Ramesses II the Great
Ancient EgyptA Pharaoh for the Ages
Around 1279 BC, a young man in his mid-twenties ascended the throne of Egypt and began one of the longest reigns in the ancient world. Ramesses II, the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, would rule for roughly sixty-six years, outliving many of his own children. Egyptians later remembered him simply as the builder, the warrior, and the father of his people. The Greeks would call him Ozymandias, a name derived from one of his royal titles, Usermaatre. By the time of his death, so many monuments bore his name that he had become almost synonymous with kingship itself, and later pharaohs proudly took his name in his honor.
The Battle of Kadesh
In about 1274 BC, Ramesses marched north to confront the Hittite Empire near the Syrian city of Kadesh, on the Orontes River. According to the Egyptian inscriptions Ramesses later commissioned, he was ambushed and nearly overwhelmed, then rallied his troops and personally turned the tide. Egyptian texts present the clash as a glorious triumph, but most modern historians read it as a costly draw, since Kadesh remained outside Egyptian control. What followed is better documented: roughly fifteen years later, Ramesses and the Hittite king Hattusili III concluded a peace treaty. Copies survive in both Egyptian hieroglyphs and Hittite cuneiform, making it one of the earliest international peace agreements whose text we can still read.
Builder of Monuments
No Egyptian ruler left a more visible mark on the landscape. Ramesses ordered colossal building projects across his realm, from the great temple at Abu Simbel, carved into a cliff in Nubia and guarded by four enormous seated statues of himself, to the vast hypostyle hall completed at Karnak. He founded a new capital in the eastern Nile Delta called Pi-Ramesses, a sprawling royal city near his family's homeland. He also commissioned the Ramesseum, his memorial temple on the west bank of Thebes, where a toppled colossus later inspired the poet Percy Shelley's famous sonnet about the vanity of power.
Family and Legacy
Ramesses had many wives and a remarkable number of children, with sons and daughters numbering in the dozens according to monumental lists he had carved. His most beloved queen was Nefertari, for whom he built a richly painted tomb in the Valley of the Queens and dedicated a smaller temple beside his own at Abu Simbel. Because Ramesses lived so long, he outlived at least a dozen heirs; the son who finally succeeded him, Merneptah, was already elderly. Some scholars have proposed Ramesses as the pharaoh of the biblical Exodus, but there is no direct archaeological or textual evidence linking him to that story, and the identification remains speculative.
Death and Afterlife
Ramesses died around 1213 BC, likely in his early nineties, an extraordinary age for the period. His mummy survived a remarkable journey: ancient priests reburied it to protect it from tomb robbers, and it was rediscovered in a hidden cache near Deir el-Bahari in 1881. In 1976 the mummy was flown to Paris for conservation, where examinations revealed an aged man who had suffered from severe arthritis and dental problems. Through these remains, scholars can still study the body of a king who shaped Egypt's image of itself for centuries after his death.
Key Dates to Remember
- c. 1279 BC — Ramesses II ascends the throne of Egypt, beginning a reign of about 66 years.
- c. 1274 BC — The Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites, celebrated in Egyptian inscriptions as a great victory.
- c. 1259 BC — Ramesses and the Hittite king Hattusili III conclude one of history's earliest recorded peace treaties.
- c. 1213 BC — Ramesses II dies at an advanced age and is succeeded by his son Merneptah.