Home | Category: New Kingdom (King Tut, Ramses, Hatshepsut)
MONUMENTS AND ART PRODUCED UNDER RAMSES THE GREAT
Ramses II at the Louvre Maite Mascort wrote in National Geographic History: Few individuals in Egypt’s history have aroused as much curiosity, and as much skepticism, as Ramses II (ruled 1279 to 1213 B.C.), third pharaoh of the 19th dynasty, whom history dubbed Ramses the Great. Today Ramses II is probably best known for leaving behind a monumental set of works — palaces, temples, statues, stelae — each one extolling his pharaonic achievements. Every battle was a mighty triumph, every building spectacular, every statue and public work magnificent, every act a near superhuman achievement. [Source: Maite Mascort, National Geographic History, February 16, 2023]
To rally support, Ramses II used these massive monuments to appeal to the people as part of a campaign to proclaim his greatness for all to see. Ramses lived around 90 years and ruled for almost 70. Thanks to his building campaigns, Egyptologists know much about his public accomplishments, but questions about his wives and children still remain.
Ramses II planned his tomb just at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings. The site, designated KV7, was guaranteed to be noticed by all and visited whenever observances brought priests and worshippers to the valley. Unfortunately, KV7 was at the head of a wadi that repeatedly flooded the tomb. The waters destroyed much of the art in the tomb. [Source National Geographic]
Large Statues of Ramses II
Numerous statues of Ramses II were constructed during and after his reign. These include some at Abu Simbel, in southern Egypt, that are about 20 meters (66 feet) tall (See Below). John Ray of Cambridge University wrote: Good art can be found in Ramses' reign, especially in the earlier years, and it continued to flourish when not subjected to the dead weight of the king's ego. [Source: John Ray, Cambridge University, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]
Under Seti I, Ramses II's father, and Ramses II many large monuments were built, and the Pharaohs seemed intent on asserting their god-like omnipotence. Many scholars assert this was not just an expression but also a way of maintaining control over the empire's large army and bureaucracy.
The monument raised by Ramses II were distinguished by their immense size not their artistic skill. The greatest monument created during the reign of Ramses the Great was Abu Simbel. Among the dozens of other temples built during his reign were number temples at Luxor and Karnak, including the magnificent forecourts at Luxor Temple, the Hall of Columns at Karnak, the city of Pi-Ramses, and the giant broken statue of Ramses the Great that inspired Shelley's Ozymandias.
Ramses II’s Building Campaign
Ramses II and his father Seti began many restoration and building projects. These included the building of several temples and the restoration of other shrines and complexes throughout Egypt. He built a mortuary complex at Abydos in honor of Osiris and the famed Ramesseum.
John Ray of Cambridge University wrote: “The traditional capitals, Memphis and Thebes, were not enough for” Ramses II, he added his own in the Delta, modestly named Pi-Ramesse, one rendering of which would be Ramessopolis. Not even the heretic Akhenaten had dared to name his city after himself. Ramses, however, thinks large. Previous Pharaohs had followed the rule that, in temple design, incised relief was used on the exterior walls, where it could cast strong shadows. Inside the temples, however, bas-relief was employed, since it does not produce such contrasts and creates a serene effect in the semi-dark. Unfortunately, bas-relief takes time, since the background to every detail needs to be cut away. Ramses decided to double the rate of temple-building, by seeing to it that the work was done in fast, and cheap, incised relief. Akhenaten had sometimes resorted to the same shortcut, but he was in a genuine hurry, since he had abandoned traditional religion and needed a new home for his god. Ramses II does not have this excuse. [Source: John Ray, Cambridge University, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]
“The temple-building programme instigated by Ramses may have been rushed, but it turned out to be the most extensive ever achieved by a single Pharaoh in all Ancient Egypt's 30 dynasties, and some of the king's monuments, such as the delicate temple built at Abydos next to the larger complex of his father, show refinement and even understatement. The twin temples of Abu Simbel in Nubia, though by no means understated, are masterpieces of land-and river-scaping, as well as being political propaganda skilfully translated into stone. |::|
Mark Millmore wrote in discoveringegypt.com: Ramses II spent much of “his life bolstering his image with huge building projects. His name is found everywhere on monuments and buildings in Egypt and he frequently usurped the works of his predecessors and inscribed his own name on statues which do not represent him. The smallest repair of a sanctuary was sufficient excuse for him to have his name inscribed on every prominent part of the building. His greatest works were the rock-hewn temple of Abu Simbel.. He also added to the temple of Amenhotep III at Luxor and completed the hall of columns at Karnak – still the largest columned room of any building in the world. [Source: Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com ^^^]
Ramsesseum and Oozaymandias
Ramesseum plan Ramsesseum is the mortuary temple of Ramses II. Built as an expression to his greatness, it has been desecrated and was scavenged for materials over the years and now lies mostly in ruins. It features painting of the pharaoh depicted as Osiris, the god of the afterlife, and murals of the Battle of Kadesh. The head of the multi-ton, 57-foot-high colossi of Ramses II that inspired the Shelley poem “Ozymandias” and guarded the temple were hauled away in 1817 by the Italian adventurer Giovanni Belzoni. He hired scores of Egyptians to drag the seven-ton heads to a boat that carried the heads up the Nile and eventually to London. The bust and other Belzoni "conquests" now form the core of the Egyptian collection at the British museum.
In his poem “Oozaymandias” , about a colossal statue of Ramses, the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelly wrote:
” Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and Despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of the that colossal wreck, boundless and bare.
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
John Ray of Cambridge University wrote: “A form of the king's throne-name passed into Classical tradition as Ozymandias, and was immortalised as a symbol of ostentatious tyranny by the poet Shelley. Ozymandias and vulgarity were made for each other. Such is the case for the prosecution. Nevertheless, a defence lawyer, although faced with a daunting task, can still find points to make in Ozymandias' favour. An “abstract point in the king's defence is that modesty was never considered to be a Pharaonic virtue. If kings of Egypt were great by definition, there could be nothing wrong in going out of one's way to be the greatest: this was simply the logic of Pharaonic kingship.” |[Source: John Ray, Cambridge University, BBC, February 17, 2011]
Abu Simbel
Abu Simbel (290 kilometers, 170 miles south of Aswan) is a monumental temple in southern Egypt with four colossal seated statues — two of Ramses the Great (Ramses II) and two of his wife Neferteri — and two main temples — one dedicated to the sun god Ra-Harakhte, Amun, Ra-Harmachis and Ptah, built into the cliff behind the colossal statues, and another dedicated to Hathor built into a cliff on an adjacent hill.
The Abu Simbel complex was built over the course of 20 years in the 13th Century B.C. It is 56 meters (185 feet) long and 27.5 meters (90 feet) high. The four colossal statues are cut from the living rock and are 18 meters (60 feet) high. The rock-hewn "grotto" temples at Abu Simbel are somewhat unique. The style is more associated more with the Nubians and other Middle Eastern cultures than with the ancient Egyptians. Unlike many other Pharonic temples, Abu Simbel was never taken over by the Romans or turned into a church by Christians.
Abu Simbel was rediscovered in 1813 by John Lewis Burckhardt. In 1817, after weeks of digging, the Italian adventurer Giovanni Belzoni cleared away enough sand to penetrate the temple. Two years later when the Nefertari’s shrine was uncovered tourists starting venturing down the Nile to visit the site and have been coming every since. The statues are best seen at sunrise.
The Colossal Statues at Abu Simbel are each 20.4 meters (67 feet high) and weigh 1,200 tons. Each eye is nearly one meter across. The statues were commissioned by Ramses and finished about 1260 B.C., coinciding more or less with Ramses 30 year jubilee when the pharaoh was 45. The statues were chiseled out of the mountainside, and, like the Sphinx and most other Egyptian temples, they were originally painted with bright colors. Scientist have been a able to ascertain from minute paint fragments left behind that the pharaohs headdresses were blue and gold, their skin was pink and the background was painted white.
See Separate Article: See Relocation of Abu Simbel under ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY: TOOLS, RESTORATIONS AND RELOCATIONS africame.factsanddetails.com
Abu Simbel
Abu Simbel Temple
Abu Simbel Temple (behind the statues) is dedicated to the sun god Ra-Harakhte, and the gods Amun, Ptaj and a deified Ramses II. It is inside the cliff behind the statues and is 160 feet deep. Archaeologists have long wondered why Ramses built this temple so far to south of major Egyptian cities. Most believe it was a statement to the Nubians of the power of the pharaoh. The original temple was built on a site where twice a year — on February 22nd (Ramses II’s birthday) and October 22nd (the anniversary of Ramses II’s coronation) — the morning sun penetrated into the temple's deepest chamber. The timing is probably connected to the symbolic unification, via the rays of the sun, of the statue of Ra-Rorakhty and the statue of Ramses II.
High on the facade there is a of carved baboons, smiling at the sunrise. On the door of the temple there is a beautiful inscription of the kings name. Above the door is the falcon-headed deity, Re-Harakhti. Between the legs of the colossal statues on the facade are statues of Ramses family, his mother "Mut-tuy," his wife "Nefertari" and his sons and daughters.
There are also a number of dedications. Important among these is one of Ramses II's marriage to the daughter of a Hittite king. Beyond the entrance is the Great Hall of Pillars, with eight 32-foot-high pillars of Ramses defied as the God Osiris. The walls have inscriptions recording the Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites. The smaller Hall of Nobles contains four square pillars. The sacred central sanctuary contains a shrine pierced by the sun on Ramses’s birthday, February 21, and his coronation day, October 22.
Temple of Nefertari and Hathor at Abu Simbel (on a hill adjacent to the hill with the colossal statues and the main temple) is a smaller temple fronted by more Ramses stature with two statues of Nefertari, sandwiched in between. Dedicated to Hathor, the goddess of Love and Beauty, and Nefertari, the temple is chiseled into the cliff behind the statues and is thought to have been completed before the Ramses temple. The two temples have similar designs.
The four facade statues of Ramses and two of Nefertari are 33 feet tall. The statues of the queen are smiling. The upper portion of the second statue on the Ramses temple is believed to have fallen off during the Pharaoh's time from stresses in the rock. Queen Nefertari is portrayed with cows horns of the goddess Hathor.
Inside Abu Simbel Temple
The temple itself was made up of chambers, storerooms, square painted pillars and two halls with yet more statues of Ramses and a few of the gods. Specialist who worked at the City of the Dead completed most of the subterranean temple with bronze tools. The entrance of the Temple of Hathor leads to a hall containing six pillars bearing the head of the goddess Hathor. The eastern wall bears inscriptions depicting Ramses striking some enemies before the gods Ra and Amum. Other wall scenes show Ramses and Nefertari offering sacrifices to the gods and performing religious rituals. There are also superb reliefs of the Battle of Kadesh. Beyond this is another wall with similar scenes and paintings. In the sacred central shrine there is a statue of Hathor.
Laura Kiniry of the BBC wrote: Deep within the interior of the Great Temple at Abu Simbel, carved into a mountainside in southern Egypt's ancient Nubian Valley, lies a vast, wondrous world. Pillars adorned with intricate military artworks support a ceiling painted with winged vultures. Floor-to-ceiling hieroglyphics depicting the victorious battles of Pharaoh Ramses II, the same man responsible for constructing this enormous temple, decorate the walls. Outside, four colossal statues of the pharaoh face east toward the rising sun, looking out over a crystal-clear lake. [Source: Laura Kiniry, BBC, April 11, 2018]
“Egypt has done a great job preserving their ancient temples,” said Kim Keating, director of global sales for luxury adventure tour company Geographic Expeditions. “And this [complex] — with soft lighting highlighting its interior artworks; graffiti that dates back to early invaders, documenting how Egypt was conquered over time; and its location in front of a beautiful lake so large it’s like peering out on to the ocean — is magnificent. ”
Karnak Temple Under Ramses II
Elaine Sullivan of UCLA wrote: “Ramses II completed and altered Sety I’s unfinished decorative program on the walls and columns of the hypostyle hall. Battle scenes of the king were added to the hall’s southern exterior wall, paralleling the military decoration of his father on the north wall. The girdle wall enclosing the temple on its southern and eastern ends, built by Thutmose III, was now adorned with deeply carved relief scenes and inscriptions. [Source: Elaine Sullivan, UCLA, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2010, escholarship.org ] “In the eastern section of Karnak, the king added a small shrine to the “unique” obelisk of Thutmose IV. The shrine, called “the temple of Amun-Ra, Ramses, who hears prayers,” consisted of a gateway and pillared hall with a central false door. Two lateral doors led to the object of veneration, the “unique” obelisk. A number of the column drums used for the hall were clearly taken from an earlier Thutmoside structure, and there is some evidence that there had been a shrine in this location previously. The chapel seems to have functioned similarly to a contra-temple, as it was accessible to the public who visited for oracular judgments. Further east, along the temple’s east-west axis, Ramses II added an entrance to eastern Karnak, marked by two red granite obelisks and a pair of red granite sphinxes.
Ramses II Slaying Enemies
“To the west of the Amun-Ra Temple’s main gate, the second pylon, Pinedjem may have placed a line of 100 or more criosphinxes on stone pedestals. This sphinx avenue is traditionally assigned to Ramses II, whose titles are inscribed on the small statuettes between the animals’ paws. A new theory, however, argues that the sphinxes, which stylistically appear to have been carved under Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III, stood at Luxor Temple in the 18th and 19th Dynasties. When Ramses II modified that temple, he usurped the statues and rearranged them before his new court at Luxor. According to the theory, they were only moved to Karnak in the 21st Dynasty, when Pinedjem added his own name and inscriptions to the socles. The exact length and terminus of this avenue remain unknown, as it was later reorganized when new constructions changed the front of the temple in the 25th Dynasty, but it likely extended up to the (later) first pylon, or to a quay beyond.”
Archaeologists Find Top Half of Giant Ramses II Statue
In March 2024, Egyptian authorities announced that the upper half of a giant statue of Ramses II was discovered near the ancient city of Hermopolis (modern-day el-Ashmunein), about 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Cairo. The large stone piece is about 3.8 meters (12.5 feet) tall and depicts Ramses wearing a double crown and a headdress topped with a royal cobra, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said. The back of the statue has hieroglyphs that state the various titles of the king that help to glorify Ramses II, according to the statement. [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science. March 11, 2024]
According to Live Science: The lower part of the statue was found in 1930 by German archaeologist Günther Roeder. The original statue, when the lower and upper parts were together, would have stood about seven meters (23 feet) tall. The excavation that revealed the upper part of the statue was conducted by an Egyptian-American team. The mission is led by Basem Gehad, an archaeologist with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, and Yvona Trnka-Amrhein, an assistant professor of classics at the University of Colorado Boulder.
In 2019, a massive 13-ton (11.8 metric ton) sphinx depicting Ramses II was unveiled to the public after being hidden away for more than a century.
2,000 Mummified Rams' Heads Gifted to Ramses II 1,000 Years After He Died
More than 2,000 mummified rams' heads unearthed at an ancient temple in Egypt are believed to be have likely been prepared as an offering to Ramses II, around 1,000 years after he died. Live Science reported: The severed heads were uncovered at the Ramses II temple in Abydos, an ancient city around 430 miles (692 kilometers) south of Cairo. The temple was built after the pharaoh's death. Discovered over 150 years ago, it features include pillars bearing the depiction of Osiris, a god famous for dying and then coming back to life, and an imposing black stone arch, according to Tour Egypt. [Source: Harry Baker, Live Science, published March 29, 2023]
2,000 ram's heads
The horned ram skulls neatly lines up in rows. Some are rapped in bandages and partially decayed. The eerie cranium collection was found by researchers from New York University inside a previously undiscovered ancient storage building in the northern part of the temple, representatives from Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities wrote in a translated Facebook post. Some of the rams' heads were covered in bandages and had been partially preserved, but the majority are now fleshless skulls. The team also found the remains of goats, dogs, cows, deer and an ostrich at the site. All of the animal remains likely date to around 1,000 years after Ramses II ruled Egypt and were likely left as an offering to the much-revered king in the afterlife, ministry representatives wrote.
“We came across a skull, then another one, then five, ten, fifty, one hundred,” Sameh Iskander, the head of the team that found the skulls, told Archaeology magazine. “We ended up with over two thousand skulls.” Iskander believes the skulls — mostly of rams, but also ewes, dogs, wild goats, mongooses, gazelles, and pigs — and around 150 cow mandibles were all deposited at the same time. Some of the skulls and other bones were still wrapped in linen with elaborate fringes. In the storage area, the team also found a papyrus roll detailing business transactions, a small bronze bell that would have hung from a ram’s neck, and a large quantity of leather items. The deposits date to the mid-Ptolemaic period, around 1,000 years after the time of Ramses II, suggesting that the pharaoh was revered long after his death. [Source: Daniel Weiss, Archaeology Magazine, September/October 2023]
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum, The Egyptian Museum in Cairo
Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Last updated July 2024