land.

There must be a kind of the Egyptians think they secure some assurance of loyalty and then they leave and then sides are switched and it's like this punch and duty show. And then eventually, as you say, yeah, w w when Ramesses is a bit older, he's content to to to have the peace treaty.'Cause it's almost like when you think of it on the larger scale of things.

If the Egyptians lose Kadesh to the Hittites, it's not the end of the world. It's hundreds of miles away from Egypt and the hearts of ancient Egypt. But because Kadesh has been in the control of Egyptians back in the eighteenth dynasty, whatever, is it is it's symbolic importance. Almost like Dare I say like Stalingrad was for the USSR in you know World War Two, not one step back. That's simple.

Do you think that's part of the reason that might have driven Ramesses again to keep going back? Yes, I think there there is some of that internal motivation. And again, practically speaking, you know, if if you walk into Karnak And you can read hieroglyphic inscriptions. You know, Ramesses II would be reminded of Tutmous III. It would be there. He's the zenith of the preceding eighteenth dynasty. And he is, you know, he is the has set the bar for expansionism of of

pushing to its limit that area of influence, as we were saying before. Not necessarily an empire, but an area of real influence and a buffer zone against these bigger, nastier powers that in any case are some distance away. But on that point, actually, about the whole reign of Ramesses II. There is a there is a practical element to this in that. In the reign of Tutmos III, he was setting off from the capital city at Memphis, which is essentially modern Cairo.

But with the reign of Ramesses the Second, maybe a little before then, there is a shift, a strategic shift to move this incredible royal city. And if we decide define the capital city as the place the king spends most time in, the principal palace, That is per Ramses. Okay. So that is on the northeast edge of the Nile Delta. So strategically, it is closest.

to launch an expedition into the Levant. It is also provided I know I have friends who've excavated that site. It's provided with huge stables. To get the horses and to have your infantry barracked there. So you have a kind of a sense of a standing army, and we know from monumental sources, tied interestingly, closely to the cult of Ramesses II as a god.

So at the same time as the military preparation is being ramped up, so is the idea of Ramesses being a god. So you're fighting for a god, not just the king.

There's there's lots of evidence of the worship of statues of Ramesses the Second, and all the worshippers are members of the military. So you you really get that sense of okay, there is Ambition, maybe anxiety is another word, that that you have this city which is essentially an island that you couldn't attack if if If there was an attack from you know, the Hittites, you would see the people invading force some distance away, and also you have a kind of standing army waiting.

So there is also this feeling of that paramses being like a border frontier town. So if the worst were to happen, Egypt would be prepared. So these skirmishes and the the who owns who or who is loyal to who may seem trivial, but the bigger political, geopolitical, military question is with these rising empires. if something really catastrophic happens and God forbid there was an invasion because this has happened to the Egyptians before and will happen many times in the future.

The Egyptians need to be prepared. So on the eastern front you have, I mean Per Ramesses is is the is the one, but we know Ramesses is also building on the western front towards Libya. And so the westernmost like two hundred kilometers west of the westernmost branch of the Nile at the time is a site called R Zawait Umulrakam. It's a site I've worked at myself as a student.

Very impressive. We know about the the the garrison commander. Was that Professor Steven Snapes? Indeed. Yes, Stephen Snapes Liverpool University excavations. uncovered really interesting evidence of kind of local interactions, like the local population interacting with the fortress, but also prepared in case there was a major influx.

of Libyans from the West and they were right to be suspicious because that's what happens in the reign of Ramsay's son. Which is so interesting, that kind of foresight there. And but it's of course you've also got Egypt at that time, yes, we won't say an empire, but the control of Egypt does go all the way quite far upriver the Nile into

Sudan. Yeah, deep into Sudan. Inchanubia. And you got Buhen Fortress or places like that? You've got big fortresses in the south as well? Yeah. I mean, these have been established probably since the Old Kingdom, but big fortresses built in the Middle Kingdom. And then we know, yeah, Tummo's the first.

Timores the third really pushed the boundaries there. So I think it's it's fair to say there's there's there's more general success in beating up the Nubians than there is controlling these people in the Levant. But

It doesn't really matter to the ancient Egyptians. Anyone who's not an ancient Egyptian is to be pitied or despised and to be crushed under the Pharaoh's sandals. So that is how they are depicted in art, and that is how they are presented to the gods, and that is how the universe works.

Paramesses' position, and we mentioned Paramesses in our previous chat. Didn't you know how its founding seems to be actually associated with Ramesses II's grandfather, so the name isn't it? Yeah. The house of Ramesses, it's it's a good m it's an apt metaphor. For not just the physical residence. of a whole line of kings, but also for the house, the actual dynasty

That continues, of course, for many generations. And his capital in that position, looking towards Syria and the Levant, shows that that really seems to be his top. foreign policy priority for the first couple of decades of his reign until he gets the peace treaty. Yes, and the peace treaty maybe marks something of a a pause.

And then he really focuses on building. But he's been building for some time. It's interesting with Ramesses the Second Unlike his father said to the first. I mean there is a yes, objectively speaking, there is a objectively perhaps speaking as well, there is a decline in the quality of artwork. Although Ramesside art, the art of Ramesses II still is.

Is very beautiful. It's maybe not quite as finely executed as that of his father, but you get the impression as the reign progresses, even though he's got a lot of building under his belt, he wants to bash it out. quicker and more of it, and the quality even seems to decline further. It's just more and more more more and more. Keep these people occupied.

Well we're gonna explore all of that in these various different monumental works. Uh but quickly on the peace treaty itself. Yes. So one of the oldest known peace treaties in the world or the old Possibly the oldest. Possibly Challenge me. I d I I d I don't don't know of a good example to challenge it. Possibly the oldest peace treaty we know of in the world.

Do we have the wording surviving? Yes. This is telling because the Egyptians are proud of this. And it's not a peace treaty is not a a type of text, it's not a genre of monumental inscription that was common to the ancient Egyptians to make a treaty with other people. But in this case it it is sealed by a diplomatic marriage. There's a lot of toing and froing about the content of dowries.

But the princess comes in and becomes a wife of Ramesses II. And it's interesting that this must have quite a cultural impact, the coming of this lady into the royal court. So the there is the first marriage and then there is a second marriage a few years later, but even gosh, a thousand years later, into the Ptolemaic period There is a fascinating document that's now in Paris called the Bentresh Stila, which describes the sending of a statue of an Egyptian god into the Levant to cure

a relative of of one of the the vassal kingdoms. And that seems to be a genuine reflection on the great esteem with which Egyptian doctors are viewed. So it's not just a military thing of I'll beat you up or we'll have a peace treaty. If there's a peace treaty, the Egyptian pharaoh might send one of his effective physicians Or might send a healing statue of a god. And so there are real to ancient people, real palpable benefits, which we might think of as being quite superstitious.

But is it are they also signals of the new friendship between the powers, as it were, you know, this peaceful almost like with the you know, post cold war with it the you know, you've got the cosmonauts and the astronauts together on the space station.

Yeah, that's that's a nice analogy, yeah. So so the the courts are yeah, clearly in communication and they do send gifts between the two of them, and that's some kind of assurance. And indeed this piece Treaty text makes clear that they will, you know, mutually assure the succession of each kingdom. and help against a third party attacker. So th there is that sense of what we would recognise as a modern treaty. Spontan F Kia. Movement that inspires.

Och frågan som är värd 100 000 kronor Anders varhös sommarOS 1996. Oj, det var lätt. Jag får flicka in något först bara. Jag säljer en skåda en jak. Åsmodel 22 till pang pris. Gör så här, ring med på 070. Det är där vad tiden ute. Atlanta! Men. Får jag säga mitt nummer då? Då 07. Det finns enklare. Bilen på. Någ tusentals köpare varje dag. Pixars nya biofilm. Operation Bär. Slappna av och lyssna till natures ljud. Andas. Och lyssna noga. De var i samma håla.

Jag förstår det! Disney och Pixars: Operation Bäg. Jo, sjette mars. Kjøp biljetter nu! Because you've also got the Hittite version of it surviving that they've discovered in Hatusa, I think. Yes, yeah, yeah, that's right. And then I think they got a copy in the the UN or something like that. One of the oldest peace treaties in the world. So yeah, it's it's all very interesting how you know the the symbolic importance of it, the legacy of it down to the day is

physical evidence of diplomacy more than 50,000 years ago. Yeah. Impressive. But let's move on from that. So let's go on to his monumental building work in Egypt itself, which He's been doing already. Yes. You know, following in the footsteps of his dad, completing stuff. But once this peace treaty is signed, do we get a sense that almost he flicks the switch to focus the

almost completely on the great building works in Egypt. Yeah, I mean it must be something also to do with physicality. So approaching his thirtieth year on the throne. So he maybe is is approaching fifty by this point. Years of age. He's maybe less inclined to be going out into battle. He can still send sons, and he's got plenty of sons, up to fifty sons, but we'll also come back to the sons. But in the ancient world, if you have been on the throne for thirty years, You are a pretty big deal.

But that also marks for the ancient Egyptians a very significant milestone, the so-called Heb Sed, which is what we might call a Jubilee today, but is a kind of a an affirmation of the king's power and a confirmation or a conferral of divinity. So the king is always a bit divine. But Ramesses II really goes further, and it does seem to be inspired by this point in time where there's a de emphasizing of military activity and a greater emphasis on religious. Iconography and belief.

So he really says Ramesses the second says he's not just part divine, he is a full god, shoulder to shoulder with other gods, and he is represented on temple walls, in statues, and has his own extraordinary statue cult. where people, including the military personnel at Paramses, are using images, huge colossal statue images of the king, as means of answering their prayers. So shall we do a case study of this? Shall we focus on Abu Simbol? Why not? As a great monumental example of this. So

Give us a flavour. What first and foremost is Abu Symbol and where are we talking about? So we're talking about the southernmost point, really, in the modern borders of Egypt. on the shores of what is now Lake Nasser, so into ancient Nubia. So Many miles south of the traditional Egyptian border at Aswan.

So a reductive reading is to say that this is a way of intimidating the Nubians. Look, there are these colossal statu four colossal statues of the king on one temple. So there's a great rock cut. temple with these four striking images, seated images of the king. But there's another temple dedicated to his wife, Queen Nefertari, the chief queen, whom he seems to have loved very much, and she is equated with the goddess Hathor.

So they they are saying his and hers, uh the king is a god, the queen is a god. People should come and worship us because we are deserving of worship like full gods. And this is really an important point. It's something I've written about. that we've got to understand. These avatars, these divine avatars of Ramesses, there's a whole series of them, they all have different names. They can be materialized through statues.

And you can worship the statue and hopefully get your prayers answered. But in the innermost part of that Abu Simbal Great Temple, the Holy of Holies. There is seat of the great gods. uh ta reharakti amun and sat quite literally shoulder to shoulder with him is Ramesses the second and it's really an emphatic point of I am a fool god and I can

I have this equivalence to to the great gods. Now, interesting to me is in the decorative scheme, as the interior of this Structure was being being completed. The decoration, which is probably the the twenties of the reign, right? So we're getting he's already seeing himself as divine before he reaches that big Jubilee milestone. Interesting. Okay. And it seems to be a developing idea.

Because there are clear scenes. I know you've been to the temple and it's worth looking out on the walls if you go. There are clearly scenes where there were gods, Amun, the great god of of Karnak, Thebes, his his wife, the goddess Mut. And the figure of Ramesses has been inserted as an afterthought. So it's not part of the original scheme. So someone has had the thought actually we'll put the king here. So that I mean it's it's rare you can say that you can see a developing theology.

But that is something where the idea of Ramesses a God has has not been Originally planned but developed with the building. Because you also see in that first room as you enter Abu Simbol, don't you? You see is he's either it's him in his chariot or he's very much him also as a military figure as well. So it's not just

promoting him as divine, you know, that is a key part of it, and those colossal statues of him seated, if he stood up, he would tower above the temple itself. Yeah. But it's still hearkening back to him also as a successful military figure. And, you know, the head of this royal family as well, I guess. Yeah, he must be proud of the military, albeit w we might consider it a draw now. But it's kind of a challenge and we know other earlier kings did this, a challenge to his successors.

To maintain his boundaries and maintain his sphere of influence, if we want to call it that. And because he lived so long, we know this in various instances throughout history, if you spend a long time on the throne, it is more difficult. for the eventual successor, especially if like Ramesses you have fifty sons and sure many of them died. He he was eventually succeeded by his thirteenth son, Mirabtah.

But there are other sons. I mean, the fourth son is especially interesting to me, Prince Chaim Waset. He is credited by some with being the first Egyptologist because he is the one who goes around labeling the pyramids. So he's the high priest of the god Pta at Memphis, so near modern Cairo. And in that role he is very aware of the sacred landscape, which is, you know. littered with massive pyramids, but to a son of Ramesses II to go out into the desert and to see not that far into the desert.

still visible from the floodplain, but to see a monument that's so vast, so impressive, so pristine, without any hieroglyphs on it. Telling you who the king is, this seems crazy. The son of a megalomaniac like Ramesses II. So he goes all along and inscribes very deep, elaborate inscriptions. What have been called by one great Scottish Egyptologist, Kenneth Kitchen, as the largest museum label in the world.

Telling future generations, this is the pyramid of Khufu, this is the pyramid of Unas. This is the pyramid of Joser. And I, Prince Kaamwasset, have restored the name of this king because it was not found. on the surface of his monument, and I'm the son of the great King Ramesses the Second. So Ramesses the Second gets his name put on all of these ancient monuments. So it's not just in the hypostar hall at Karnak, it's not just the great template Abu symbol.

It's also on the pyramids. On the pyramids. And do we get a sense with, you know, his many children, his many sons? Do we have any sense if he had any favourite? Oh, I would oh uh difficult to to say, uh based on the the evidences that survives. Prince Chaim Wasat is interesting because he helps organise his father's Heb Sed Jubilee festivals. And so you

It's he is often shown in association with the father. So in a cynical way, it's a great way for Karim Wasett who maybe thinks his dad's gonna live forever. and best to make the most of his lot. Now, it's not a million miles away from the Prince of Wales, thinking as Charles Prince of Wales did, I've got to make the most of this'cause it's what I'm going to be doing for most of my life. But whether Cam Wasett expected to be the next pharaoh is difficult to say. As I said

I mean, obviously if someone dies that that m removes them from the line of succession. But I think there had to be very careful Yeah, careful planning for a smooth transition of power. And I think the best evidence that Ramesses liked one of his sons was that he would designate him as the heir. So eventually the heir Merimta must have been favoured. Absolutely, because

Go back to Rabbi Symbol once again, just'cause I haven't been there recently. You when you get close to the colossal statues of Ramesses, you also see smaller depictions of a few of his wives and a few of his children believed as well. So yeah. I know you're not supposed to have favourites, but it's almost like he did there are a few that he picked to place alongside him on this temple to himself. Yeah, I think those must be uh as far as the we know the ones that are

inscribed or identified by inscription, they are the more senior ones. Interesting. And you wonder, because he lived so long of whether some of those had already died. So he wa this was a way of commemorating them. He had a special tomb, a vast tomb built in the the Valley of the Kings, KV five, for the the the the children, for the sons.

But then it's also a thing about the psychology of Ramesses the second, because he lives A long life, he's on the throne sixty-six years, so assuming he comes to the throne, say at twenty-four. He's ninety by the time he dies, which is good going. Very good going for an ancient ruler, albeit he had the best doctors and lived a life of of great luxury.

But you could imagine, you know, as you see your children die, your wives die, your grandchildren die, maybe you Ramesses thought, I am a god, I'm not gonna die. But I must also ask obviously that thing the beating heart of Egypt is the Nile. And every year you have the annual floods, don't you, which determines the you know how the the great Well, how successful the agricultural yield will be the next year. And like if the flooding is too low, then it could lead to famine.

Do we get a sense I mean, is there any surviving archaeology that hints that there were times in Ramesses' reign where they had a lot of trouble from the floor and stuff like that? Or was it was he just in a a very good century where everything worked his way in that regard. Yeah, good question. I mean we do have Nile flood heights levels from from different kings reigns, but I don't think anything was

particularly cast catastrophically low or high. Of course if it's too much, it's it's a bad thing as well. It spells bad news. But I think, looked at another way, you're right. It could be that he was just doing well. Whereas later kings like Ramesses the Third, we know, just happened to get a bad run and ruled under some more economically straightened times.

Well, I could ask so many more questions about Ramesses, but I know we've got to move on. So Let's go to nearing the end of Ramesses' reign. So he's got all of those children, he's outlived many of them by this time as well. Many of his wives are dead as well by this time. Nefertari certainly out of the picture. Yeah, Nefertari To whom he dedicated that smaller template Abu symbol seems to be the first

Senior wife. That's that's that's clear. But then there is a second senior wife, Iset Nofret, who's the mother of Kaimwaset and also of Meren Pta. Right. So she's important, probably buried somewhere at Saqqara. And yes, eventually her son, the thirteenth son, Merympatal becomes king. And he was so sorry, I must also mention the Ramesseum because we haven't really touched at all, have we? And this is

It's named after himself, but what is it? Well, we nowadays call it the Rameseum, that's that's how it's called if you visit Egypt today, for Yeah. More recent times it was called the Memnonium because it was associated with Memnon, which is actually A name given to the Colossians. The Colossai of Memnon, right. Which are associated with Ammonhotep the Third. But in ancient times it was known as a mansion of millions of years.

So this is a little hobby horse of mine. I don't like referring to these as funerary temples or mortuary temples because this overemphasizes death. It's not about death. It's not about, you know, mourning the king. It's about the king becoming united with the gods. And so Ramesses the second's temple really is vast. And it's one of the first, if not the first, that has the outer pylon gateway made of stone.

previous temples had them made of mud brick and they simply haven't survived. But now I know that the there's colleagues in Egypt are working on the restoration of the the pylon so it should be more visible and more visible. in future, it really was an impressive structure and it was the direct inspiration for one of Ramsey's successors.

Ramesses the third. So basically his temple, what's now called Medinat Habu, is not a carbon copy, but an homage to the mansion of millions of years of Ramesses II called The Ramesseum today. And was that where Ramesses wanted to be buried? No, this is this is an important point is. willfully, consciously

at a distance from the tomb. And that's from the Valley of the Kings. The Valley of the Kings is the cemetery, that's where the the royal sepulchres are, which is, you know, over a kilometre away. But the the temple is for people to visit, to leave offerings and to celebrate the eternal cult of the king, the union of the king with various gods.

And that will be where many, many, many centuries later, Balzoni will find that colossal statue, the head of which is in the British Museum today. Indeed. The the younger Memnon, yeah. That's inspired a piece of poetry we'll you know later. Well okay.

Sixty six years on. I do know much about the end of Ramesses' reign and the state of Egypt at that time. Is it Is is there almost a decline in his power or is Egypt declining as he's getting older? Do we know anything about it? It's it's difficult to have a reliable index of of, you know uh GDP for for ancient Egypt or the equivalent, but uh Suffice it to say, I mean, he would have been the only king almost everyone had ever known. So I think, you know, when he did if eventually shuffle off.

This mortal coil he there would have been a lot of head scratching about how to actually do a Pharaoh's funeral. But you can tell that there are problems set up in store. for his eventual successor, Mirabta, and he seems to have made a pretty good goal. We have a kind of uptick then in in evidence of of of foreign interactions and foreign policy, because he has to deal with

Active, yeah, pressing issues from the West, from the Libyans, issues in the in the north, in the Levant, and then back down south. The new Jag måste försäljare. Optim hjälper dig att få ett bättre sparande som sköter sig självt. Gå till opti.se och svara på några frågor. Det är allt. Resten tar vi på opti handom. Pengar ska få växa. Tack!

So Merem Patar, let's focus on these threats that he faces.'Cause his is not a name anywhere as recognizable as Ramesses the second. So talk as we should shine a light on this figure, like we did with Ramesses the first and Seti. Merympata, what do we know about the struggles that he faces? Well, we've got quite a bit of historical information, almost like he makes an effort. to put his stamp on history. And again, older king coming to the throne, he maybe is is in his sixties.

if not seventy when he comes to the throne. So there's a sort of a Charles the Third thing there. He was the thirteenth son or so of Ramesses II seventy, well. S s and maybe well, exactly, he wasn't preparing to be the king F throughout his whole life. He had older brothers.

He clearly wants to record his own active engagement with these foreign powers. So there are um sources like the so called Israel Stealer. So this is a reuse monument of an earlier king of of Amenhotip the third, where the back of it is inscribed with various, you know, campaigns. And there are lots of these things actually, relatively speaking. And it's the first historic mention of the people of Israel. Israel as a people, isn't it? As a as a people so historically very very interesting.

But also Merenpta goes around again, you you get the sense, maybe reading a little bit between the lines, that he thinks he doesn't have long 'Cause he's quite old already. And he does drill for almost ten years, so you know, he's he does okay. And he puts his name on wherever there is an empty space. Because he doesn't have the time to commission new monuments, he just whaps his name on.

Whether it's statues of older kings, whether it's columns, we have an example in Manchester Museum, where it's an older Middle Kingdom column of granite. Ramesses II has his name and image worshipping a god on it. And then Meren Patar has had his name added as well. So there's this sense of, you know, yeah, fighting against time. But I think the real success of Meren Patar, and it's a shame he's not better known, is that he actively manages

to campaign quite actively against powers from the east and the the west and the south. With time, the dynasty there's lots of internal struggles for a few generations. But then by the time of Ramesses III, you get active incursions. You get the sea peoples, this kind of m motley crew of people from the the Mediterranean. You get the Libyans. actively coming over and being quite threatening. And all of this seems to be held at bay by Merimbata. So he maybe get

undeservedly short shrift because he's overshadowed by his father. And people often say Ramesses the third is the last great king of ancient Egypt. But Meraptah must have had a pretty, you know, involved training in his youth. So maybe he's in his sixties, not actively going out fighting, but he's able to, I guess, reflect on his experience of being the son of Ramesses the second. and strategize to head off problems which become serious problems in the decades after his reign.

So those military problems that he faces during his only only a decade or so on the throne, it's quite interesting how you have No Ramsey's the second ruling for so long, then almost as soon as he dies, you have Libyans, the emergence of the sea peoples, you have the Nubians revolting as well. And Meren Patar almost is the one he he has to deal with it. Do we think there's potentially a feeling that

enemies were circling, they see the death of a pharaoh, they see Merembitar come to the throne quite elderly. They feel that there's an opportunity here. Yes, absolutely. And I think there was always that looking for an opportunity when religiously, theologically, It's a very vulnerable time for the country between the change of monarch. I mean, there is something, without forcing modern parallels on it, there was something about the death of Elizabeth II where people were really kind of

shaken by it and you feel like it's a kind of a cosmic, whether you're a a great monarchist or not, there is some kind of cosmic shift. And for the ancient Egyptians, that really was a cosmic shift. So you would take if you're going to make trouble for the Egyptian state, you will wait until Yeah, one of these kind of transitional moments. Well this almost feels a bit like Edward the Seventh after Queen Victoria or something like that. But he doesn't reign too long. Yes.

You don't associate the complete crumbling of a dynasty, I guess, with him following. I mean, I'm not a an expert on that, but that's why I might say No, I think the parallel is is is is justified, yeah. And so you get a little bit more. Mirembar for a decade or so and he he is successful in beating off the sea peoples, the first emergence of the sea peoples on the scene. Yes.

I mean, we don't have many records from his own mansion of millions of years'cause it's it's not terribly well uh preserved, but there are are other bits of historical accounts. that really make it clear that the the sea peoples and and other non Egyptian threats are serious.

And so maybe we know in in the case of Zawaya to Mulracham on the north coast, the Mediterranean coast. That's the fortress. That's the fortress in the northwest. That you know, things are happening. You know, there are is a tangible threat from the people to the West. And eventually, you know, with time, a few couple of hundred years later, there will be Libyan kings of Egypt. So it will go so far as to

be, you know, a a a Libyan pharaoh in the throne. But Menoptah is the accepted ruler, but of course there are all these other princelings about, and that creates rivals for the throne, for sure.

So Maremtar dies after some ten years or so. What happens following that? Does it all go to pieces quite quickly after he dies? Must be around eighty years old by that time. Yeah, I I think there is a sense in which things do fall apart historically speaking, pretty quickly, the nineteenth dynasty only has a couple of decades left to go. There are a series of short-lived kings. This is the end of the nineteenth dynasty. And then you get to a young king called Sipta, who has a female regent.

called Tawazret. And she is really the end. She is a female pharaoh, end of the the line. She rules quite effectively, it seems, for a few years, but then there's this shadowy figure, this high-ranking courtier called Bai. who is like a nineteenth dynasty equivalent of the much loved, in my case, character of Seninmut, the right hand man to hatch in dynasty eighteen. Tawazrit is ruling the last of the house of Ramses, and then you get this new guy, a guy called Seth Nach.

And he comes on the scene and usurps Tawasrit's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, still one of the most interesting tombs in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. So the dynasty shifts then and there's new blood comes in and you we begin dynasty twenty with Seth Nacht and then his successor, Ramesses the third. Do you think Taoazaret's reign as pharaoh was always destined to end that way because

just how they viewed a woman as a pharaoh. This is tricky. This is really tricky and it's something I've thought about a bit. She does get mentioned in an official list of kings. Okay. A document that she's in a canon, so it's acceptable that there is this this woman in a sense. And so she rules fairly successfully for a few years. She builds things and you know, there are foundation deposits attesting to her building work. But she only rules for a f handful of years and then is succeeded.

By someone called Seth Nacht, and he is a new guy. So that is the time of the 19th Dynasty is up by that point, and it's a new bloodline. But the fact that there is this This character, this Chancellor by, who, and it's a very rare case, we have evidence of him being put to death. So there is a mention of execution of this guy, which backstabbing must have gone on. We know about it with the Ptolemy's.

But it must have gone on throughout pharaonic history. But this is a very rare insight into a very what must have been not uncommon, but it's unusual it's recorded. And then she is succeeded by this man, this new guy, Set Nash. And he has a successor, who's Ramesses the Third. So all of this happens from the death of Miram Pta.

To the the succession of Ramses the third in a few decades. So within yes, like three or four decades after the death of Ramses the Second, his dynasty has come crashing down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he might have planned and his indeed his father and grandfather planned and initiated this great sweep of history and thought their successors would keep going into the future. But in real terms, in terms of blood relations, pure blood relations, the dynasty fizzes out and dies.

When Seth Knacht and eventually Ramesses III come along, they offer the appearance of stability, which is fine, but the economic and social changes within Egypt are real, as are the foreign threats, the non Egyptian, the outsider threats, as we were discussing before, the geopolitics. even between say to the first and Ramesses II, which isn't a long time, there's lots of shifts there. Fast forward,

To the reign of Ramesses III. And I mean, he claims various victories in in his well-recorded accounts in his Mansion of Millions of Years. But this really heralds the end of the new kingdom and the rise of yeah, other powers in the ancient world.

It is too interesting, Campbell, how, you know, it's still a long time, I guess, in the grand scheme of things between Ramesses the second and then Ramses the third, which you say is another of those kind of big name figures. The strength of Ramses the second, is it more just

that you know, dies out soon after his death and actually he doesn't really leave anything that can endure for a long, long time. He doesn't build anything with an idea that it's he plans for it to endure for hundreds of years. Is it very much it's just an image? of his strength during his reign and then that just disappears and the the solidity that he thought he'd created evaporates rather than him actually wanting to create something stable for, well, maybe in his eyes, millennia.

I I think with the legacy of Ramesses the Second in part I mean his own reign is a lot about spin. And he focuses a lot on his own personality and divine personality when he's alive. This is something again to emphasize. The cult of the king through these statues, these cult colossi, as I term them. only a really supercharged with the divine power during his lifetime. They kind of fade into the background after his death.

So to be fair to the successors of Ramesses II, they have to deal with other challenges, which Ramesses II didn't have to deal with. There's another practical thing though, the the great city that he embellished Peramses. suffers because the branch of the Nile it's on silts up.

So it's not functional. So it's unforeseen, you know, future events that kind of really hinder his legacy rather than him not actually paying attention to it. Yeah y yes, I think I think that's fair. To be fair to Ramesses the second, who must have been Quite a dynamic guy to give him his fair due. I think, yeah, his successors had to deal with with things which yeah, totally unforeseen on his part. It does beg the question.

Is Ramesses the second is he really the great, or is he just the absolute master of spin? I mean he's the greatest in the sense that he had most time to tell us he was great. Yeah, he's the loudest ruler. Yeah, I mean if Hatshipsuit had been a man and had ruled for sixty years, we would have no doubt about her, his greatness. And I mean, it's true though, we do have evidence of, you know, the the the cult of Ramesses II persisting in in places like Abydos.

you know, there there is evidence of the worship of Ramesses the Sec in certain places. And then his body, of course, survives. He's buried in the Valley of the Kings. The the body is moved to the Royal Mummy Cache in Deer Al Bakri, D B three twenty. And then when that's discovered officially in eighteen eighty one That starts a whole new weird afterlife for Ramesses II.

where his body, it seems, is so well preserved, he's assumed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. So we do have the actual body of Resistance. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes a bit moldy in the nineteen seventies and is sent to Paris for m defungal treatment.

So having the face of this man, so it's not just the statues, of course the statues don't look anything like he would have done when he was alive and people have tried to extrapolate from his mummified body what he might have looked like. We'll never really know. Just to be clear, that's another hobby horse of mine. But having the body and especially when it was unwrapped in the eighteen eighties, was shocking and surprising and thrilling. So in popular culture

You know, there are that's one of the most popular postcards you could buy in the late eighteen hundreds was the mummified face of Ramesses the Second. So he he gains a totally unexpected popularity. You know, the cover of an Iron Maiden album is inspired by Abu Simbel. You know, things like that. He speaks to He speaks to modernity in our experience of tyrants and autocrats and dictators, because I don't imagine Ramesses II presided over a democracy. So there's something about his character.

we still are kind of seduced by, even though he was probably pretty autocratic. He built so many statues, he had so many battles, he had so many children. You know, we can't help but have this grudging respect for And his name is everywhere on so many of the great monuments, whether it's the pyramids or Karnak or Abu symbol. If there's one name to learn, one cartouche to learn, it's Ramesses II, Usarmatra Setepenra.

If you learn those hieroglyphs you will see them all over Egypt. Well that was the one the first, if not the first, that Champollion figured out, wasn't it? Well, I'm glad you mentioned the nineteenth century,'cause I have a copy here of the famous Percy Shelley poem Osimandius, and Osimandius is a Greek rendering for the name Randes, a poem that highlights the inevitable decline of rulers and their hubris.

So I'll read it out now'cause it's I feel I'm not I met a traveller from an antique land who said Two vast and trunkless legs of stone, sand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, half-sunk, a shattered visage lies, Whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, Stamped on these lifeless things. The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed, and on the pedestal these words appear.

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. No thing beside remains Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away. Interesting, isn't it? Very poetic. Not one for poems, and I've probably butchered the reading of that, I must admit. I didn't do uh enough English literature growing up.

But it's interesting how in Victorian times they have that idea of Ramesses even back then. Yeah, and and I think what really inspired that poem was was a kind of a frenzy. surrounding the arrival in London of that colossal sculpture fragment you mentioned before, the so called younger Memnon, which is now in the British Museum. So yeah, in eighteen sixteen it was moved by Bill Zoni and eventually a couple of years later it arrived in London. And it wasn't an interest in

Ramesses the second, it was just in the size of the statue. It's interesting, Shelley talks about Ramesses, oh well, Ozzy Mandius, King of Kings. That is one of the names of the colossal statues that I said were worshipped. Interesting. Ramesses, ruler of ruler. Hekka in Hekka U. So there's this reverberation of this character, for he must have been an impressive character. Yes, he had the opportunity to build, to battle, to marry, to procreate.

over sixty six years. But there's something about the the brokenness of the monuments of him and other kings that does appeal as quite romantic. It's almost like proof, especially for Christian people, that these pagan kings were cut down to size by the true god. This idea that no matter how powerful and brilliant he was in his prime, how quickly that legacy can shatter exactly you know, in the years following. And in the case of Ramesses and his successors, it shatters pretty quickly. Indeed.

Campbell, this has been absolutely fantastic. I mean there's so much we could talk about with the the real reign of Ramesses and Meremitar as well and what happens all the way down to Towers Reps. But it's a fascinating time period. Is there anything else you'd like to mention about Ramesses or how we should view this figure going forward? I think In some ways it gets a bad press because it's all wham bam thank you ram, but I think

Ramesses I mean he does have a legacy in that that he gives his name to So many others. So many others II and I I think if you asked a king five hundred years later who was the greatest pharaoh of ancient Egypt, it would be difficult for them to choose between Tutmos the Third and Ramesses the Second. So that's a And how many ramp C's how many ramps are there in total? So there were eleven kings called Ramses, but later kings even than Ramses the eleventh.

Take the throne name Usarmatra. So there is clearly a an homage going on there. Campbell, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time. There was doctor Campbell Price continually. Epitomized by the legendary Pharaoh Ramesses II, Ramesses the Great. I hope you enjoy. this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

Enjoyed the episode. If you're enjoying the show, please make sure to follow The Ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us, and you will be doing us. Big favour. If you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well we'd really appreciate that. Finally, don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries. Release every week. dot com slash subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.

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