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Ramsy's II, the most famous pharaoh of them all. If his name has crossed the millennia, it's largely thanks to the monuments which carry his name to the four corners of ancient Egypt. As an Egyptologist, even when you try to avoid traces of Ramsy's II, you'll still find his cartes in the desert. He's everywhere. There are kings who you find on many sites, but Ramsy's II is the superstar. He's everywhere. But it's just not possible that all these temples were built during his reign. There is no way, even though Ramsay's lived a long time. There is no way that he built that much. One of the reasons why Ramsy's II has so many monuments is because he usurped many, many of them.
User patient. That's the practice of certain pharaohs of replacing the name of their predecessor with their own on monuments which they didn't build. It's almost as though he didn't want there to be any grand monuments in Egypt that appeared to have been built by anybody else. So when we see these erased cartes, we as Egyptologists, we ask ourselves, what is this? Why would Ramsies do this? It took Egyptologists more than two centuries to resolve this archaeological puzzle. two centuries to discover the reasons behind such audacity and to reveal a little known character of the great monarch.
As a child, he was destined to become an extremely important figure in the Egyptian state, but not a pharaoh. He needed to be a good politician to make his reign successful, and he succeeded. Ramsy's II would have made people like Donald Trump or any other ruler look like an amateur if he had a cell phone because he knew how to manipulate and he knew his propaganda. Prepare yourselves to discover Ramsy's II. Behind the legend, a man ready to go to any lengths to make his name resound to the four corners of the kingdom of Egypt. through living God.
Promises are great. Through living God, here I come. Promises are great. True living God. Promises are great. The year is 1829 in Abu Symbol in southern Egypt. Following the discovery by westerners of this gigantic temple 16 years earlier, a new type of explorer had the privilege of entering the sanctuary dating back over 1,000 years. Egyptologists amongst them, Jean Franuis Champolon. This 39-year-old Frenchman was at the head of a pioneering expedition in the history of the modern world. If anything is even more impressive, Champolon and his colleagues would enter this enormous
um space entirely cut from the rock with rows of pillars with engaged statues on either side. It was covered with the inscriptions of a pharaoh, but the explorers didn't know which pharaoh it belonged to. Shaolon was not the first person to see this, but he was bringing with him on this expedition a brand new tool. It's the kind of secret weapon of Egyptology. This secret weapon was an extraordinary discovery, a remarkable tool for deciphering this mysterious writing which was to revolutionize our understanding of feronic civilization.
The result of several years work on the part of Jean Franis Jean, the deciphering of hieroglyphics. The doors of knowledge immediately opened. There was access to what was written in the temples. the names of kings began to be deciphered. So armed with this new knowledge, this new tool, he could read the cartes and identify the pharaoh who built this extraordinary monument. Ramsy's that's what Champolon could read. But the French Egyptologist was faced with a problem. Well, which Ramsy's was it? We now know that there were 11. And Choleolon knew that there were at least several Ramses uh that he could choose from.
The decipher of hieroglyphics had a vast knowledge of ancient Egypt. He knew how to solve the mystery of the identity of this enigmatic pharaoh. Each individual pharaoh had a unique set of royal names, five in fact. Most important was what we would call the coronation name which was a unique name. No other pharaoh had the exact same coronation name. This coronation name was enclosed in these oval shapes called cartes. The interior walls at Abu Symbol displayed two identical ones in various places.
Thanks to his exceptional deciphering formula, Jean Franuon miraculously managed to translate them. And what he discovered left him speechless. The name that Champolio read or the names were user mach which means the justice of Rey is strong is powerful um is well established and seten who is the chosen one of Rey. Raw, the sun god, the supreme Egyptian divinity at the origin of the creation of the world, who spent each night overcoming the terrible serpent Apep in order to be reborn the next morning. So that is the name of the king, but of
course that doesn't mean very much to us. This was not the name he was given at birth, but only when he became Pharaoh. Although his feronic name was unknown to the wider public, his original name has been passed down through the ages and is now one of the most famous in the world. This is the name of Ramsy's II. all the hundreds of pharaohs who ruled the country. He is the one perhaps more than anybody else who embodies the idea of a great powerful ruler, a military man, a great builder. His reign encompassed many generations of Egyptians. So all they knew was Ramsy's the great who was also deified. He was a god.
Living God. His mummy discovered in 1881 put a striking face to the name of the world's most powerful man 3,300 years ago. But a realization came over the archaeologists who traveled the country uncovering the land of the ancient Egyptians. As an Egyptologist, even when you try to avoid traces of Ramsy's II, you'll still find his cartes in the desert. He's everywhere. When you excavate a site, it's the first cart you find, that of Ramsy's. There are kings who you find on many sites, but Ramsy's II is the superstar. He's everywhere. Over the course of his reign, the pharaoh had tens of fabulous structures built and hundreds of statues of him all along the Nile Valley.
The temple at Abu Symbol is his most emblematic work. At Luxer, the Ramiseum is entirely dedicated to his glory. But strangely, the other great monuments of the Ferronic period, which still remain, also bear traces of Ramsy's II. In some places, it's almost as though Ramsey's is the only king. It cannot be that he built everything and nobody else built anything. That doesn't make any sense. Is it possible in one reign to build so many temples, to make so many statues? Or as some began to expect, had he added his name onto monuments that he in fact had never actually built. Only meticulous investigation could uncover the true history of Ramsy's II.
Establishing the portrait of a man as contradictory as he was fascinating, as megalomaniacal as he was impressive. Because for Egyptologists, the answer to the question was clear. There is no way, even though Ramsay's lived a long time, there is no way that he built that much. One of the reasons why Ramsy's II has so many monuments is because he usurps many of them usurpation. An intriguing phenomenon which complexified the work of Egyptologists. This is the practice certain pharaohs had of replacing their predecessors name by their own on monuments that they hadn't built. Could the most famous
Egyptian monarch in history also be the greatest of all usurpers? It's almost as though um he didn't want there to be any grand monuments in Egypt that appeared to have been built by anybody else. And the question is why would Rams do this? Why would he take the monument of an earlier king and replace their name with his own name? It was the beginning of a passionate investigation to the four corners of Egypt to try to separate fact from fiction and understand the motivations of this extraordinary pharaoh. A journey through time which takes us back to the reign of Ramsay II. When Ramsy's used to erase the names of earlier kings and replace them with his own, when we look at them very closely, it's a bit like forensics.
Fortunately, it was possible to see that in some cases tell signs were present that an earlier name had been there. It's here in Luxer, formerly thieves, the religious capital of ancient Egypt, that we begin our investigation into traces of usurpation of monuments by Ramsy's II. At the far end of the magnificent avenue of sphinxes stands one of the most important cult monuments in ancient Egypt, Luxer Temple. When you go in the Luxo temple, basically everywhere you see the name of Ramsy's II. There are obelisks and also colossal statues, images of Ramsy's II himself. It's like a sort of comprehensive picture of how wonderful he is. He's a great warrior. He's this huge um presence, this huge mighty presence
looming over you. This monumental pylon 24 m in height comparable to a seven-story building was commissioned by Ramsy's II himself. Its facade depicts the pharaoh vanquishing his enemies at the famous battle of Kadesh. But the mark of Ramsy's II doesn't end there. As we enter the first court, we are again greeted with colossal statues and columns of Ramsy's II. So the court itself is decorated extensively by Ramsy's himself. There are sons and daughters of Ramsy's represented on the walls. Everything seems to be connected to Ramsey's II. But once you enter the temple, things change slightly. But that's when you start to realize that maybe this temple is not Ramsy's.
Six spectacular statues stand here. They quickly revealed secrets concerning the temple's construction. When you look at it, you think, "Ah, it's Ramsy's II." But that's really not the case. We look at the inscriptions on the back, and we see places where the surface has been adjusted, and we even see a few traces of earlier hieroglyphs or something seemed to be cut a little deeper. And so, it was more and more obvious that something had been changed. But that wasn't all. The composition of the sculptures was equally astonishing, particularly concerning the faces.
Certain traits correspond with the official face of Ramsy's. Almond-shaped eyes with slightly thick upper eyelids, the eyes often lowered. The aqualine nose shaped something like this. The slightly strange outline of the ears. He has a very slight smile. it's not exaggerated. He's not grinning or laughing. They always have their mouth uh closed, but there's just a very slight smile that plays across his lips. However, these distinctive traits are not to be found on these statues. For the experts, the corroborating evidence was overwhelming. They came to the conclusion that these statues had been usered by Ramsy's II.
There was some reworking. something was going on. Something was changed. And this tells us that most likely they originally were made by someone else, another pharaoh. He's done a fantastic job of appropriating somebody else's work and making it seem as though he is responsible. The discovery struck like a bombshell. It raised many questions about the personality of history's most famous pharaoh and called for a fresh look at this legendary king. Far from the heroic image regularly attributed to him, perhaps Ramsy's II was a thief who had appropriated the monuments of others with a hammer and a chisel.
Other pharaohs often did this uh because they were trying to suppress the memory of a pharaoh they considered to be illegitimate or somehow bad. If you erase the name of someone, their memory is gone because for the Egyptians it had to be written down. So if the name is not there, they did not exist. This was the case with the pharaohs Hatetsub and Akenatan who were struck from the records of the past for thousands of years. Only the meticulous work of talented Egyptologists revealed that they had been victims of Damnasio memorialier, a deletion campaign. Is this what Ramsy's II had tried to do? When we see these erased cartes, we as Egyptologists, we ask ourselves, what is this? Is it a kind of damnio memorialia?
Some kind of ancient cancel culture? Had the pharaoh of this statue become illegitimate in the eyes of Ramsy's II? Was that why he appropriated his monument? Holding a magnifying glass to these statues helped the investigation to advance. Even though the name had been lost, other clues indicated the original identity of the pharaoh depicted. Five of them have the name of Ramsy's II. But if we are looking at the sixth statue, we discover a different name. It's the name of Amen Hotep thei.
Amenateep III was one of the great pharaohs of ancient Egypt. He reigned 70 years before Ramsy's II. He was known for his military victories, his immense constructions, his revolutionary art, and as being the father of the famous Akenatan. Amen. Thei was Egypt's dazzling sun king. He led Egypt in a time period of incredible prosperity. Egypt's uh international empire is almost at its height. Egypt is at the wealthiest that it's ever been. In addition, he is also a very long lived pharaoh. It was originally assumed that the reason that Ramsy's was putting his name on all of these monuments was that he was trying to erase the reign uh of Alman Hoi and claim credit for what Alman Hut thei had done. But this is not the whole story anymore
because when you go further into the temple, the name of Amen the third is found everywhere. His name even remains outside the temple. There's no attempt to remove it or to disguise it or to insert Ramsey's name over the top in those places. And that goes true for other monuments of Aman Hutup III. So although Ramsy's was choosing to usurp some of them, he left most of Alman Hut the third's monuments alone. And this doesn't sound like an act where what we might call a damnation memorial. This was not what Ramsy's was doing. Far from being a thief, Ramsy's II had usurped the statues of Amenipep III because he was his role model, a tutillary figure that he revered.
He was a great pharaoh. So by aligning himself with Aman Hotep III, Ramses is sort of saying we are an unbroken line. We are legitimate. This is the greatness of Egypt. Look, I am exactly the same as this other magnificent pharaoh. He was also a king who had elevated himself to the status of a living god on earth. And these were all goals of Ramsey's II's own kingship. Ramsey's finished the construction of the temple initiated by Aminateep III. He enlarged it by building this extension at the front of the temple.
Consequently, when you arrive before the edifice, you have the impression of entering a Ramsy's II monument. The Luxer temple is a very particular sanctuary. It is the temple of Ammun, the king of the gods. This is a place where every pharaoh has to leave his mark. And so it's no wonder that Ramses went exactly here to build, but also to take over older monuments to leave his mark to show that he is the king and that he is closely connected to this god that is so important for ancient Egypt and for the king. Other pharaohs also placed their cartes on the temple of Aminateep III. The most famous being his grandson, the child
king Tuten. But Amenep III was not the only monarch usered by Ramsy's II. There is this series of eucipation, but you can't always usurp that way. There are other ways of doing it. And you can see this in the city of Tannis. Situated in the Nile Delta, Tannis is definitely one of the places in ancient Egypt where Ramsy's II is most represented. The ruins of this ancient temple carry all the signs of the legendary pharaoh. So much so that for a long time, many Egyptologists thought that this was the site where Ramsy's II's lost capital stood. Parammeses. We know from the Bible in the book of Exodus that there was a city called the city of Ramssees. And this was one of the major objectives of archaeologist
was to discover this lost city of Ramsy's. It wasn't until the 1930s and the work of the Egyptian archaeologist Mahmud Hamza that it was understood that the Vestiches did indeed come from the capital of Ramsy's II, but that this city was in fact situated 30 km further south, close to the present- day village of Canir. They were found at Tannis because Pamses had been dismantled a century after his reign. At a certain point in the life of Parammeses after the Rammeses II's time, the branch of the river Nile that it was built on um came to silt up and it became unviable. It became landlocked and therefore it was not easy to get to or to leave from and therefore the city had to be abandoned. A century after the reign of
Ramsy's II, Egypt was cut in two with the priests of Ammun reigning in the south of the kingdom and the kings of the delta in the north. These were foreign pharaohs originating from Libya. Rather than restoring pamses abandoned by the waters and its population, they came up with another idea. Since the work of opening up access routes to the city would have been immense, the decision was taken to move all the monuments a little higher up which resulted in the city of Tannis. And that is why Ramsy's II is present all over a site which he in fact never frequented. But certain statues from paramses discovered in Tannis drew the attention of Egyptologists.
Extensive analysis of them revealed that these two had been usurped by Ramsy's II. When you look at the inscriptions, there are hints that maybe an earlier name was there and had been erased, but there are no actual traces of an earlier name. So, how do we determine? Well, we can look at the faces. If you have a look at the face that is totally different from Ramsy's II, you can see lots of small scars, stigmatas which showed that this head wasn't originally that of Ramsy's. So you try and guess who it was before. For decades, Egyptologists tried to uncover the secret of the identity of these sphinxes.
The alterations had been carried out by sculptors with exceptional knowhow. meticulous work using techniques which were rudimentary but astonishing. This was done by virtuosi. Here you see the traces of modification here around the ear. It's been transformed. You can tell it's been polished here but not there. The shape of the nemesis, the emblematic headwear of pharaohs, the beard, the mouth, the almond-shaped eyes with thick eyelids, the marked curve of the eyebrows, and the severe expression bore no resemblance to the sculptures of
Ramsy's II. The curve of the cheeks was the main element which gave the game away and revealed the origin of these sphinxes. Most of them are actually much older than Ramsy's II. Most of them are coming from the so-called middle kingdom 5 600 years before Ramsy's II. This period was seen as a kind of classic period of arts, literature and great kings. These were the kings of an idealized past. In a way, it was their own romanticized middle ages, the golden age. They were well beyond living memory
and they were in the distant uh remote past who no nobody could remember. They were almost like legends. Amenat III was the one Rams II usered the most in params. But he wasn't the only one. A whole gallery of other great pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom was identified thanks to the facial features of the sculptures. So Ramsy's was collecting ancestral statues of a number of kings of this glorious era of his past. But if the great Pharaoh wished to mark his affinity with them, as was the case with Amenpep III, why remove the names of his predecessors? An idea began to take shape in the minds of the specialists. Was Ramsy's II a megalamaniac to the point of making other pharaohs disappear? If a modern US president were to remove the head of
George Washington or Abraham Lincoln from a memorial monument in Washington DC and rename it for themselves, well, this would be considered outrageous, but the Egyptians had a very different attitude to this kind of thing. Not only was it considered acceptable for Ramsy's uh to do this, it even gave Ramsse a kind of sense of historical honor uh in that he would acquire some of the prestige of these great rulers of the past. In this way, he was acquiring their glory, particularly because at the time of Ramsy's II, the monuments of the Middle Kingdom were in ruins and in no way reflected the glorious past of feronic civilization. To restore the image of this legendary period, the celebrated pharaoh gave
these statues a second life by recycling them in his new and flamboyant capital of Parammeses. Rather than have a half-destroyed temple buried under the sand, he used all these blocks laden with prestige to construct a new building and reused the statues which no longer served any real purpose but had genuine prestige. They were very ancient, beautiful and impressive. Taking their investigations even further in the south of Egypt in Luxer, Egyptologists realized that Ramsy's II had not only userved monuments of his role model Amenep III or statues of legendary pharaohs of the bygone middle kingdom.
He had also attacked monuments of people much closer to him and for very different reasons. On the other side of the temple of Ammun stands an unequaled ancient wonder which transports visitors into the immensity of the glorious ancient civilization. A complex of temples dedicated to the god Amanra Carac. Temple of Karnak is the biggest preserved temple from ancient Egypt. It's absolutely huge. It's several times St. Peter's in Rome. It's much larger. As you enter the temple of Carnac, everywhere you look are these gigantic monuments. You go through the pylon gateways that are almost like artificial
mountains, huge courtyards. You see colossal statues and soaring obelisks, some of them that are 95 ft tall. Everything is gigantic. Then going through the gateway, you arrive in what is called the hypoyle hall. This immense space with dozens and dozens of columns. A forest of columns which is even larger than Notre Dame of Paris. It's gigantic. The hypo style hall. This is undoubtedly the vastest sacred place of all ancient Egypt. 5,000 square meters, the size of a football pitch. 134 columns of which the tallest are 21 m in height like sevenstory buildings.
A colossal space every millimeter of the surface of which was intricately decorated by the ancient Egyptians. Its incredible state of preservation means that this unique and grandiose place is an unrivaled open book about the feronic civilization. In many places, everywhere you turn, in fact, are cartes and inscriptions and wall carvings and scenes that represent Ramsy's II. Many, many pharaohs left their mark there. But no one left his mark like Ramsey's II, where Ramsey's II's name is absolutely everywhere. The presence of Ramsy's II is so overpowering in this forest of gigantic columns that for many years Egyptologists thought that it was at the origin of its construction. But detailed analysis of the cartes
revealed traces of unusual scraping work and once again uncovered usurpation by the famous pharaoh in the c parts of the central nave especially on top of the roof and along some of the rows of columns. We can see that in fact the inscriptions have been carved twice. But how to trace the name on the original cartes? By what means could Egyptologists discover the identity of the pharaoh who had commissioned the building of the hyperyle hall? It depends on the method of carving that the original sculptures used and it also depends on how good or bad the guys that usurped it did their work. And there are two different types of relief. There is raised relief where the
decoration appears to raise out of the wall and there is sunk relief where it appears the decoration appears to sink into the wall. It's extremely difficult, not to say impossible, when the cartou was in relief because nothing remains. This is an ideal situation if you want to hide a user patient. Replacing a cartou isn't that complicated. You just need to remove two or three millimeters of stone and then put a new name on the cartou which is consequently slightly concave because you're obliged to remove some of the stone. Or you can write the new name and relief in the hollow meaning the
relief isn't part of the surface but hollowed out. But the task is much more complex when the original cartou was already in sunken relief. What to do when there's no more material? How did the ancient Egyptians go about it? if it's sunk relief because you have to cut into the wall to remove that name and then they would fill it with plaster and then try to carve into the plaster in order to make it appear beautiful and level with what everything that's around it. Plaster. It was by using an ingenious mixture of stone and plaster that Ramsy's I sculptors managed to cover the name of the original pharaoh who created the hyperstyle hall. These inscriptions are 33 centuries old. So after more than
3,000 years, uh the plaster has fallen away, which is fortunate for us, at least for me as an Egyptologist that wants to see what was going on. It's not so fortunate for Ramsy's II cuz now we can see what he was up to. This was how Egyptologists discovered the identity of the pharaoh who Ramsy's II usered. This man was none other than his predecessor, a man very close to him. It now it appears that in fact the entire building was actually constructed by Sati the first is Sati the first the father of Ramsey's II.
The news sent shock waves through the world of Egyptology. The great Ramsey's II had dared to erase the name of his father in his most monumental construction. So the question is what is really happening here? Why did he erase the name of his father on this building? So why would he do this? In order to understand the special relationship Ramsy's II had with his father, we need to go to one of the most beautiful and best preserved temples of ancient Egypt, the mortterary temple of Si in Abidis. The Abido's temple is particularly interesting because it raises a lot of questions about the succession between Seti the Ramsy's II. When Si the first died to everyone's surprise after a reign of 12 years in
1279 B.CE, his son succeeded him on the throne of Egypt. Ramsy's II was about 25 years old. He didn't only inherit a powerful kingdom but also the unfinished projects which his father left. When the father of Ramsey said he the first died, most of his temples had not been completed. He expected his child to finish what he had started. Uh and indeed that's exactly what happened. But as he had done with others, Ramsy's II eaced the cartou of his father and replaced it with his own and in several parts of the temple. A huge amount of work by Egyptologists was needed to discover the ruse and to realize the intricacy of the work carried out by the legendary pharaoh sculptors.
He tries to shave into it and then put his own name over top. In operating this way, Ramsy's II could not have imagined that a lentil in the main hall of the temple in Abidis would find itself at the heart of the strangest theories concerning Feronic civilization. An unfathomable mystery forever associated with ancient Egypt. He put plaster on it. Nowadays, the plaster is gone. There's two inscriptions and some signs that suddenly look weird. There are a number of visible motifs which from a distance look a bit like a helicopter or a flying saucer or other strange things. And next to them are various objects that have been interpreted as everything from Luke Skywalker's land speededer from the
first Star Wars movie to a glider and one object that is either an early jet fighter or is a submarine or a spaceship. And many people have said this is proof that the ancient Egyptians came from outer space, that they had um access to all kinds of flying machines, etc., etc. If you know your glyphs, if you look at it, you'll realize that there are two glyph sets superimposed. These two superimposed hieroglyphs are a perfect example of Ramsy's II's usurpation. The plaster has slowly crumbled over time, resulting in the appearance of these highly modern means of transport which didn't exist in the pharaoh's time.
Regrettable as it is, it seems that there were no aliens at the time of setting the first or Ramsy's II. But why did Ramsy's I user his own father in his mortterary temple? From today's viewpoint, this seems outrageous. And yet the reason is less clear-cut and quite astonishing. We have to dismiss the idea that Ramsay's had a negative attitude that he held some grudge against his late father. Seti in fact Ramsey seemed to been quite devoted to the memory of this father. Seti was an ambitious ruler but he didn't live very long and so many of his building projects were finished off by Ramsy's II. Ramsy's as the good and loyal son that he is takes up that job and tries to finish the decoration of the temple.
There even seems to have been a lot of complicity between the two men. Throughout his reign, Sadi the first prepared his son Ramsy's to reign after him. And from the reliefs and inscriptions in the temple of Saturday the first and abiders we learn that he had been prepared by his father to become king. He had already been given titles. He had been introduced in an ideological way into the line of kings introduced to the gods. A fresh interpretation appeared that of a son faithful to his family who celebrated the memory of his father by placing him in the ranks of the gods in the eyes of his people.
Ramsy's is carving his name over his father's to create a greater connection to his father's memory. It should be seen rather as an homage. In fact, he put his own name inside that of his father. He's worshiping his father. He is celebrating his father. not about Rammeses II um trying to disguise the fact that any other pharaoh has existed. If anything, it's the reverse. He wants to emphasize greatness of his predecessors and to make himself part of this long line. By way of proof, look at the stretch of wall at Abidis. It's one of the most important testaments and historic landmarks in the history of Egyptology, the Abidis king list. And you can see there's an image of Seti
with the baby young Ramses next to him holding the scroll of Papyrus where they're reading off the names of all of these kings that are their predecessors. To associate yourself with these glorious figures in the past lent a sense of historical continuity but also lent some of their glory to yourself. And I think this is what Ramsy's was trying to do because Ramsy's II had every reason in the world to act in this way. The first being an extremely important rule of succession in ancient Egypt. Was not of royal blood. As a child, he was destined to become an extremely important figure in the Egyptian state, but not a pharaoh.
How did Ramsy's the Great arrive on the throne of Egypt? What rivals did he need to face to reach such a position? When Ramsy's takes the throne, Egypt is under a great deal of stress. Ramsy's II came from a military family originating in the Nile Delta. 50 years before his birth, the pharaoh Akenatan had led the country in a bad direction and offended the gods. Following the reign of Akenatan, there were a series of kings who ruled for only a brief amount of time. Tonkamoon takes the throne, but he only rules for 10 years, but he died young and childless. And the only living member of the royal
family of the 18th dynasty was I who succeeded him. But he had no children either. This series of deaths without an heir deeply destabilized royal power. After I no descendant of Aminateep III was still living. To keep the kingdom afloat. A man who had already proved himself on the battlefield was chosen. Hormb. He's an army general. He's not at all royal. He has no relationship to the royal family. This is a very strong man. He serves as the prime minister, what we call the vizier of Egypt. The future Ramsy's II was born during the reign of this new king chosen by default.
The military pharaoh reestablished order in the kingdom of Egypt after Akenatan's chaotic reign. But misfortune knocked at his door as well. He didn't have a son that was fit to rule. Maybe he didn't have any son at all. There's at least none in the records. And he needed to see how and to whom he can pass on Egypt and kingship. Horm's greatest worry is that once you have a third king who is appointed to the throne, there's a danger that the principle of inherited kingship will break down. And that especially if the next king also dies without an heir,
that this will cause a domestic crisis that could lead even to civil war. Hormhead needed to be sure that his successor had a family ready to create a new dynasty of kings which could successfully pass the throne from father to son. And happily for the future of Egypt, he had someone in mind. He chose an old officer from his army, someone who also was a vizier. So the kind of prime minister in ancient Egypt, but he has also been groomed uh to be one of the senior administrators of Egypt. He is a man named Pamu. When he mounted the throne upon the death of Hormhead, Pamasu chose his pharaoh's name and it was one which would mark the history of the world.
Ramsy's Ig is lucky because Ramsy's happens to have a son. So at last we have an individual who stepped into power who already has an heir and that's Si and Si is the father of Ramsy's II. Ramsy's I founded the 19th Egyptian dynasty and hoped to give back to the land of Egypt the gloried had known during the golden age of the great Amateep III. The pharaoh who Ramsea's family regarded as the supreme model. Although not of royal blood, he counted on his son and grandson to create a new lineage of worthy pharaohs for this age-old land of innumerable riches. Because for the Ramsies it was a family affair. One temple illustrates this perfectly. When we leave Carne and travel to the
west bank of thieves, we find the temple of Gora that Si the first had built for his own cult, but also for the cult of his father Ramsy's I who did not live long enough to build his own cult temple. When Ramsy's I took the throne of Egypt, he was already aging. He died after a reign of just one and a half years without having the time to accomplish what he had begun. His successor, his son Si the first, began the construction of places of worship to honor the memory of his father. but said he died after a reign of 12 years, leaving this precious heritage to the young Ramsy's II along with the
delicate mission of continuing the work of his elders. And as usual, Ramsy's made the most of it. living God. Strangely enough, Si the first is not the only family member that uh Ramsy's II usurps. He also targets some of the inscriptions of his own grandfather uh Ramsy's Id. At the very beginning of this reign, Ramsy's II finished the decoration of part of the temple of Gora and notably the entrance to this chapel where he honored his grandfather Ramsy's I a sacred place. We can see probably a little bit the human behind Ramsy's and for sure it's not the face of a megalomaniac in this moment but it's the face of someone who probably really liked and venerated his family. It's here uh in the cult chambers of his grandfather
that we see Ramsy's II paying homage to the cult images of his father Sidi the first and his grandfather worshiping them as gods. So by making a major contribution to it, Ramsy's II is emphasizing his dynasty and his own legitimacy and power to rule. And he very much needed to because when he arrived on the throne of Egypt, Ramsy's II had many enemies. The elite doubted his capacity to govern the kingdom. Unlike Ramsy's ISI who were wellestablished and had a long track record as high officials during the reign of Hormhead, Ramsy's II was still a very untested young man who people could ask, well, is this guy really up to the job?
In this context, Ramsey's II needed to reassure everybody and establish his authority. He needed to bring stability immediately because Egypt was in danger. He needs to create a sense that Egypt is now at peace, that everyone can relax, that every that the government is taken care of, that religion is taken care of. That's the message that Egyptians really need because Egyptians are used to things working like clockwork. He needed to be a good politician to make his reign successful and he succeeded. And so by doing all of these things, Ramsy's is promoting to his people, Mahat is back.
Ma is back. No more chaos. We are no longer in a period of chaos. We are in a period of stability. No more chaos. To demonstrate this, he proved his valor in combat by leading three great battles against the enemies of Egypt. He brought wealth to the country through his expeditions to Nubia, from which he extracted gold, and he built vast monuments the likes of which had never been seen. And more than anyone else, he had his name and his face engraved in all the stones of the kingdom. He became a symbol, a legend, a living god. And if there are so many representations of Ramsy's II, it's thanks to the royal jubilees of the second half of his long reign.
These great traditional festivals started after 30 years of his reign to honor the pharaoh. It's tempting to compare it to a political campaign, but the king wasn't elected. The king was just there and was legitimate. He was god- sent. So it was more a ceremony intended to renew his energy and help him to continue his role of bringing order to the world. And this is something of this celebrations that Ramsey's II did like no other ruler before him or after him. Ramsey's II lived to the age of 90, a reign of more than 66 years, to the point that the most famous pharaoh in history didn't celebrate with just one jubilee.
He had 14 of them, more than any other pharaoh in the history of Egypt. At the times of Ramsy's II, the people didn't have modern media. It wasn't possible to just quickly put your name everywhere. He just had lots of statues in very prominent places outside of temples where people would see them erected or basically usurped because people even if they weren't literate would probably be able to recognize the same carto repeated endlessly. All the people that could read could read his name. And even those who could not read would nevertheless realize by facial features, if it was statues really by Ramsey's II, that everything here was about Ramsy's II.
Ramsey's II was a wise politician who already understood the value of an image in establishing power. All these depictions of him justify a very modern nickname. Ramsey's II was certainly king of communications, of propaganda, and very much someone who curated his history for the good of himself and the good of the country. Ramsey's II would have made people like Donald Trump or any other ruler look like an amateur if he had a cell phone because he knew how to manipulate and he knew his propaganda. If Ramsy's had lived now, he would have been king of X. This is the portrait of Ramsy's II, a man who took the power which was given him and who accomplished the missions which his forefathers left him.
This wasn't all about his ego or his megalamania. This was a normal part of the office of kingship and filling his role as king. The king was at the center of the universe. was just a bit excessive to us in how much he was doing at it. But he had also reigned so much longer than other kings. Very few Egyptians by the end of his reign could remember any other pharaoh. but also that of an able politician who was able to use the prestige of his father and grandfather to legitimize his own kingship to stay in power and to become even more powerful. Ramsey's II was the greatest of usurpers, but he never sought to deliberately erase the existence of his predecessors. On the contrary, he helped perpetuate their greatness by choosing them as
models. With his vast ambition, by presenting himself as equal to the gods, he helped rejuvenate the strength of Egypt. A unique pharaoh who did all he could in his own lifetime to make his mark on earth. Father to a 100 children, an ingenious builder, and a king of communication, Ramsey's II did everything to become immortal in the history of humankind.
