Famous Pharaohs

Wars of Ramses II With Tunep and Canaan

After peace had been made with the Khita, their frontiers were henceforth spared, although several cities could not prevail upon themselves to acknowledge the Egyptian supremacy. In one of these, “Tunep, in the land of Naharain”, where Ramses had set up his statues as visible memorials of his campaigns against Khita, the opposition of the population assumed such a serious aspect, that Ramses saw himself obliged to lead his army and his chariots in person against Tunep. The memorial inscription preserved in the Ramesseum at Thebes, unfortunately destroyed in its upper part, describes this campaign in the following terms: "his warriors, and of his (chariots. His) armour was upon him. And the king came again to take his armour, and to put it on. And he utterly smote the hostile Khita, who were in the neighbourhood of the city of Tunep in the land of Naharain. After that he no more put on his armour". In the eighth year we again find the king on the soil of the land of Canaan, where, in the territory of what was afterwards Galilee, as well as in the neighbourhood of that ill-famed country, the inhabitants mocked at Pharaoh's highness, and at length tired out his patience. They were punished by the capture of their fortresses ; and their kings and elders, together with the men capable of bearing arms, were carried away to the land of Kemi, after the Egyptian warriors had grossly insulted them, beaten them, and, in token of shame, had plucked out the long beards of the Canaanites. The representation of the conquest of the fortresses had its place on the northern flanking-tower at the corner of the west side of the temple of Ramses on the west side of Thebes. An inscription was annexed to every fortress, beginning with the words, “This is the city which the king took in the eighth year”, to which the particular designation of the place was added. In what has been preserved we can make out the names: Shalama (that is the town of peace), the place Salem, or Saleim, to the south of Scythopolis; Maroma, that is Merom; 'Ain-'Anamim, that is, Anim or Engannim; “Dapur: in the land of the Amorites”, the well-known fortress on Mount Tabor; “the town Kalopu, on the mountain of Beitha-Antha”, that is, the Bethanath of Scripture, in the land of Cabul.

Previous Campaigns of Ramses II Against Kadesh

Thus did the poet on the banks of the holy river sing the heroic deed of King Ramses II before Kadesh. We are indebted to the Egyptian Homer for full information about this historical event, the knowledge of which was never transmitted by tradition to the memory of men. The wars of the king in Syria and Canaan did not certainly begin in the fifth year of his reign, in which the great battle of Kadesh took place ; but as early as the preceding years Earases had extended his first campaign as far as these countries. The three celebrated rock tablets in the neighbourhood of Beyrout, which were as well known to the Greek travelers in the fifth century before our era, (they are the columns of Sesostris mentioned by Herodotus), as they are still in our own day the goal of enquiring pilgrims in the land of Palestine, testify to the presence of King Ramses II at this very place in the second year and first campaign, and in the fifth year and second campaign, of his reign.

Pictures of Battle of Kadesh

From the poet we pass to the unknown painter and sculptor, who has chiselled in deep work on the stone of the same wall, with a bold execution of the several parts, the procession of the warriors, the battle before Kadesh, the storming of the fortress, the overthrow of the enemy, and the camp life of the Egyptians. The whole conception must even at this day be acknowledged to be grand beyond measure, for the representation sets before our eyes the deeds which were performed more vividly than any description in words and with the richest handling of the material, and displays the whole composition even to its smallest details. Here in the camp of the Egyptians, which was laid out as a square, and was surrounded by an artificial wall of the shields of the Egyptian warriors placed side by side, we see displayed the actions and life of the soldiers and the camp-servants, who rest on the ground by the side of the baggage and the numerous necessaries for a long journey. Among them wander asses, and even the favourite lion of the king has his place within the enclosure. The tent of Pharaoh is seen in the middle of the camp, and near it the movable shrine of the great gods of Egypt. Above the whole is placed the inscription: “This is the first legion of Amon, who bestows victory on King Ramses II (1279-1212 B.C). The Pharaoh is with it. It is occupied in pitching its camp” Not far off the king sits on his throne, and receives the report of his generals, or gives the necessary orders to his followers. Important episodes are not wanting. Thus the Egyptians are dragging forward two foreigners, about whom the appended inscription thus informs us: “This is the arrival of the spies of Pharaoh; they bring two spies of the people of the Khita before Pharaoh. They are beating them to make them declare where the King of Khita is” There the chariots of war and the warriors of the king are passing in good order before Pharaoh: among them the legions of Amon, Ptah, Pra, and Sutekh. Then, after the gods, the hosts of the warriors are for the most part mentioned by name. Mercenary troops also are not wanting, for the Colchian Shardana, whose fine linen was well known to antiquity under the name of Sardonian, appear among the Egyptian allies. They are particularly distinguished by their helmets with horns and a ball-shaped crest, by their long swords and the round shields on their left arm, while then- right hand grasps a spear.

The host also of the Khita and of their allies are represented with a lively pictorial expression, for the artist has been guided by the intention of bringing before the eyes of the beholder the orderly masses of the Khita warriors, and the less regular and warlike troops of the allied peoples, according to their costume and arms. The Canaanites are distinguished in the most striking manner from the allies, of races unknown to us, who are attired with turban-like coverings for the head, or with high caps such as are still worn at the present day by the Persians. Short swords, lances, bows and arrows, form the weapons of the enemies of the Egyptians. We have already made the necessary observations on the warlike and truly chivalrous appearance of the Khita, and must now particularly mention the Tuhir, or “chosen ones” who follow in the train of their king. To these belong the Qel'au, or slingers, who attended close about the person of their prince. Wonderfully rich is the great battle-picture which represents the fight of the chariots before Kadesh on the banks of the Orontes. While the gigantic form of Ramses, in the very midst of the mass of hostile chariots, performs deeds of the highest prowess, to the astonishment of the Egjrptians and of their enemies, his brave son, Prahiunamif, as the chief commander of the chariots, heads the attack on the chariots of the enemy. Several of his brothers, the children of Ramses, take part in the battle. The chariots of the Khita and their warriors are thrown into the river; and among them the King of Khilibu, whom his warriors have just dragged out of the water, and are endeavouring to restore to animation while the battle is raging. They hold their lord by the legs, with his head hanging down. The inscription by the side runs thus: “This is the King of Khilibu. His warriors raise him up after the Pharaoh has thrown him into the water” The battle, or rather its beginning, is described in the following manner in a short annexed inscription on the picture: “When the king had halted, he sat down to the north- west of the town of Kadesh. He had come up with the hostile hosts of Khita, being quite alone, no other was with him. There were thousands and hundreds of chariots round about him on all sides. He dashed them down in heaps of dead bodies before his horses. He killed all the kings of all the peoples who were allies of the king of Khita, together with his princes and elders, his warriors and his horses. He threw them one upon another, head over heels, into the water of the Orontes. There the King of Khita turned round, and raised up his hands to implore the divine benefactor” The battle, or rather the butchery, seems to have been as little agreeable to the people of the Khita as to their lords, for: “The hostile Khita speak, praising the divine benefactor, thus: “Give us freedom (literally, breath) from thy hand, O good king! Let us lie at thy feet; the fear of thee has opened the land of Khita. We are like the foals of mares, which tremble in terror at the sight of the grim lion.”” In the customary manner, above described, the inscriptions sing the praise of their king: “The brave and bold conqueror of the nations, of the highest valour in the field of battle, firm on horseback, and glorious on his chariot, whom none can escape when he seizes his bow and arrows.” - Ramses II and The Inferiority of Buildings and Sculptures.

Heart Scarab of Pakasha

Pharaoh Ramses VI

The inscriptions which mention him speak with a certain emphasis of his monuments in honor of the gods; but of these, those which have survived the ravages of time are reduced to a very small number. The most important edifice, and the most instructive on account of its representations and inscriptions, is his great and splendid tomb in the royal valley of Biban-el-Moluk. The tables of the hours, with the times of the risings of the stars, which formed the houses of the sun's course in the 36 or 37 weeks of the Egyptian year, will be for all times the most valuable contribution to astronomical science in the 12th century before our era. According to the researches of the French savant, Biot, whose labors in the department of astronomical calculation, in order to fix certain epochs of Egyptian history, are almost the only ones which have treated the subject with scientific accuracy, the drawing up of these tables of stars would fall in the reign of Pharaoh Ramses VI, in the year 1240 B.C. Our learned fellow countryman, Professor Lepsius, has, however, from his own point of view, sought to prove that herein lay an error and that, on the authority of the already cited table of hours in the grave of this king, the year 1194 is indicated as the only proper date. This last view does not difier very much from our calculation of 1166, deduced from the number of successive generations. The foregoing inscription is found in a rock-tomb at Anibe, little visited by travelers, on the western bank of the Nile, opposite the village of Ibrim, about fifty kilometers (31 miles) north of Ibsambul.

The owner of the tomb was an official of Pharaoh Ramses VI, of the name of Penni, who, in his office as Adon or governor of the land of Wawa, died and was buried in this lonely region. The directions he left behind him, particularly with regard to the number of estates, the produce of which was devoted to the maintenance of the service of a statue of the king, hardly require an explanation. What makes the inscription particularly valuable is the designation of lands in those parts, and the offices connected with them. He himself, as we have already remarked, was Adon of Wawa. Another Adon is mentioned by the name of Meri. The sun-city of Pira is the ancient designation of the modern place Derr, or Dirr. The city mentioned by the name of Ama, in which a Nubian Horus enjoyed an especial worship, is very often named in the inscriptions, and seems to have been the ancient appellation of Ibrim. At Pira (Derr), in all probability, was the seat of the administration of the whole country of Wawa. The districts of Ahi and the gold land of Akita belonged to it, the revenues of which Penni had to collect and pay over to the Pharaoh. For his especial diligence in the fulfillment of his service to the court he was most warmly commended by the “King's son of Kush” of that time, whose name unfortunately is passed over in silence. On a royal visit, the king appears accompanied by the above-named Meri, who is also called “the superintendent of the temple”, to recommend his officials to the grace of Pharaoh. The statue of the royal lord, which had been set up, plays here an important part. His Majesty appears to have been much pleased with the services of his faithful servant, since he presented Penni with two silver vessels filled with precious ointments, as a reward of honor. Penni was certainly an artist, as is shown by the statue of Pharaoh, and his rock tomb adorned with rich sculptiu-es in stone, but especially by his office, mentioned in the inscriptions, of “master of the quarry”, besides that of a “superintendent of the temple of Horus”, the lord of the town of Ama. These and similar statements are confirmed by the pictures and writings in his eternal dwelling, where he rests surrounded by his numerous relations. The several members of his family appear all to have held during their lifetime various offices in the Horus-city of Ama. I find among them a chief priest of Isis, whose son was the Amenemapi named in the inscription; also two treasurers of the king in Ama, a captain of the city of Ama, a priest and a scribe, while the women are mostly named as female singers of Amon or of Horus, the lord of the town of Ama. When all historical data for depicting the life and deeds of a king fail, the family information contained in the tomb of a contemporary becomes of importance, even if it teaches us nothing else than that in the times of Ramses VI. the Egyptian dominion south of the tropic was still maintained, and that among the "King's sons of Kush" there were several Adons, corresponding to the districts of Kush, to whom again were subordinated the H'a, or governors of the towns.

Magical Funerary Figure: Late New Kingdom

Ramses II's Father, Sons and Daughters

It is scarcely worth while to relate what Ramses II did for the buildings of his father at Abydus. In the course of his long reign the king completed the temple. When the great building was completely finished, Ramses must have been already advanced in years, since not less than sixty sons and fifty-nine daughters of Ramses II greeted in their pictures the entrance of the pilgrims at the principal gate. In proportion as the works executed under Seti, the father, present to the astonished eyes of the beholder splendid examples of Egyptian architecture and sculpture, just so poor and inferior are the buildings which were executed under the reign of Ramses, and which bear the names of the Conquering King. The feeling also of gratitude towards his parent seems to have gradually faded away with Ramses, as years increased upon him, to such a degree, that he did not even deem it wrong to chisel out the names and memorials of his father in many places of the temple walls, and to substitute his own. As we wish to leave it to our readers to form their own opinion on the boastful Ramses, we will turn to another field of his activity, and follow him, in the 5th year of his reign, to the stream of the Orontes in Syria, the waters of which washed the fortress of Kadesh on all sides.

Monuments of Ramses II

This is the king who above all others bears the name of honor of A-nakhtu "the Conqueror", and whom the monuments and the rolls of the books often designate by his popular names of Ses, Sestesu, Setesu, or Sestura, that is, the "Sethosis, who is also called Ramesses" of the Manethonian record, and the renowned legendary conqueror Sesostris of the Greek historians. The number of his monuments, which still to the present day cover the soil of Egypt and Nubia in almost countless numbers, as the ruined remnants of a glorious past, or are daily brought to light from their concealment, is so great and almost countless, that the historian of his life and deeds finds himself in a difficulty where to begin, how to spin together the principal threads, and where to end his work. If to honor the memory of his father be the chief duty and the first work of a dutiful son, and we shall see that this was the persuasion of Ramses II, the beginning is made easy for us, and we shall honor the king's memory in the worthiest manner by using the very words of the great Sesostris about his first acts on entering upon his sole reign. Temple of Ramses II in Abydos: King Seti had died. The temple of Abydus stood half finished. The first royal care of Ramses was to complete the work, and in a long inscription on the left wall of the entrance, to record the intention with which his heart was charged, for the imitation of his contemporaries and of posterity. The lord of the land arose as king, to show honor to his father, in his first year, on his first journey to Thebes.

He had caused likenesses of his father, who was King Seti I, to be sculptured, the one in Thebes, the other in Memphis at the entrance gate, which he had executed for himself, besides those which were in Nifur, the necropolis of Abydus. Thus he fulfilled the wish which moved his heart, since he had been on earth, on the ground of the god Unnofer. He renewed the remembrance of his father, and of those who rest in the under world, in that he made his name to live, and caused his portraits to be made, and fixed the revenues set apart for his venerated person, and filled his house and richly decked out his altars. The walls were rebuilt, which had become old in his favorite house, the halls in his temple were rebuilt, its walls were covered, its gates were raised up; whatever had fallen into decay in the burial place of his father in the Necropolis was restored, and the works of art which had been carried away were brought back into the interior. All this did the Conquering King Ramses II for his father Seti I. He established for him the sacrifices in rich profusion, in his name and in that of the earlier kings. His breast had a tender feeling towards his parent, and his heart beat for him who brought him up.

Menkaure (2532–2504 B.C.)

After Khafra's passage home to the realm of the dead, where the king of the gods, Osiris, held the sceptre, Men-kau-ra (Menkaure), Mencheres, ascended the throne. This is the Mykerinos, Mencherinos, about whom the Greek authors relate that he erected the third pyramid as a memorial of honour. It is called in the texts by the name of hir, that is, "the high one". When Colonel Vyse found his way to the middle of the chamber of the dead and entered into the silent space of "Eternity", his eye discerned, as the last trace of Menkaura's place of burial, the wooden cover of the sarcophagus, and the stone coffin hewn out of one hard block, beautifully adorned outside in the style of a temple, according to the fashion of the masters of the old empire. The sarcophagus rests now at the bottom of the Mediterranean, the English vessel which was conveying it having been wrecked near Gibraltar. The cover, which was saved, thanks to the material of which it was composed, is now exhibited in the gallery of Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum.

Its outside is adorned with a short text conceived in the following terms: "Osiris, who hast become king of Egypt, Menkaura hving eternally, child of Olympus, son of Urania, heir of Kronos, over thee may she stretch herself and cover thee, thy divine mother, Urania, in her name as mystery of heaven. May she grant that thou shouldest be like God, free from all evils, King Menkaura, living eternally". This prayer is of very ancient origin, for there are examples of it found on the covers of sarcophagi belonging to the dynasties of the ancient empire. The sense of it is full of significance. Delivered from mortal matter, the soul of the defunct king passes through the immense space of heaven to imite itself with God, after having overcome the evil which opposed it during its life on its terrestrial journey. According to classic traditions King Mencheres enjoyed a very good reputation among pharaonic ancestors. He is described as a man distinguished for his justice and kindness, as also for his piety in regard to all that concerned the worship of the gods. For this reason the Egyptians after his death accorded him the honors of a god, by establishing a special worship dedicated to his memory. I do not know if we ought to attribute a great importance to this worship. The Egyptians rendered him the same honor which the kings, his predecessors, enjoyed after their decease. For the monuments of the time of the building of the pyramids mention priests and prophets which were devoted to the service of Kheops, Chabryes, and other rulers, and who oflfered them sacrifices and attended to their service, after the "lord of the world" had left the hght and descended to the depth of his grave. As to the religious sentiments which we attribute to the Pharaoh Mencheres, it seems in fact that Mencheres Pius occupied himself during his Ufe by a certain predilection with sacred literature. The book called Pirem-lieru, the so-called "departure from day", recalls his memory particularly in gate 64. According to the words of the text the author finishes the gate with this remark: "This gate was discovered in the town of Hermopolis, engraved on a block of alabaster, and painted in blue color under the feet of this god. It was discovered at the epoch of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Mencheres the defunct, by the prince his son, Hortotef, when he undertook a journey to inspect the temples of Egypt. He brought it as a wonderful thing to the king, after having recognized the contents full of mystery".

Queen Nofretari

The name of the architect Ahmose has not been perpetuated on the walls of the Theban temples, but the rock tablets of Maassara down to the present hour have in the inscriptions preserved the memorial of him, and by the side of him the remembrance of his consort, the great heiress-queen NOFRET-ARI-AHMOSE, that is, "the beautiful companion of Ahmose." Not only the rocky caverns of Toora and Maassara, within sight of Memphis, the capital of the oldest dynasties, but also a number of public monuments in the interior of the dark chambers of the tombs of the Theban Necropolis, have clearly preserved the name of this queen, surrounded by laudatory inscriptions. Long after her decease this great ancestress of the new empire was venerated as a divine being, and her image was placed as an equal among the eternal inhabitants of the Egyptian heaven. In the united assembly of the sainted first kings of the new empire, Nofert-ari-Ahmose, the divine spouse of Ahmose, sits enthroned at the head of all the Pharaonio pairs, and before all the royal children of their race, as the specially venerated ancestress and founder of the eighteenth dynasty. As such she was called "the daughter, sister, wife, and mother of a king," besides her title of "wife of the God Amon," which expression designated the chief priestess of the tutelary God of Thebes (but not more than that).

On several monuments the beautiful companion of Ahmose is represented with a black skin, and the conclusion has hence been drawn that she had to boast or to be ashamed of a negro origin. In spite of the intelligent surmises which have been put forward, on the side of the learned, to discover high state reasons from the color of her skin, namely, that a treaty concluded by the Pharaoh Ahmose with the neighbouring negro peoples for a common effort to drive out the shepherd kings was sealed by this marriage, it seems to me that, in this supposition, two points of view have been entirely neglected. First, the dark color is found not infrequently employed in the paintings in the tombs of the kings at Thebes, so as to offer by the side of the other brightly coloured pictures of the Pharaohs an evident allusion to their stay in the dark night of the grave. This intention of the painter would appear all the more probable in the case of our raven-coloured queen, as she is not on every occasion represented black, but sometimes she appears on the walls of the tombs at Thebes with a yellow color to her skin like all Egyptian women. In the second place, the negroes with their queen, allied to them (as is said) in race, owed small thanks to the house of Egypt, since Ahmose, after conquering his enemies in the north, immediately turned his arms against the brethren and the people of his own wife, by whose help alone, it is supposed, he had been able to obtain a victory over his hereditary enemy. We must therefore consider, and for the sake of King Ahmose we must wish it to be so, that Nofretari, belonging to the Egyptian stock, represented an heiress, to whom had descended by birth and by law the right of succession to" the Theban throne. As the husband of such an heiress Ahmose only occupied the second place by her side, and it was reserved to the son of them both, according to the laws of the Egyptian succession, to bear the sceptre as the legitimate full king over both the great divisions of the empire.

Ramses V (c. 1148-1144 BC)

Ramses V the son of Ramses IV (1151–1145). He came to the throne as the fourth pharaoh of the 20th dynasty in the New Kingdom period. In his reign the power of the priests of Amun was increased. he reigned for four years and died with a virus disease discovered in the face of his mummy which staying in Cairo Museum. The Death of Ramses V: In 1888 French Egyptologist Georges Daressy discovered the tomb of Ramses V, the fourth pharaoh of the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt, while excavating in the Valley of the Kings. Archaeologists later determined that Ramses V had died in 1141 BC at the age of 35 after reigning only four years. His mummy provided an explanation for Ramses’ short tenure. It revealed a face covered with pustules characteristic of smallpox. The Wilbour Papyrus (Gardiner 1948; cf. https://famouspharaohs.blogspot.com/2017/07/god-amun.html1989), dealing with land tenancy in Middle Egypt dunng the reign of Ramses V.

The great Wilbour papyrus in the Brooklyn Museum, dated in year 4 of Ramses V reign gives an account of taxing. Its main text records the measurement and assessment of fields extending from near Crocodilonpolis (Medinet el-Fayyum) southwards to a little short of the modern town of El-Minya, a distance of some 90 miles. Taxes were calculated, in part, from flood levels indicated by marks on stone building lining the river., the Nilometres. How the king infected with the smallpox? During the New Kingdom (18-20th dynasties), when the Egyptian Empire expanded to its greatest geographical extent by far, with extensive conquests and expeditions in Africa and Asia. And its believed the smallpox had spread during this extent of the kingdom. And exactly during the reign of Ramses V, Egypt was in a civil war and was attacked by enemies from the north; if the pustular eruption of Ramses V was from smallpox, it could represent a smallpox outbreak from imported cases because of war rather than regional endemic disease. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that only three mummies in that period had similar lesions.