Ramesses II – The Greatest Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt

Here’s a sanitized version of the provided YouTube transcript:

—

This video is brought to you by NordVPN. Give yourself options online by going to nordvpn.com/bio to get a two-year plan at a huge discount plus a free gift. More on them in a bit.

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. “Look on my works, you mighty, and despair.” English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote those famous words in 1818 to show that even the greatest of men and their mighty empires still fall prey to the ravages of time, destined to fade into oblivion. The name he chose was Ozymandias, which was what the ancient Greeks called the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II. Ramesses’s legacy was still alive in Shelley’s time, and if anything, it’s going even stronger today. All you have to do is take a walk through Malden, Luxor, or Abu Simbel to be reminded that the Pharaoh and his work still fascinate us 3,200 years later.

Ramesses II’s almost unheard of 66-year reign as Pharaoh gave ancient Egypt its final glory days—one last golden age before it all started going downhill, and the civilization never managed to regain its full strength ever again. It is clear to see why later Egyptians started referring to Ramesses II as the Great Ancestor.

Ramesses II was born circa 1303 BC into the 19th dynasty of ancient Egypt, arguably the most powerful dynasty of the New Kingdom period. This lineage was founded by Ramesses I, our protagonist’s grandfather, who had served as vizier to the last Pharaoh of the previous dynasty. He only reigned for a couple of years, but he set the scene for Egypt to enter a new golden age once his son, Seti I, took the throne. Seti had a good reign of 10-15 years and brought much-needed stability to his kingdom, which was still in political and religious turmoil following the monotheistic revolution attempted by Akhenaten, which had only happened around 40 years earlier.

Seti I proved to be a strong leader at a crucial point for Egypt, as the nation was facing internal struggles and external ones, mainly in the form of its arch-enemy, the Hittite Empire. The Hittites had started out of the city of Hattusa, located in modern-day Turkey, but had successfully expanded south into Syria until they reached the borders of Egypt. As Pharaoh, Seti took a woman named Tuya as his great royal wife, and they had several children together. Seti named his eldest son after his own father, Ramesses II.

I’m not going to go into Ramesses II’s own family tree for two simple reasons: one, there were just too many people; he had countless wives and concubines and fathered around a hundred children; and two, a lot of them died before Ramesses anyway, so they never really got the chance to do anything noteworthy. In fact, the king who ultimately succeeded Ramesses on the throne was Merneptah, his 13th son, who was already in his 60s by the time he became Pharaoh. This really puts into context just how long Ramesses’s reign truly was. It has been suggested, although never definitively proven, that Seti made Ramesses co-regent in his last years as Pharaoh. Seti died circa 1279 BC, thus paving the way for Ramesses II to become the third king of the 19th dynasty.

Ramesses was in his early 20s when he assumed power. Although he had received training and been awarded various titles and positions since he was a child, he was still inexperienced when it came to actual military matters. Even so, he showed himself to be quite eager to go on the warpath and actually gained his most famous triumph just a few years into his seven-decade reign when he fought the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh.

The city of Kadesh was very important to Ramesses, both from a strategic and personal perspective. It was a valuable military asset because it was a fortified city and a major trading center located between the borders of the Egyptian and Hittite empires at a time when the two powers often clashed. Remember, this was 3,300 years ago, and moving an entire army through the Syrian desert was a tricky proposition. Having a city like Kadesh on your side to serve as your base of operations could mean the difference between victory and defeat, which is why both Egypt and Hattusa wanted to control it. On a personal level, capturing Kadesh was Seti’s greatest achievement, but he was unable to keep it, and Kadesh fell under Hittite dominion again soon after the Pharaoh left. So, Ramesses may have wanted to finish what his father had started.

Therefore, he immediately set to work building a grand army to drive the Hittites from Syria once and for all. In 1274 BC, only five years into his reign, the forces were ready, and the omens were auspicious, so the Egyptian army marched on Kadesh. The Battle of Kadesh is also special because, thanks to detailed inscriptions from both sides, it might be the most well-documented military conflict in all of ancient history. Ramesses had 20,000 soldiers on his side, split into four divisions: Amun, Ra, Set, and Ptah. We don’t have exact figures for the Hittites, who were led by King Muwatalli II, but they were joined by 19 different vassals, so presumably, they weren’t lacking in soldiers.

One notable thing about this battle was the large number of chariots that were used. Each side deployed around 2,500, making this possibly the largest chariot battle in history. Despite what the Egyptian inscriptions might say, the Battle of Kadesh was not a resounding victory for Egypt, and Ramesses did not show himself to be some kind of Napoleon-level strategist. Quite the opposite, in fact. As we said, the Pharaoh was still a young man, and his pride and naivety almost cost him not only the battle but also his life.

Ramesses had received reports from a couple of passing nomads that the enemy, in pure astonishment of his might, had begun retreating to Aleppo. A more sensible person might have been somewhat skeptical of such information, but not Ramesses. He saw it as the perfect opportunity to capture Kadesh now that the bulk of its defense force had left. Therefore, he assembled his division of soldiers and began marching immediately, leaving the other three divisions to catch up. You can probably guess what happened next: the Hittites were not in Aleppo; they were in Kadesh, waiting patiently, and the Pharaoh just walked right into their trap.

Eventually, Ramesses realized that he was walking into an ambush, but by then it was too late. The Hittites were getting ready to charge his cavalry, so the only thing he could do was send word for the other divisions to hurry up and hope that he could hold out until then. Of course, we don’t know how much of what happened next is fact and how much is propaganda, but Ramesses apparently acted as a fierce and mighty warrior once the fighting started, rallying his scattered soldiers several times and personally leading his guard to punch holes into the enemy ranks. The Pharaoh managed to hold the opposing forces at bay until reinforcements arrived, at which point the tide turned, and the Hittite army became overwhelmed. They tried retreating but were caught between Egyptian forces and the Orontes River, where they were either slaughtered or drowned.

Curiously, King Muwatalli still had a large army within Kadesh, but he chose not to deploy it, instead fortifying the city. Despite standing victorious once the fighting was over, Ramesses still found himself outside the city walls looking in. He did not have the forces or supplies necessary to wage a long siege, so he had no choice but to return to Egypt. As to who won the Battle of Kadesh, that really depends on who you ask. The Egyptians, unsurprisingly, hailed it as a glorious victory and celebrated it on temple walls, stelae, and pylons all over the kingdom. The Hittites thought they won since they ultimately stopped the enemy from achieving their main goal of capturing Kadesh. Realistically, we should call this battle inconclusive, but its true ramifications would not become obvious for another decade and a half.

Alright, we’ll get back to today’s video in just a moment, but first, a quick word from today’s video sponsor, NordVPN. Here’s something you may already know: everyone uses the internet a little bit differently, and that’s fine. But what you don’t want to do is leave yourself unprotected online. You may have heard me talk about what NordVPN can do for you previously. It encrypts your internet data and moves your online activity to another location with just one click, either for superior security or just more streaming options. And all of that is still true. NordVPN has more than 5,000 servers throughout 60 countries, but VPNs give you access to so much more than just new TV shows. Having trouble connecting to social media? No problem, NordVPN. Want to buy a video game that’s cheaper somewhere else or maybe just not even available in your country? NordVPN wants to route your internet connection through multiple servers just for double-layered protection.

With NordVPN, you can do it all, and that includes utilizing their threat protection upgrade, which blocks ads, eradicates web trackers, and checks for malware, and so much more. Right now, as part of a special deal, you can get a two-year plan at a huge discount plus an additional bonus gift on top of that. And if you try Nord and change your mind, they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. All you have to do is head to nordvpn.com/bio for a two-year deal at a huge discount plus a bonus gift on top of that, or just follow the link in the description box below.

Now back to today’s video. Ramesses’s feud with the Hittites was far from over, but they weren’t his only enemies. The Pharaoh had lost the ambitions of bringing about a new golden age for Egypt, which included conquering lands that had not been a part of his kingdom for decades, even centuries, such as Canaan. At the same time, he had to protect his own territory from invaders such as the Sea Peoples.

Now, in case you’ve never heard of the Sea Peoples, they are probably one of the most mysterious civilizations of the ancient world. We do not have any firsthand information on them; they left nothing behind to be studied. But we know of them through the prism of their enemies, and they had a lot of enemies. The Sea Peoples were a confederation of multiple seafaring groups who banded together sometime during the 13th century BC and started wreaking havoc on all the civilizations in the Mediterranean by raiding their coastal towns and cities. The Egyptians, the Hittites, the Greeks, and the Phoenicians all had to contend with the Sea Peoples. Today, we don’t really know where they came from or what ultimately happened to them, but the invasions of the Sea Peoples are considered an important contributor to the Late Bronze Age collapse, a dark period for many of the Mediterranean cultures.

As far as Egypt was concerned, it was Ramesses’s successors who mainly had to fight them off, but they proved to be a minor headache during his time as well. The Kadesh inscriptions, which were made to celebrate Ramesses’s victory at the Battle of Kadesh, casually mentioned that he had to fight off an attack from raiding sea pirates called the Sherden in his second year as Pharaoh. Ramesses defeated the raiders by luring them into the Nile Delta and then pressed the prisoners into service, using them as mercenaries against the Hittites.

Speaking of whom, it was about time for that conflict to heat up again. A couple of years had passed since the Battle of Kadesh—enough time for both sides to regain their strength and get ready for round two. This happened around Ramesses’s seventh year as Pharaoh. He took the Egyptian army into Syria again but faced a similar scenario, one that his father had also encountered. Even if he did conquer new lands, he simply could not keep them. As soon as he left, those kingdoms either went independent again or fell under the hegemony of the Hittites, who fanned the flames of rebellion from afar and encouraged any kind of uprising against Egypt.

Ramesses led yet another military campaign into Syria in his eighth year, but even though he made it further up north than ever before, reaching a lost city called Dapur, it was still just rinse and repeat. When the Pharaoh went to play, the Hittites came to play. As we said, Ramesses had ambitious goals he wanted to achieve; he couldn’t spend his entire reign trading border cities with Hattusa, especially when it became quite clear that neither empire was strong enough to gain a decisive upper hand over the other. Therefore, once that third Syrian campaign had ended, the feud between Egypt and Hattusa took a time out, with the two powerhouses living side by side in a labored peace.

Their tense relationship culminated in 1258 BC, a landmark moment in history when Ramesses II and Hattusili III, the king of the Hittite Empire, signed the Treaty of Kadesh, the world’s earliest known peace treaty. It happened during the 21st year of Ramesses’s reign, 16 years after the Battle of Kadesh. The treaty was written on silver tablets in two languages: Egyptian hieroglyphics and Akkadian cuneiform, and one copy was given to each civilization. The silver originals are long gone, but copies were made on clay tablets, and some of them still survive to this day, with one replica even adorning the walls of the United Nations building in New York City.

The Egyptians liked to go big, and so they carved their version of the treaty into the temple walls at Karnak. Perhaps the most surprising aspect was that the peace actually lasted. The cynics among you might have suspected that this was merely a stalling tactic as each side waited for the perfect opportunity to pounce on the other when it was weak, but that didn’t happen. The Hittites had a new threat to contend with in the form of the Assyrians, so they were glad to get Egypt off their backs. The peace lasted for around 80 years until the collapse of the Hittite Empire under invasions by Assyria and the Sea Peoples.

Meanwhile, once Ramesses realized the futility of trying to control lands up in Syria, he focused his attention somewhere else. The Pharaoh’s efforts up north might have proved to be in vain, but there was still Nubia to the south and Libya to the west. In the past, parts of both regions had fallen under Egyptian hegemony, and Ramesses was all about resurrecting the glory days of Egypt. Therefore, both made obvious targets. We know that Ramesses led military campaigns into each region, but not much more than that, other than the fact that the Pharaoh was successful in expanding his kingdom’s borders. It was quite a long way from the Battle of Kadesh, where we knew the names and movements of each division.

There are two likely explanations for this: one, most of the records were destroyed; or two, the Pharaoh did not achieve anything that was worthy to write on the temple walls. It seems that Ramesses got most of the fighting out of his system in the first half of his reign. Of course, he didn’t know ahead of time that he would be Pharaoh for almost 70 years, so in the immortal words of Danny Glover, maybe he was just getting too old for this.

Either way, Ramesses’s lasting legacy came not as a conqueror but as a builder. To put it simply, Ramesses the Great was one of ancient Egypt’s most prolific builders, if not the most prolific, and we’re counting the Old Kingdom Pharaohs who were obsessed with pyramids. The thing with Ramesses was that he built and repaired a lot of small-scale structures: roads, storehouses, docks, temples, etc., that were useful but unlikely to feature on any seven wonders list. That being said, the Pharaoh also had grand ambitions, and he showed them from the beginning of his reign by building an entire city to serve as his new capital.

Pyramids, by all accounts, the city already existed in Ramesses’s time, most likely founded by his father or grandfather. Seti I even built a palace there to use as a little summer getaway since Pyramids was located near the mouth of the Nile River on its easternmost branch, whereas the Egyptian capital of Thebes was over 700 kilometers south of the Nile Delta. But Ramesses decided to take this small settlement and transform it into a metropolis of great splendor, whose magnificence rivaled and even surpassed that of the old capital. He started by building four giant temples, each dedicated to a different deity: Amun, Set, Horus, and most curious of all, a state to a Canaanite goddess adopted by the Egyptians as their own.

Then he added residential areas, docks, storehouses, treasuries, canals, markets, military barracks, training facilities, and farms—everything needed to turn Pyramids into a thriving cultural, religious, and economic center. One question that still puzzles archaeologists is what exactly made Ramesses choose that particular spot. Was it personal, practical, or propaganda, or maybe all three? It could have been personal because young Ramesses grew up in that area, so maybe he simply had a soft spot for the Nile Delta. It could have been practical from a military standpoint; the Pharaoh knew that the Hittites were going to be a major thorn in his side, so he needed a capital that was closer to the action, whereas Thebes was much further down south. And it could have also been a bit of clever propaganda on behalf of Ramesses, who wanted to position himself as the leader of a new golden age for Egypt.

His new capital was located very close to the city of Avaris, which had served as the capital during the Hyksos period. The Hyksos had been the first foreigners to conquer Egypt, ruling as the 15th dynasty for a hundred years. They were eventually defeated by Ahmose I, who became the founder of the New Kingdom period. Since then, Avaris had become a symbol of triumph over adversity for the Egyptians, so it would not be too surprising that Ramesses wanted to associate himself with that.

Unfortunately, we can only speculate as to how grand and opulent Pyramids looked at the peak of its power. It seems that the dynasties that followed were not too fond of the city and began ignoring it. Then the 21st dynasty moved the capital once more, this time to Tanis, and Pyramids was doomed to serve mainly as a quarry, plundered for all of its stone and other building materials, which were recycled and reused somewhere else. The city was almost completely wiped off the map to the point that Egyptologists excavated for almost 100 years until they found the location where it