The House of Ramesses II: Egypt's Greatest Pharaoh?

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Hello from Abu Simbal, one of the greatest Egyptian temples surviving today. I'm currently here with about 30 kilometres from the border with Sudan and I'm staring at four colossal statues of Ramesses II of Ramesses the Great. Very much him showing this image that he was divine, that he was a great builder, and that he was the man in charge of this land, of the area of what was known as Lower Nubia.

It's his story that we're covering today, his rise to prominence. What do we know? Well, to talk through it all, I was delighted to interview the one and only Doctor Campbell Price from Manchester Museum. Let's go.

It's 3,315 years ago, and a young Egyptian prince walks through a towering monument. He is at the prestigious ancient city of Thebes in Upper Egypt. Like the third. and the home of a renowned temple complex dedicated to Egypt's chief god, Amun. Its name? Ipetzut. Karnak. The young prince was constructed at the sanctuary, commissioned by his father, the current Pharaoh. The interior is a dead. of columns, more than a hundred in total. 15 meters in height. Closely spaced?

And supporting a large roof above, with slits high up in the walls to let in beams of sunlight. This great hall was to be a centre of ceremonies and rituals for Amun, where only the Pharaoh Family and his closest entourage. This newest sacred space for Amun is not yet complete. Decorations still need to be added. Reliefs of pharaohs, gods, and offerings still need to be carved into the walls and columns.

Paint still needs to be applied. But the work is underway. As the prince walks through the hall, the sounds of workmen grow louder. He exits the northern entrance and sees a great cluster of builders. They are gathered around the exterior wall, busy carving reliefs into it. Recognizes the scene instantly. There in the wall is his victorious father, larger than any other figure, riding a chariot. There are countless captives bound in front of him, a river filled with crocodiles.

The scene records his father's most recent military venture up into Syria and the great bastion of Kadesh, a city hotly contested between the Egyptians and their northern rivals, the Hittites. The campaign had proven a success. The prince's father had returned to Egypt in a stronger position, consolidating his. new hold over the throne. Seti was his name, Pharaoh Seti I. Seeing his father's achievements being immortalized in stone was none other than Ramesses, soon to be Pharaoh Ramesses.

The second Ramesses the Great. In this episode We are going to cover this early story of Ramesses. How his family, including both his father, Seti, And his father before him became pharaohs of Egypt after a period of turmoil for this Bronze Age superpower, laying the foundations for Ramesses and his extraordinary reign. A reign that included great I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story of the rise of Ramesses, with our guest. Yeah.

Campbell, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the show. Hello, Tristan. It's nice to be back. And we've done episodes in the past up at your work home, Manchester Museum, and now you're down in our lovely studio in London and to talk about

Well the rise of Ramesses the Second, first of all, and his dynasty, the nineteenth dynasty. Yes, I mean Ramesses the second is a well known household name, but it's interesting to consider how he became the great. And why people later thought he was so great. I mean a sixty-six year reign, isn't that correct? Yeah. Around that time.

And normally if someone says Ramesses the Second or Ramesses the Great, you might think this is the pinnacle of ancient Egypt. This is when it's at the top of its its military might, its wealth, its art and architecture. Is that a fair assessment? Some would tell you some rather uncharitable people might say it had well past the zenith of ancient Egypt in terms of artistic production.

And there is a sense, I'm sure it'll uh come up as we're talking, that Ramesses II is trying to recapture a few centuries before when Egypt was really expanding, not so much an empire, I hesitate to use the word empire, but it's kind of field of influence. So he's trying to influence people and places, neighboring countries, neighboring

cultures in ways his predecessors would have. So actually he's kinda looking back to a golden age of years past in a revival time almost. Yeah, he's got a bar I think in his head where he's trying to reach back to it. So yeah, we're talking about the twelve hundreds, B C E But, you know, thirteen hundreds, fourteen hundreds, yeah, you're really getting the the For want of a better term, the imperial conquest. And paint us a bit more of a picture briefly before we delve into the details.

A quick picture of Ramesses the man, what we should get an idea of how we should picture him before we delve into the origins of his rule and of his family. Well, as you already said, he is exceptional because he rules for sixty-six years. With one exception, he's probably the the l longest reigning Egyptian pharaoh. So given it was a dangerous job being the king of any ancient power.

you must have some personal charisma and command to not be attacked, you know, rebelled against or been bumped off by your family. So I think He knows his grandfather. He follows in a fairly new dynasty, a kind of Aravis. group of military people and he has a hundred children. Wow. Okay, we'll save that. We'll save that till his his later reign. But as a boy he must know he's destined for greatness. That's not simply a back projection from when he becomes king as some Other pharaohs have been.

imagine as if they'd been selected from the from the egg. They conquered in the egg. That is is something that's said of other kings. Ramesses II as a prince really does seem to be groomed for greatness. And when he gets the chance when his father eventually dies, he really goes for it. On quite a scale. This is a man who's royalty throughout his life. You know, he's not the man who wins a coup or anything like that. No, exactly. Yes, exactly. So he's to himself he's blue blooded, but the family

They're fairly new kids on the block, given the previous dynasty. The eighteenth dynasty is a long

stretch of very interesting characters. Well the eighteenth dynasty, that is where we need to begin. So we're going back more than a century before Ramesses' reign. And the eighteenth dynasty, it is full of these incredible large than life figures, isn't it? Tutankhamun, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti.

Akhenaton. I mean, paint us a picture of the eighteenth dynasty quick. Oh well, that's very difficult. Um okay. So you you get some heavy hitters early on, so you have essentially the war of liberation against the Hyksos. These northerners who have ruled Egypt in the And who need to be expelled. And that happens that really heralds the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty, about fifteen hundred and something.

BCE and that's Akhmozi. Achmozi, we're now calling him the second. He used to be called Achmozi the First. Okay. But because we've discovered an earlier Akmose, we're calling him Akhmose the Second. Then he initiates a line of not necessarily blood relations, because we get Amenhotip the First, who's a son of Arkmozi, but then we get Tutmos the First. So he's a real warrior king. And he not only repels

foreign invasions. He doesn't just expel people like Achmozie the First, but he actively seeks to expand that field of influence, that sphere of influence of Egypt. And I think it's that that sets the precedent. For Ramesses to look back on. The whole dynasty it's a time of kind of wealthy art and architecture, amazing structures like the obelisks, warrior kings, but also powerful queens as well, like Hatshepsut. So as you mentioned right at the start.

This actually feels like the real zenith of ancient Egypt rather than the nineteenth dynasty that follows. Yeah, I think that that's fair in in kind of rough terms, if we're thinking about success as artistic quality, and that's very subjective, of course. and how much actual gold there is in the treasury. So Tutmos the Third is an important character. He's sometimes called the Napoleon of ancient Egypt.

expansionist. He is working in concert with his aunt, his stepmother Hatchipsoot, the female pharaoh, who rules for twenty odd years. By his side, much is made of the potential rivalry, the kind of The cookie cutter impression of the wicked stepmother. Forget it. The relationship is much more complicated than that. But setting the precedent for Ramses the second Tutmos III leaves things in pretty good condition. His son Amenhotep II pretty good.

By the reign of Ahmad Hochip III. you do get the impression that he's just sat down just enjoying being luxurious because his forefathers have done it for him. He is not really going out doing battle. And then maybe the decadence sets in. And so his son is Amenhut IV, better known as Akhenaten. And he is a unapologetic weirdo for an ancient Egyptian king. He kind of reps up the rule book to an extent.

And then Much is made, although I'm not sure how plausible I find this, much is made of the fact that we have an archive from the reign of Akhenaten and the end of end of the reign of Amenhotep III that talks about foreign diplomatic exchange. So you have a sense of Again, we're using modern terms which I probably don't apply. A foreign office, which basically has cuneiform that so called Amarna letters that talk about

you know, please my brother,'cause they're all calling the kings of the This Brotherhood of Kings isn't interested in that Bronze Age. Of the Levant of the Bronze Age, that part of the world. They are asking, you know, for the Egyptian king to send gold because gold is as plentiful as sand.

You know, send me a real gold statue, a solid gold statue, not just a plated gold statue. Send me chariots, send me all the nice stuff. But there is a sense in which and it may be typical, we don't have the other side of the dialogue. But there is a sense that the Egyptian king Akhenaten is maybe not

doing as much as he could to maintain Egyptian imperial possessions. And that is important. Because there does seem to be a lull in Egyptian foreign influence in the Levant. And it is that ultimately the dynasty of Ramesses the Second seeks to reestablish

almost steady decline of the eighteenth dynasty following Futmose the Third, isn't it? That we get to explore. And and you mentioned source material there, like you have those letters in cuneiform. I mean, do we have quite a rich array of source material for learning about the eighteenth dynasty and the latter half of the eighteenth dynasty as we get to the to the rise ultimately of the House of Remesses. Well, we're so dependent on official proclamations which are given

a flavor, shall we say, if we're being positivists, that give of some kind of flavor, but they don't recount the detail anything like the way a historian would want today. But you're right that those cuneiform tablets The Amarna letters offer a really fascinating insight because these are one on one discussions. This is the Queen of Egypt right.

or the king of Egypt writes to their opposite number. So you you get a sense of the geopolitics of the time, but it's shrouded in decorum. Right. What is appropriate to say in certain contexts. And we only really have one side of the of the discussion. So if we have let's say Egypt at its height under Thutmose the Third, ruling an empire at that time, I mean, how big an empire should we be thinking of? And I want to ask that question first of all.

Because if we then fast forward to let's say the reign of Ahenaten, so we can get a real sense of how that empire is already transforming by that pharaoh by the time of Ahenathan and Hotep the Fourth. Yeah. So i purely in terms of geographical extent and I again I'd emphasize I wouldn't think of it as an empire like the Roman Empire or the British Empire. But it's an area of influence. Egypt itself, it should always be stressed.

is the perfect country. So Egypt, bordered naturally by the Mediterranean, by the deserts, by the Cathares to the south of Aswan, is ideal. You don't need Egypt doesn't need to expand. It's already perfect, set by the gods. But to the north, in the reign of Tutmos III, you know, there's areas of influence up to the Euphrates. So it's a big stretch. of up into w what is now modern Syria and and Iraq, to the south, deep into what is now Sudan.

To the west, of course, there's Libya and we'll come back to Libya because Ramesses really makes a makes a point of that as well. And so these are the kind of the natural extents of ancient Egyptian exploitation. So they want stuff. They're not interested really in everyone believing in the Egyptian way of life. Yes, there are elite key people that Pay homage to the king and send tribute.

But they want stuff, they want materials, they want gold, they want, you know, access to to to to metals, to exotic products, to people. There's exploitation of people, of course. There are enslaved people in all of this. But maybe not. quite of the character that maybe we've been led to to to think in scriptural sources.

And so that's it at its height. I mean, so how does it decline by the time we get to Akenaten? A few decades is it quite a few decades later, isn't it? Yeah, so if we think so Tutmore was is in the fourteen hundreds, Akhenaten is the mid thirteen hundreds. Okay. So sixty, seventy, eighty years later. There's a lot of ping ponging goes on. between so if you're a kind of small state in the south of modern Syria, say?

And you've got the Egyptians who claim, you know, control or some kind of nominal control of your land and want you to send tribute, that's fine if they come and they have a military sortie and they beat you up. But then when the Egyptians withdraw back to their capital at Memphis, this will be important later.

Then they're quite far away from the south of Syria. And Memphis is almost the northern capital as well, isn't it? Yeah, that's the the apex of the of the delta, where the the delta meets the the valley in Egypt. But then if you've got the Hittite, who are the north of Syria, you've got peoples to what is n in uh what is now uh modern Turkey, you've got the Assyrians.

more towards the the West. When they come and threaten you, you'll immediately change loyalty to the person, the big bad wolf that's that's closer to you. So the Egyptians always had a problem about exerting influence from so far away and maybe that led to a shift in the the notional capital which was affected by the nineteenth. Starta äventyret hos få. Nu kan du privatlisen fåd Explorer eller få kaper.

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So that's interesting. So do you therefore see as as those decades go on in the eighteenth dynasty, do you see those new powers like the Hittites, like the Assyrians becoming more prominent and Egypt In contrast, you know, these rulers become a bit more obsessed with the luxuries, this idea of decadence and so on. And so Egyptian power on the

Well, the Bronze Age world stage does diminish and the po the other powers like the Hittites does grow at that time. Yes, there's definitely a sense of the the expansion And the the kind of awakening of other powers. But you're right to say that by the reign of Amenhotep III, so again, 1300. There is this sense of the international court. So yeah, internationalism is a sign of kind of cosmopolitan life at court.

for the wealthy. But while people are enjoying, you know, the latest imported pottery and very fine designs and jewellery, other military things might be slipping. And that is in in proportion to the ambition of other powers. Okay, so what follows Achenatin? It doesn't end well for Akenartin, does it? Yeah, you could say that I suppose. We don't know what exactly happens. Akenatin's very experimental. The experiment backfires.

And they have to undo all the revolutionary Well sorry, very briefly this experimental stuff. I know this is another episode in the samurai. Right. So Akhenaten decides there are no gods but the sun god, a special form of the sun god, and he is the unique interlocutor with the sun god the Atan.

So that's why he changes his name from Amenhotep, the god Amun is satisfied to Aken Atan, effective for the Aten. And then for gosh, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years, he He and his immediate successors to a degree we're not quite sure of espouse the worship of the Atan and they close all the other temples.

So quite apart from it just being a religious revolution, it is an economic challenge. Because imagine you're the high priest of the god Amun and the king says, Nope, we're closing the Temple of Karnak. Okay then. This is almost a bit of economic self destruction at the same time. Yeah. I mean people have compared it to to Henry the Eighth and monasteries and you know, trying to

wrest power from these religious institutions into the hands of the king, which I think there's a good argument that that's what Ahenaten's trying to do. But it creates all kinds of issues. Anyway, Akenaten says he himself is going back To well going back, going to a new virgin site, his capital city, what we call Amarna now, the city of Akhet. Hence the Amarna letters they make it. Exactly. So this is this is the source of the the so-called diplomatic correspondence in the Foreign Office.

But so tha that settlement in Middle Egypt is the home of the king, it's where the the king and the elite are gonna be buried. And you get the sense that Akhenaten's really kind of sequestered himself away at Amarna. And is ignoring other things where traditionally the king in ancient Egypt moved around, it was a peripatetic court, as in other traditions, the king moves around to keep an eye on people, to make sure that they're loyal.

Who knows what else is happening in Egypt at this time, but the court is focused in Middle Egypt, so you could see that the letters are arriving. Saying to Akenaten, we could do with your help if if if you want to maintain your presence in this part of the Levant, then please send help. And he doesn't seem to send help. He doesn't. So alarm bells are ringing, feels a bit of a tumultuous time inside Egypt and beyond for Egyptian influence.

So what follows him? I mean, how do we get to these last big figures in the eighteenth dynasty? And I guess this this gradual decline that follows?

Well, the biggest name in terms of, you know, historical cache is of course Tutankhamun. Tutankhamun, okay. So Tutankhamun by most accounts is the son of Akhenaten, right? And he comes to the throne we can be as sure as we can be sure. at nine or ten years old. Oh dear. Wow. He's a little boy, and he is being controlled by kind of revisionist politicians for want of a better term, who want to backtrack on the revolution.

And so all of this is put in the words of the boy king I have restored the temples. And where the gods, you know, abandoned and ignored Egypt, I have I have propitiated them and put things back to how they were. Of course, a ten year old boy is not getting in a chariot really. Maybe towards the end of his life in his later teenage years he is there is evidence that Tutankhamun does engage in some kind of military activity.

But there must be powers and we know there are powers, military powers that are not blood relations of the royal family, who are thinking, right, we need to get some action going here. To reclaim or at least to maintain some of these again areas of influence. I I don't think it's trying to defend the empire because I think the the empire, such as it was, had already frayed. It is about trying to push those trade alliances.

Yeah. Areas of influence. Like military advisers at court kind of thing, or actual active commanders in the field? Active commanders in the field. And so those people who usually would be kind of subordinate advisers to the king really rise in prominence. So Itutankhaman dies however he dies, believe what you want, chariot accident, malaria. killed by a hippo, whatever. We'll never know. But then he's uh succeeded by this kind of shadowy elder figure, the God's father I

Who rules for a couple of years? It's A Y, isn't it? He is very odd. And then he eventually is is succeeded.

by an out and out military man. And this is your man Horum Heb. Now, this is a very interesting figure. So what do we know about Horum Heb? So Horam Heb comes from non royal backgrounds as far as we can tell. He must, of course, be a mover and a shaker. He's in the the Royal Courts, but he clearly we know from the extensive preserved evidence of his tomb at Saqara, where he built a really impressive tomb chapel to celebrate his eternal cult.

He was then in charge of the military. So he says he's the the chief of the of the soldiers, the fighting men. He's also in charge of building works, and I think this is important to understand Torum Heb. He is not just a military man. He's in charge of the recruits. And the recruits are guys who can equally be sent on a campaign to beat people up as they can be sent to a quarry, as they can be sent to a mine. So you're in charge not just of

you know, military personnel, but you're in charge of people. And so he's unusual. Horem Hip is unusual because we've got statues of him where he's very proudly writing things down as a scribe. So don't think of him as a kind of kind of meathead guy who's who's just a bit of a brute. I think he's

intelligent, he's clearly someone who understands the workings of the state and who is proud of his ability as an administrator. So he really is an all rounder. And so when the throne eventually passes to him, you know, he's he's in charge for almost a couple of decades. He has a long reign. So he's again holding the the reins of power. And he is the one who really goes back and tries to scrub out evidence of acinatin or begins that process.

And he is you know he is a military usurper. So the fact that then he has a success oh you you Took a big breath there. And so he he instigates what is essentially a military coup. Yes. Yes. That's what I'm thinking. And the state of the army at that time, because I can imagine almost Horoheb, if he's staged this coup, then he needs substantial support amongst the army itself. Do we know much about what the army looked like at this time? Is it

split around the place? Is it professional? What should we be imagining? So compared to earlier periods, say the Middle Kingdom, you know, w you know, a few hundred years before When we know there are military raids going on down into Nubia, um up into the the Levant. It seems that to raise an army you basically go round and say, Come on, chaps, who wants to fight? Whereas by the end of the eighteenth dynasty there is a professionalization.

So you will say I'm a charioteer, my father was a charioteer. So there must be I hesitate to say a military class, but there are a group of people whose ancestors have fought And done some pretty impressive things, possibly in the eighteenth dynasty. So yes, I think there isn't a professionalization. And maybe these people have been in the reign of Akhenaten possibly sitting around with nothing to do.

And you could imagine someone like Horumheb mm organizing these people in that charismatic figurehead, right? Yeah. And and in Horumheb's first, because he has two tombs, because he c becomes a feroon. therefore takes a tomb in the Valley of the Kings down at Thebes. But in his first tomb, he's shown, you know, engaged in military activity under Tutankhamun. So we should understand it that Tutankhamun is the nominal

the notional patron. He's sending off the the troops into battle, but it's Horemheb who's actually doing it and commanding them. He's the one who probably has the respect more of the actual soldiers on the ground. And soldiers wise, should we be thinking the chariots for the elite and then

everyday Egyptian soldiers, archers, or infantry with not too much equipment? Yeah. So remember we're still in the Bronze Age. You're fighting with bronze m metal weapons. This is not the Iron Age yet in Egypt. You are going into battle here as a foot soldier with a shield, which is a pretty important, a dagger or a sword, and an axe. Oh, an axe So you're gonna

uh someone. But you you should also, I guess, remember that the chariot is still a fairly modern invention. It's a couple of hundred years old. And I think we think of ancient Egypt as always having used chariots, but but they've come into Egypt from from the north, maybe brought with the the Hyksos and these wars of liberation. And those are only, yeah, a couple of hundred years before. So Horamheb

has the connections, the elite military connections with other generals, so that's important. And then, as you say, he probably has the loyalty of the foot soldiers, the infantry. It's so interesting with Horemhead because so often in ancient history you might see, you know, a dynasty, a role figure be toppled by a military figure. But then so often, right after that, either that military figure proves incapable of being an administrator and ruling Or you see it just break out into

Other generals think, actually, I don't respect you as my leader anymore. I'm going to try and seize power myself. So you see a breakdown into civil war. the fracturing of kingdoms and so on. So does that make Horumheb's achievement even greater? The fact that he does reign for a long time and does prove to be quite an it seems quite an effective rule.

Based on the evidence, always this caveat. Based on the evidence that we have, of course, the the ruler is honor bound to describe themselves as the best and God given and and doing everything very effectively. They're not recording negative things, but still you do get the sense.

That Horamheb is an effective ruler, the one thing that he lacks is an heir, a male heir. Right. And this is again some responsible thinking for any ruler. If you don't have an air, you don't have a spare, you don't have a male Descendant. blood descendant, you have to make plans to make it absolutely clear.

who is going to be the next king'cause you could drop dead at any moment. Is adoption a thing at the time? Yes. Adoption is a social practice in Egypt. It's an important social practice. So at that level I mean it's relatively unusual that that kings who have many wives don't somehow manage to produce a male heir, but Hormheb for whatever reason doesn't have surviving male uh surviving sons.

So he adopts, for want of a better term, this chap Pa Ramesu, who is the vizier, the the chati, the the kind of chief minister, but also uh has a military background. And he is from the we know a bit about him, his background, his father Seti, based in the in the eastern Nile Delta, so the family hometown is known about. And so he has the great advantage of having a living son and probably a living grandson. So there is a line ready.

So maybe these guys are just mates, they're just friends from the battlefield, but maybe there are other strategic social political reasons. So we can presume that's I mean Porumheb choosing his heir and Paramasu, you know, probably was a loyal subordinate in the close circle, but also Aside from that loyalty, someone who had that family line Sure. We don't know if he had any connection to the uh royal family of old at all, do we? Um

You you could expect that y if you didn't have a connection, you'd want there to be a connection by marrying a random princess of royal blood. That was quite effective. And it tended to be the blue blooded women. Who really made the king, who really confirmed the legitimacy of the line. So is Pa Ramasu, kind of clue in the name, is he the beginning of this new dynasty, of the nineteenth dynasty? Yes. And of what Egyptologists call the Ramasid age.

Because he is as king when he becomes king for a short time, for a couple of years. He takes the name Ramesses and he becomes Ramesses the first. He's Ramesses the first, because we always hear about Ramesses II, don't we? But we don't hear about Ramesses the first.

And do we know much about his reign? It's short-lived, as you say, but do we know much? It's short lived. He has ambition, you know, he starts a very nice tomb in the Valley of the Kings, which has to literally be cut short because he only lives a a couple of years. But something about Ramesses the First So we are using these names, which are the people in question's birth names. So the parents of Ramesses I call him Pa Ramesu, which means literally he of the sun god. Wow. Okay. But

his name as king, he he takes on a series of names, but the names the the ancient Egyptians would have known these people by is the throne name, the pre nomen as opposed to the gnomon. The gnomon is your birth name, what your family might call you. But the throne name for Ramesses I is Telling. So he's called Men Pichti Re. So that means literally the strength. of the sun god is established or establishing the strength of the sun god. So pechti means strength.

And we know that the first king of the eighteenth dynasty, Ahmose II, who's this military guy, he is called Nebdi Re. So there's this reference to strength. And we know also that the family are from this part of the eastern delta in the north of Egypt. Where the god Seth is the local patron. Now who's the god Seth? Now Seth, we've encountered him before, you and I. But Seth is kind of the yin to the yang of Horus.

So he's often described in very negative terms because he's a god of storms and He tr tries to do nasty things to his nephew, but he's also great of strength that God saith is emblematic of this kind of brute, uncontrolled, voracious strength on the battlefield. So the fact that Ramesses the first takes that name, I think, is politically And religiously the two are interconnected. And so he originates his family originates from the north of Egypt. Yes. But when he becomes Pharaoh at that time

Does he have to relo relocate himself further south? Because you mentioned the Valley of the Kings earlier. Yes. Although Horamheb is buried much further north at Sakara, but is it at that time that Luxor and ancient Thebes is the main centre of Egypt? Yes, though I should should say Horamheb's tomb is abandoned in the north because he's not really buried there. Oh well. Because he's a king.

He has artisans go and add a snake to his brow on all the d almost all the depictions of of him in his tomb at Saqqara in the north, because he's become a king. Right. But a king in the new kingdom of Egypt at that time cannot be buried in a mere Saqqara tomb. He's got to be buried in the royal cemetery at the Valley of the Kings. So Ramesses the First And this is an i interesting question, unlike Akhenaten doesn't just stay in one place at one time and stick there. He moves around.

Back well, he continues this tradition of the peripatetic court, but there is definitely a favoring of the North. Oh, well, and it may be that. Ramesses I gives his name to an incredible new settlement developed by his son, Seti I and his grandson, Ramesses II, and that is called Peramses or Per Ramses, which in ancient Egyptian means house of Ramesses. En polarklemma håller humöret uppe.

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So this is why I wanted to talk about Ramesses the First for quite a bit, because he lasts not very long at all, and yet From the surviving evidence of, you know, first his son and then Ramesses the Great. you can actually see perhaps a few of the projects that he had in mind that he didn't get to live long enough to see through. Y yeah, I think that's a really good good way to think about it, Tristan, because I think well, he gives his name to eleven Kings.

this whole period, as I said, is called the Ramesside period in the first Ramesses Ramesses the First must have ambition, because he's chosen by Horamhib. He must be quite a dynamic guy, and he must pass on, at least to his son, if not to his grandson.

you know, spoken instructions for what for what he he wants to achieve. So Ramesses the Great, his grandson, is alive at the time. Is ruling for that. He I think he must be. So I think W whether Ramesses II, Prince, the young prince, is already anointed as the chosen successor. I mean even the concept of the crown prince that you get in modern um you know European monarchies, I don't think that quite applies.

you don't have to be it is notionally the eldest son, but there is internal competition and I think it is up to the reigning monarch, the king, to say Okay, you're better than him. Right. And so so uh you know, th there's the heir apparent may not necessarily be the eldest eldest uh boy, but I'm f as sure as I can be given the reign length of Seti the First, that the baby young boy Ramesses the second is known to his grandfather.

Well then let's talk about Seti I. So what do we know about his reign following the death of Ramesses I? He gets to it pretty quickly, and by most Egyptologists' estimation, Seti I really is a pretty self-conscious and effective patron of the art. He takes this very interesting name, which is a throwback itself to earlier kings, Wechem Mesut, which means literally repeater of birth.

So literally in ancient Egyptian, it me means Renaissance. He wants to undo a lot of the Amarna interlude. We know that. He goes around restoring images of Amun, adding his own name, where the name wasn't there previously, and in that he inspires his son deeply, I think there is a deep psychological thing about this. Still remember New Kids in the Block, Arab East Dynasty. They want to make absolutely sure that their claim is solid and will last.

And they do that by restoring the works of their ancestors and shouting about how much they've restored the works of their ancestors. And so Seth I commissions this incredible temple, which still is one of my favourite sites in Egypt at Abyddos. site in the south of Egypt, a bit north of Thebes. That's the sacred site of the ancient god Osiris. So you very easily by building a temple there connect yourself to this. very longstanding cult of the the god of rebirth.

And in that temple, beautifully decorated temple, there is a very significant corridor. Very significant for historical reasons, because following on a tradition which itself is quite old, of celebrating previous kings, there is a scene of Seti I and his young son Ramesses reading out declaiming, announcing, ritualizing the names of all their predecessors. And this hall of ancestors is significantly located between the abattoir

And the temple offering rooms. So all the offerings of, you know, the beef have to go in front of the corridor. So you are feeding the souls of everyone named on the wall as you put. So it's this metaphysical sense of not just celebrating, look at all these great kings who have come before, but ensuring that their souls quite literally are sustained with offerings. by locating the the offering list in this particular place. It also anchors um Ramesses the second in

As prince. Crown prince this time we think, yeah. Yeah. I mean really as the heir apparent. And there must be what's not uncommon in ancient Egypt, a co regency. So there is a not just a crown prince, there is a nominated successor who kind of shares the throne, and maybe you know, setting the first. saw or foresaw that he wasn't gonna live a very long life. He can only be forty ish when he dies. And then Ramesses II must come to the throne pretty young.

Twenty maybe. I mean it feels like Seti his reign i it's a decade or so, isn't it? Or just more than a decade. But yes, because Ramesses the first has died so quickly He is focused in like kind of consolidating the new dynasty, legitimizing its position with those kind of images, those d dedications to temples and ancestors. But also I guess military activity too, that's another important thing he has to do. Yes. Yes, absolutely. You're right.

We know this on the north wall of the outside of the main temple of Amunakarna. I've seen yes. Uh you've been there, you've stood in front of the nunning. My gosh. And often it's missed by tourists. They they they're impressed by the hyperstyle hall and what's going on inside. But if you step outside, you see an absolutely incredible Depiction of military engagements where, you know, Seti I is leading. His trip.

into battle along the ways of Horus. So this is up northeast into the into the Levant. And so there is

Again, there's a lot of trying to control these ping-pong states to try and get them back under Egyptian control. And where in some cases, especially when it comes to the Hittites, you get the impression that Seti I will let some he picks his battles quite literally, and he lets some sleeping dogs lie, where maybe Prince Ramesses, who may actually be involved, he may be as a teenager physically be involved on campaign. N you get the sense maybe Seti the first stops short.

Where Ramesses II wants to continue. and push further when eventually he becomes king. It's like Philip the Second of Macedon and Alexander the Great, it's the dad that lays the foundations for the sons. Yeah. Interesting. Good analogy, yeah. But but I no I I just want to focus a bit more on that north wall of

And one of my favourite pictures parts of it is you see a river full of crocodiles. Yes. Yeah, you're snapping at the unfortunates who've gone into the river. This idea that the Egyptians have to cross this river, I think it's like the Sinai Peninsula, that area they think it is all around there. to get into Syria where they're campaigning. And then I think you see another depiction of Kadesh.

of all places in Seti's reign, and he's besieging Kadesh at that time. It's Seti, not Ramesses. Indeed. So people hear Battle of Kadesh, and if they know anything about ancient warfare, they think of Ramesses II. But the the grudge with Kadesh Definitely dates back to the reign of Seti and the first. So Kadesh is in what's now modern Syria. So it's it's far from Egypt. You have to take several weeks to to go there by foot with a big army. But that's what Seti does. He goes, he campaigns there.

And this is partly a hangover of the Amarna period that those depictions are so detailed. That is an Amarna thing. You would never see that level of detail in the reign of Tutmos III. And maybe there's something to be proven and maybe it's Seti the first really trying to make the point. that there must be something like a kind of court war correspondent or war artist because the detail is very specific.

And most ancient Egyptian scenes do not reflect history as it happened and don't reflect the world as it actually is. But yeah, there are details That bring about this this world in which foreigners anyone who's unfortunate enough to be n non Egyptian is in disarray. and the Egyptians are successful on campaign. So the the the local detail, the the scenes of yeah, a siege, fortifications, uh canals, rivers

you know, siege warfare, that does seem to ring true. God, it's so fascinating, isn't it? And With Seti's reign, although he doesn't last very long, well actually one other thing, we mentioned Karnak there and the hypostyled hall, which we normally associate with Ramesses II constructed beginning under Seti, or maybe even older than that, do we think? I think it it maybe was conceptualized.

All the way back under Amenhotep the Third, and Seti the First does the bulk of the work. Okay. So I think it's really realized. by Seti I and he begins to decorate it and and by the time he dies it's half finished. Right. And so Ramesses II completes it. But it is an absolutely astounding piece of architecture, you know. World architecture, absolutely breathtaking. And his tomb as well in the Valley of the Kings, it's one of the most pristine, remarkable tombs.

is in real terms bigger but is much, much less well preserved.

Well that's Seti's reign. I mean how successful would you argue that SETI is because normally it is the case that the predecessor really sets the scene for the the greatness of the person that follows in in several cases. Once again, Philip and Alexander. How successful do you think Seti is in the context of, you know, consolidating control and getting the nineteenth dynasty really on track? Oh, I th I think he's pretty successful. I think he he, as you said sets the the the train in motion.

for what he hopes is going to be a long lived dynasty, as we'll discuss maybe in the next episode. The fact that his son is so long lived may actually compromise Seti's plans. But as a military man Clearly, you know, I guess Seti I would have remembered a time when he was not meant to be the king. You know, he was a military general. He was the son of a military general. He was someone important, but he had to prove himself amongst his

Colleagues. Yeah, his peers, exactly. So he has the kind of kingship thrust upon him, you could say. So he he has that genuine ingenuity where uh in his Conscious life, Ramesses II was always a prince. So you always have that kind of

the silver spoon in his mouth. So maybe his ambition is slightly different from his father's. But his father in terms of especially in terms of architectural and artistic work, as you mentioned, the tomb in the Valley of the Kings, work at Karnak, um other sites as well, but t the temple of uh set of the first at Abidos. These are just beautiful things. And I think he does instigate this co regency that sets the scene.

for Ramesses II. And when eventually Ramesses II takes the throne, he says at that Abido's temple, I arrived here and found it unfinished, and I finished it in honor of his father. So he he doesn't change the names. Well, he does m around the ages perhaps. He completes it in his own name, which is completely Okay, by ancient Egyptian standards. It's not that the son is trying to elbow the father out of the way. He's simply complimenting his father because kingship is timeless.

And none of those images of the kings look like the real people on the walls. So you can simply continue the imagery. It's not a conflict in the way we might think.

And so we get to the reign of Ramesses II. We'll cover only the first few years as we wrap up this episode. Um, but firstly Is there any challenger to Ramesses II's succession? Um if Seti's made it quite clear in his wall paintings and that and the the reliefs that he seems to be the clear air apparent, do we know much about the succession and whether there was any difficulty around it?

Well, th there's an interesting set of evidence at Karnak where there's a chap called Mechu, Mehu or Mechi, I forget. Who's is shown in a very prominent position in these battle reliefs. So you get the sense that this guy is the the right hand man. And in some of those reliefs his image has changed to being Prince Ramesses. Now, I wouldn't make too much of this, I think that's just what's appropriate. To Ramesses the second, I don't think this represents another rival claimant to the throne.

It may just be when the reliefs were executed, it was fitting at the time. And then as time progressed, Ramesses II really wanted to claim part of that legacy. But no, the the succession seems fairly clear. As I said, there is a co-regency. And the for example that scene in the Hall of Ancestors at Abados, you can see That is a product of the work of Seti I, when Seti I is still alive. So it seems that Ramesses II is the anointed heir and is is is accepted as such.

And how does he initially reign? What do we even know about those earliest years of Ramesses II as pharaoh? You get the impression well, he has to finish off some of his dad's building stuff. But you do get that sense that he's itching to get in a chariot and go beat up some uh foreigners So as I say, it's probably likely that he had some

experience in the entourage at least of his father, whether he's actively out on the front lines is another question. That doesn't seem to happen later in Ramesses II's own reign, but he goes, yeah, year four, year five, so early in the reign of Ramesses the Second's long time in the throne, he goes out to Kadesh again, and he wants to confirm the status of these vassal states. So these are

kind of client kingdoms. Again, I resist this this term empire. It's not like they're trying to turn them Egyptian. It's trying to get their loyalty, their fealty, their Well it's buffer streets as well, I guess, you know buffers, vessels, yes. enemy, which in in the early part of the reign of Ramesses the second, that's the Hittites. So that's like the north of Syria, even into yeah, modern modern Turkey as the is the seat of the Hittite Empire.

So he feels he has beef, unfinished beef with Kadesh after his dad. So he goes up to Syria and is this when we get The famous Battle of Kadesh.

Yes, and it's famous because he tells us so many times. He's done it. It's recorded in in several temples, his mansion of millions of years, which we'll talk about separately. Karnak, Luxor, Abu Symbol, he's talking about this a lot. And so yeah, the engagement is fascinating because we know a lot from recorded speeches.

So you get this sense not just of the the action as it plays out, but of the psychology of the king. Because there are well, we we can tell something about the the the organization of the military. So you have the infantry, you have the chariots divided up into divisions, and the divisions are named after gods. I don't know how common that is in the ancient world.

I can't think of any other examples that come to mind straight away. I'm sure someone will have a comment there and saying that there might be one, but no When you think of divisions of armies, you do think of Kadesh and this description that you have, right? Yeah. So so you've got you they're named after the major gods of Egypt, Amun, Eptah, Seth, and the sun god Re.

And so in the account, it's very unusual. The the Kadesh account is unusual because it reflects, it's unusually reflective, because it allows that mistakes are made by the Egyptians. So it talks about You know, these informants are captured and these non-Egyptian informants and they say, Oh, the Hittite ruler is a hundred and twenty yeah He's far away. He's really far away leagues off.

And so the Egyptians are okay with that. So they they they kind of become a little complacent, maybe, when they're marching to make camp near Kadesh. then they get hold of better intelligence, which says that the Hittites are much closer. And the Hittites, surprise, surprise, attack the Egyptians when they're unprepared. And so there's this extraordinary episode in which the attack comes and it's really the king is said to be alone. He finds himself alone.

And so the drama is and of course you can see how Ramesses spins this. Basically, the the greatness of the king comes at the expense of the soldiers, who are y usually said to be pretty good and pretty effective. No, no, they're deserters or they're disorganized, and so Ramesses personally has to fight. off the the Hittite.

pursues them into the river and so manages to to win a kind of stalemate. So it's less bad than it could have been. I mean, imagine the the king could have been captured or killed or much worse could have happened. The Egyptians suffer, it is acknowledged, some heavy losses, but they are able to maintain this status quo. So it's a draw, basically. The Battle of Kadesh.

In the Hittite eyes is a success for them, but in the Egyptian eyes is a success for the Egyptians. And Ramesses, at least early on, spins this as Better to kind of keep it as it is and then later we'll go back and regroup and in a couple of years we'll So he snatches a draw from the jaws of defeat. Yes. And you do get a sense then, don't you, putting aside all the the Ramesses' own spin on it that he does later. Yeah. This sense of this young, rash.

You know, kids, like new Pharaoh, young man, yes, and yeah, young man, I know, who wants to kind of follow in his dad's footsteps. But doesn't have the military intuition there, maybe that he's lured into a bad position in a bad intelligence, then gets the better intelligence later. And he's outwitted by this other king, by this Hittite ruler and his chariots and the like, isn't it? Yeah, it's for the first time you see a an Egyptian king and his opposite number essentially the enemy

On a kind of even footing. So it almost emphasizes the scale of the challenge and so the relative success of the draw, I guess. That the Hittites, in terms of numbers, are a big force. So to have got that stalemate is is a win for Ramesses. So how significant do you think is the result at Kadesh?

for Ramesses, if you look at what he does afterwards, if you take the actual military like effect of it out of the picture, the fact that okay, it is a draw. But is it ultimately a a success for Ramesses because of what he then later does with that? Yes, because I think he can come back to Egypt. Remember there are no it's obvious to say, but it sounds a bit trivial. There are no smartphones. There are no photographs.

The king has come back and maybe he's captured some booty from the battlefield, and he says, Yeah, great success, guys. You will believe whatever the returning force says. you don't have the the fact checking, you don't have the the the counter narrative. So for for Ramesses to come back after God, it must be more than a year away.

So the the king has been away from Egypt, away from the capital, away from the palace for a long time. So for him to come back with some stuff And the story is a success enough. And then he'll just paint that. paint those pictures of him on the walls of temples there looking triumphant as a figure to try and r reinforce that image of a successful returning king. Absolutely. And I think also th there is a sense of it being a stopgap.

Because you could imagine he is still young. It's only year five, year six. You could think, right, well I'll go back and have another go in future and then I'll re carve the wall. Or I will achieve the success that I'm claiming on the on the wall as it stands. So is it very much Kadesh And its result. This is only the beginning of Ramesses' story. This is only the beginning of his reign. And he's still got a a lot to do, a lot to learn and a lot to to show off.

Yes, I I think he d he does think of it as a lesson. I mean if we can try and get into his head, but it's a start for ten, it's not the end of the story. And we'll continue that in Campbell, as always, such a pleasure to have you on the show. Ramesses II, his father and grandfather and Hormheb and the likes before him, how it ultimately paved the way for Ramesses II to take them.

thirteenth century BC. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Campbell will be back next Continue the story to explain more about Ramesses II's long, long reign and what followed. You've got sea people's in there.

And you got quite a bit of chaos, which is going to be really fun to explore. So make sure you come back for our second episode with Campbell next week. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Ancients. If you enjoyed, If you're enjoying the show then please make sure that Following the ancients on spectrum. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well we would really appreciate that.

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