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Ramses II, the most famous pharaoh of them all. The autopsy of his mummy in 1976 in Paris would reveal an unknown face of the Egyptian king, very different from the image of the great warrior for which he wanted to be remembered in history. He developed a major hunchback, and his neck craned forward. But over here in his mandible, there was a big abscess, and it must have been horribly painful. Being we probably have to think of an old man just eating soups, not being able to have a good piece of meat. Did Ramses II try to stretch the limits of human life, even if it meant paying the price with terrible suffering? What tangible scientific
elements can explain reaching such an old age so long ago? Was it his genes? Was it a special diet or something else that we don't know? The lifestyle within the palaces is absolutely optimal for the king to be in good health at all times. Of course, Ramses II did die, but would live once more in the afterlife of the ancient Egyptians. A terrifying underworld filled with pitfalls, where he would confront the terrible serpent Apep, god of darkness and the apocalypse. The boot Apep's task is to make sure that the sun can't rise again. He wants to return the world to
its original state of inertia. He is designed to eternally stand sentinel over the baby sun so that it is then reborn in the west. Prepare yourselves to discover Ramses II behind the legend, a man who did everything in his lifetime to become immortal in the history of humankind. September 26th, 1976, 6:30 p.m. A French Air Force plane has just landed at Le Bourget Airport in the Paris suburbs. It's coming from Egypt, has an extremely unusual passenger on board. And the unusual thing about the passenger was he
had been dead for 3,000 years, but he was still a king and one of the most famous pharaohs of Egypt. This wooden crate contained the mummy of the most fascinating and most documented king in the history of ancient Egypt. He who embodies the grandeur and power of the glorious civilization of the pharaohs, a civilization which reached the height of its glory during his reign. His name has gone down through the ages, making him immortal in the memory of humankind, Ramses II. Ramses II is the definitive pharaoh for ancient Egypt. He's like the Louis if you like, the king that we all think of.
He's one of the exceptional figures to have lived on our planet. Among those who have had such a massive impact on human history, Ramses It was a historical moment which would elevate the legend of Ramses even higher and bring him eternal glory, because his mummy had come to Paris for an unprecedented and extremely important mission. Egypt has a problem. They've realized that the mummy of Ramses is falling apart. He's infected with all manner of different problems. There was fungus, a kind of mold. So basically, what you have if you leave meat for too long outside your fridge, something very similar was happening to the mummy of Ramses II. So treatment was immediately necessary, otherwise the
mummy of Ramses II would have been lost forever. If that were to happen, not only would it be a tragedy for science, but also for Ramses II himself, because according to ancient Egyptian beliefs, the pharaoh's mummy was indispensable to his immortality. The ancient Egyptians saw death as a passage, an event between two lives, and the second one was supposed to last for eternity. Forever and ever. To preserve the body of an ancient Egyptian mummy is to preserve an ancient soul and to guarantee that person can still continue to access their afterlife. So the preservation of a mummy is quite essential.
The 20th century Egypt didn't have the scientific or technical means to avoid such a disaster. So the Egyptology community sprang into action to save the precious relic of the immortal Ramses II. This is how his mummy arrived in Paris for the autopsy of the century. The mummy was sent to France because here there was a very specialized group of people who were considered to be the best in the world to stop the processes of decomposition of the mummy of Ramses II. This is a challenge of international significance in the modern day. This is not something France is going to want to get wrong.
The last chance team faced the massive challenge of saving the mummy of the most famous pharaoh in history. When they finally came face-to-face with the dead king's body at the Museum of Mankind, it was as if time had stood still. That's a huge moment. That face is like a snapshot of this great ruler who ruled 3,000 years ago. It's a moment in time. It's really pioneering work that needs to be done, a task that has never been done before. The scientists didn't know it yet, but they wouldn't be just going to try to save the great pharaoh's mummy. The autopsy would also reveal many secrets about Ramses II that were still unknown. Although Ramses lived thousands of years ago and
his physical voice is lost to us, the mummy can be quite eloquent and can speak to us about what he actually experienced in life. Their scientific investigations pulled the mask away that Ramses used to hide his humanity and expose more than ever the real Ramses, the human Ramses, for all to see for the first time in 33 centuries. When they started examining Ramses' mummy, they discovered his size. The pharaoh was 1.75 m or 5 ft 9 which was very tall for the time. But that wasn't the most surprising thing.
One of the things that was most striking, of course, was the age, because from historic texts, we know that Ramses reigned for a very long time and that he was indeed probably, you know, late 80s, 90s when he died. So it was a lovely moment where texts and archaeological records matched physical evidence of the body. 90 years old, an age that's common among seniors nowadays, but exceptionally rare more than 3,200 years ago, when in ancient Egypt, life expectancy was between 40 and 50. How did he live this long, especially in a time period where modern medicine did not yet exist? How on earth is this possible? How can this be? And can the mummy answer that question?
This raises another question. If Ramses was planning for divine immortality through the preservation of his mummified body, could he have stretched the limits of his earthly life to realize the absolute fantasy of actual immortality? To discover more about his incredible longevity, the scientists continued their investigation of the mummy. Was it his genes? Was it a special diet or something else that we don't know? It's impossible to prove, but Ramses II probably had a stronger than average immune system, allowing him to better resist the living conditions of his day. Although the legendary ruler was a force of nature, genes aren't a credible enough lead to
understand what was behind his exceptional longevity. But he clearly had the means to lengthen his life. As a pharaoh, Ramses II had always lived in privileged living conditions in the sumptuous royal palaces built by his predecessors across the kingdom, like those in Memphis and Thebes. But those cities were nothing compared to the magnificent capital he constructed in the Nile Delta, not far from Avaris, where he was born, a city of unparalleled size and beauty, Per-Ramesses. This is an entirely new capital city inhabited by maybe as many as 300,000 people at its peak. It's one of the largest cities ancient Egypt has ever seen, one of the largest cities in the ancient world. This is a city that is being described as
absolutely magnificent. Huge, with beautiful buildings, buildings that are described of having had windows of doors of lapis lazuli and turquoise. Basically, almost a kind of little paradise on earth, or really a beautiful place to live, a place as it's said in the ancient text, that everybody left his old place for to come to the new capital. Pi-Ramesses was without a doubt the most modern city in the kingdom of Egypt at the time of Ramesses II. It had all the latest technical innovations which provided extraordinary comfort to the pharaoh and his family. His gigantic palace was an ancient Versailles. With luxurious gardens, fountains, private quarters, and fabulous living spaces offering an idyllic
setting to live with the utmost serenity. They also specially built the roofs so that they could were faced in a specific direction so they would funnel cool breezes into the area so they actually had a form of air conditioning as well. So the inside of the palace would have probably been rather cool. In a country where temperatures regularly climb above 40° C, Ramesses II's palace wasn't just ultra-modern because of its air cooling system. It was also a model in terms of hygiene because Pi-Ramesses was equipped with running water. We need to think of a fresh breezes coming through the palace with water trickling and sloshing and cool moist air from that.
The lifestyle within the palaces is absolutely optimal for the king to be in good health at all times. And of course that's the foundation for somebody like Ramesses II living a very long time. What's more, as a pharaoh, Ramesses was surrounded by a host of people to take care of him. He was not only a king, but also a living god. Pharaoh was a very vigorous man. He engaged in warfare and was a very well-trained warrior. He would have also been exercising probably to maintain his body up until a certain point. He probably would have had massage. So it
was a good life to be in an Egyptian palace. Optimal living conditions that certainly helped Ramesses II live to the ripe old age of 90 and flirt with immortality. But is that the only explanation for such longevity? It's not just a genetics, it's not just lifestyle. There's got to be something else going on in there that allows him to live for such a long time. Ramesses II's palace had something else on offer. Something that would help improve the health of anyone. Food. The details of his diet aren't well documented. So it's hard to determine whether food had a favorable impact on his incredibly long life.
But it's likely that his status as pharaoh gave him access to more varied and more nutritious foods than those of mere mortals. So Ramesses would have been given, you know, cereals, bread, beer, wine, beef more than other kinds of meat, but he would have had um sheep, goat, pig, lots of different kinds of poultry roasted. So combined with good genes, a whole cocktail allowed him to reign for a very long time. But actually, despite the fact that, you know, he's this great figure, the mummy tells us that maybe he didn't have quite the figure that we might expect given all that. Because in Paris, the scientists made a staggering discovery that would completely alter how we saw the great ancient ruler.
Something that might explain his great longevity. One of the things that they discovered was that Ramesses had a lot of extra skin on the mummy. The mummification process does desiccate or dry out the body. So this frequently leaves extra skin behind. But um it's more skin than what we would anticipate. So there are two possibilities to explain this excess skin. Either he was very ill right towards the end of his life and suddenly lost a great deal of weight, or he was overweight. An overweight Ramesses II. This hypothesis hit like a bomb. He's never shown in that way as a fat unhealthy-looking man. He's always shown, of course, as a vigorous athletic person.
What did he really look like? How come no depictions of Ramesses II show this side of his physicality? Did he try to cover up his portliness? Ramesses II has a role to play. We have to remember there's two things going on. Those statues are not intended to be realistic life portraits of the man, the mortal man. They are images of this ideal god-type figure. It's always representing the eternal ideal, the internal concept of person. And so especially for the pharaoh, that must always be vigorous and strong with a perfect body and a
perfect face because pharaoh is perfect. But is this ideal beauty coherent with the real body of Ramesses II? Palace life has its advantages, but also its disadvantages. Like access to rich sweet foodstuffs such as honey, which can lead to obesity. It's entirely possible that the great warrior pharaoh Ramesses in his the later part of his life was enjoying the joys of having a relaxed family life and was able to enjoy himself. Well, that's only natural. Except that his excess weight must have put pressure on his heart. He must have cheated death for long enough that he could make it. But there's no question as well that he was in pretty bad shape by the end,
suffering from a whole host of medical issues that would have made his life very difficult at the end of his days. And as the autopsy revealed, especially his teeth. Because on that front, the findings were terrible. When they examined Ramesses' mouth, they realized that Ramesses must have been in pain for several decades before he died. They realized that he had extensive dental problems. Some of Ramesses' teeth were worn down to the roots. He clearly suffered from tooth decay and inflammation of the gums. But that wasn't the worst of it. But over here in his mandible, there was a big abscess and it must have
been horribly painful. This is the kind of ailment that it doesn't come on very quickly and suddenly. So the fact that this is present in Ramesses II's mummy suggests that it had been developing for a long period of time, possibly over a number of years. Little by little, a new face is drawn. That of a more human Ramesses who's much closer to us. A man in old age, possibly the victim of his own longevity, who suffered terrible pain for several decades. We probably have to think of an old man just eating soups, liquid things, soft things, not being able to have a good piece of meat, a good piece of hard bread anymore. But more than anything else, very few people would have lived long
enough for their teeth to have reached the kind of state that Ramesses II's would have done. How was the pharaoh able to live to such an old age with all of his health problems? Did he have ways of relieving his pain? Did he trust in knowledge that let him believe he could actually become immortal? It's very possible Ramesses II and indeed people around him as well may well have wanted him to live forever. There may even have been a kind of belief that this is possible. Could that explain his phenomenal longevity? Did he benefit from state-of-the-art medicine that kept him alive despite illness and pain?
Just imagine a world where probably you could do surgery, but without really good anesthetics, without disinfectants, without antibiotics. Ramesses, with all of his pain, must have had a lot of doctors and dentists coming in and somehow they could not cure him. But they would probably a combination of, you know, herb mixtures as well as magical prayers. Because in the time of Ramses the second, medicine wasn't a science. The ancient Egyptians believed that illnesses were the work of evil spirits. Only the power of the gods could cure a person. That was why so-called wizard doctors were so important.
Their task was to invoke the divinities to help treat the pharaoh. And to do that, any means were appropriate. They had inscriptions, and they would pour milk or water or wine over the inscription, then it would collect in a bowl, and it would absorb all the magic, and then when you drank it, that magic would go into your body, and you would be cured together with whatever medicines they gave you. And it was their knowledge as much of the right incantations, the right words, or the right objects, the right amuletic powers. That was as important as the actual treatments. Wizard doctors thus carried huge responsibility.
They had to know exactly which divinity they should call on. Because the gods and goddesses were associated with certain aspects of human health, and the slightest error could be fatal. If the king was feeling better, then that would be because the magician had said the right words. Um if the king wasn't feeling better, that would be because the magician didn't know the right words, and maybe we should find a different magician. And even though magic and medicine seemed always so intertwined in ancient Egypt, and were surely always part of each other, nevertheless also ancient Egyptians might have kind of realized the limits of magic. But no matter what they did, it seems that they could not clean out the abscess. For how long did the great Ramses suffer
from this abscess? How could he survive such pain? It's hard to say. In some ways, he In that regard, he's a victim of his own success. By living as long as he did, inevitably parts of his body were going to suffer, and clearly that was the case with his teeth. And there were other things that the scientists discovered that showed that he had a lot of issues. As the doctors begin to examine Ramses' neck, they realize that there is a unusual quality about his neck. It's broken. Surprised, the scientists began to ask questions. Was Ramses killed by a violent blow which broke his neck? Or was the fracture made after his death? When they looked at it closely, they realized that in fact this had nothing
to do with the cause of death or anything like that. An extraordinary discovery. The experts realized that the embalmers were obliged to break the pharaoh's neck because his body wouldn't fit inside his coffin. Simply because Ramses' back was no longer straight. He developed a major hunchback, and his neck craned forward so that he would have been uh stooped over and actually had his head tilted forward and up. This would have made it very difficult for him to swallow. Uh his he would have been hunched over, and uh he just would not have uh been able to lie down properly. The question then scientists is what is this something that has developed in old age as a result of old age? Or
rather, is this something that could have afflicted him when he was a young man? This question is at the heart of a debate between Egyptologists. For a long time, experts believed that the terrible state of Ramses' back was due to ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory disease which affects the joints of the spine, stiffening them over time. But the difficulty with that is that is a condition that afflicts um people in at a much earlier point in their lives. And if this is what the king was suffering from, then we have to assume that he had suffered from this more or less all his adult life.
Further analysis has shown that this cannot be the case. Ramses did indeed have a hunchback, but caused by diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, or DISH. But it's a disease that is quite common amongst older people. It's a degenerative disease of the spine. So actually we can still keep in our minds this idea of a very vigorous and athletic young Ramses, maybe really genuinely leading his armies into battle. And it's only later in life that he comes to develop this hunchback. The price of living to a ripe old age. Because as the autopsy revealed, the slightest movement must have been agony for the great pharaoh.
There didn't seem much to be wrong with Ramses except that he did have arthritis, so he would have been in a lot of pain. And he also had hip dysplasia, which caused him while he could still walk to walk with a shuffle, and by the end he probably had to be carried around. We had to wait more than 3,200 years to find out how Ramses the second lived through the last years of his reign. Without the autopsy in Paris, we would never have gathered all this crucial information. But this raises another question for the experts. If Ramses the second was so poorly late in his life, how did he cope with his jubilee celebrations? The jubilee is a very
important festival, very important right of kingship. The Egyptians call it the heb-sed, and it's celebrated after 30 years of the rule of the king. Having taken the throne at around the age of 25, Ramses the second celebrated his jubilee at 55. But incredibly, he didn't just have one of them. Few pharaohs reigned for more than 30 years, but the law had it that further jubilees should be held every 3 years after the first to honor the king. So in all, Ramses the second had 14 jubilees, a record.
There is a strong chance that despite the pharaoh's wavering health, all these jubilees were held to show the people he was still capable of ruling the kingdom. Because that was the point of the royal jubilee. And to prove his ability, the pharaoh had a number of tests to pass. The best known, racing around his palace. The pharaoh in his full royal court garb ran a ritual relay race, where he would run between two markers carrying different symbols of his office. So he would complete a lap, and somebody would ritually give him a new thing to run with, and then he would run again and again as he went through all these different ritual items. If he did not falter, if he did not fall, if all was well, then he would
continue to rule. That's what the gods expect. That's what the people of Egypt Except that Ramses the second was more than 90 at his 14th jubilee. Was history's greatest pharaoh still capable of running and carrying heavy objects? Not to mention his hunchback, his difficulties in walking, and the scorching sun. There's just no way he could have done this. It's just not credible to think that he did. Would he have been carried around on a palanquin, or would one of his younger sons actually have performed the ceremony for him, or would the it have
been just omitted from the program altogether? There is only one conclusion. The aging Ramses was held. In that case, was he still capable of ruling Egypt? Was he thinking as clearly as before because he was in pain, and pain does cloud one's judgment? Had he become a very irritable person? I mean, I'm sure he was completely autocratic anyway, but with this pain, I can imagine him being more short-tempered, not always making good judgment. Is he still thinking to himself, "I'm going to live forever?" Or does there come a point where he thinks, "I'm done, you know, I want to bow out."
A willing man like Ramses the second would not easily give up the direct control of his kingdom. But old age and illness certainly deprived him of his capabilities. One thing is sure, he wasn't overthrown or assassinated by someone wanting to take his place. That probably also tells us something about in the end the stability of his reign, about the people around him. They were all obviously loyal enough not to depose an aging old king, but he was left in place, even though probably he was not really able to reign anymore.
The pharaoh is not just it's not a just a practical role. It's not about leading the country in the way that a president does or a prime minister does. You can't retire. You know, you don't finish being pharaoh until the point at which you die. Thankfully, due to his numerous victories, Ramses had pacified Egypt, and there were no wars in the second half of his reign. So, it's easy to imagine the great ruler having more of a symbolic function during the final years of his reign. But, the renowned pharaoh must surely have anticipated such a period, which is why he trained his sons and especially his successor.
It does seem that his last crown prince, Merneptah, was increasingly ruling the country on this behalf during the last decade or so of his reign. But, he obviously had taken over part of the daily business of the king. So, the country was working, everything was functioning as before. All the king had to do was be dressed up and look like a god and he could manage to not be too stooped, but like this he would look as he ought to. Because think of it, it is like going in front of cameras. So, he had all the makeup, he had all of the clothes, and he had enough people to support him. So, he would just sort of have to sit like this, stand up, sit down, finished.
The autumn years of a natural colossus who stretched the limits of the possible in every part of his life. A unique, unparalleled pharaoh who made his mark on humankind by becoming the very embodiment of the most important civilization of antiquity. You can obviously tell that he had a tenacious will to live and managed to live with all these difficulties until the bitter end. Ramses was well aware that he was not immortal. Even though it might have seemed to some that he was immortal, but of course he was aware that he was a human being. One day in the year 1213 before the common era, a day that would mark the ancient Egyptians forever.
The immortal Ramses II died around the age of 90 after a reign of just over 66 years. 90 for the ancient Egyptians is like 120 for us. It's extraordinary. It means that four generations of Egyptians succeeded each other always with the same king. For a while, they must have thought he would never die. Had he developed a infection? What kind of condition was his heart in? Did he have, you know, heart disease, pain? What breathing difficulties did he have?
We just have no idea. On the one hand, this was hardly surprising. And yet, it was in many ways a catastrophe. With the pharaoh dead, the balance of the kingdom was jeopardized. The world had stopped turning. He would always have been the king. There would have been nobody else. So, this idea that there's now going to be a change would have been a really massive moment for the Egyptian people, like a kind of earthquake in their lives. So, if he's not here now, what's going to happen? Once Ramses died, that was the end of his life here on Earth, but it was the beginning of a new journey for him, an entirely new experience. While he had an appointed successor and his son Merneptah,
a new life was about to begin for Ramses II. The deceased pharaoh had a mission to fulfill in the afterlife. So, things needed to move fast. His body had to be immediately mummified in a highly coded and precise ritual. The embalmers had 70 days to prepare the body and carry out a host of rituals so that his majesty was ready for eternity. He would be completely shaved and plucked and then the priests would make an incision through which the organs would be removed. And that includes straining the body of all the fluids and also opening up the abdominal cavity and removing
different aspects of the internal organs that are the most likely to begin to rot quickly. The body was then covered with natron, a salt that darkens and dries the skin. And importantly, the embalmers had to ensure that Ramses' body resembled as closely as possible the person he had been when he lived. He had a very distinctive nose and so the nose is mostly made up of cartilage. And as a result, the nose collapsed during the process of mummification. So, one of the things that the embalmers did was they actually uh sort of inserted various different items up his nose to build it back out, sort of like plastic surgery, in order to make it so that he would look like himself again. They made efforts with the mummy to make it look as he had
looked when he was young. And they made his nose proud and strong. Um and so, he did look pretty good and he is a very good-looking mummy. So, for Ramses, he was going to come back at his finest. Ramses' body was then wrapped in linen bandages several layers thick so that the body parts remained well fixed together. Small magical amulets were placed at various points under the bandages to help the pharaoh on his forthcoming journey. Placing amulets or other objects in certain places gave his majesty certain capabilities. For example, placing a jet, the word for
pillar represented stability and this would allow him to become upright again in the afterlife. So, after the 70 days are complete, you have the mummy which is just waiting to be reactivated. This reactivation could only be performed by the pharaoh's successor. Merneptah, Ramses II's heir, began the ritual with the opening of the mouth, a magical funerary operation that returned the five senses to the deceased. Merneptah would have done this dressed in the guise of a sem priest wearing a leopard skin robe. And so, Ramses' body would have been held up by other priests and then Merneptah would have They'd been burning incense, he would
make libations, he would use a special tool and sort of touch the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the ears and give back the five senses to Ramses as he made a recitation. And this is designed to open up the mouth to be able to allow the souls to interact and to come forth or to go into the afterlife. The mummy was then placed in a number of coffins designed like the Russian dolls we know today. They have never been found. But, when compared with the tomb furnishings of Tutankhamun, it's easy to believe that the fittings for the greatest pharaoh in history must have been extraordinary.
He was accompanied by burial offerings and personal belongings to guarantee his protection in the afterlife. From this point on, Ramses II could begin to bid farewell to his earthly existence. The king would have been placed on a very special funeral barge. Uh the coffin would have been in there and protected uh and people would have come out to see the pharaoh passing down the Nile. The immortal pharaoh that has lived so long, that has reigned so long, has died. So, for sure almost everybody wanted probably to see the ship and this kind of procession. So, it would have been a very emotional and dramatic procession, a funerary procession that went not just across the river, but in fact all the way down into Luxor.
And then that is when he would have been taken for his burial. On arrival in Luxor, formerly Thebes, a long cortege transported Ramses' coffin to its final resting place. The pharaoh could now enjoy the vast tomb he had been building since the beginning of his reign in the Valley of the Kings. The coffin was taken down into the tomb to the burial chamber where it was probably surrounded with a host of objects. Every item that is going to go into the tomb has got a kind of magical and symbolic significance.
Um each one of these things would have been treated with sort of care and ceremony. Emptied of its contents by pillagers during antiquity and destroyed by floods, the tomb has lost its grandeur. But, its size, associated with the prestige of Ramses II, lets us imagine what the place where he was left to become immortal must have looked like. And imagine what he would have had, the kind of wealth, the kind of jewelry, the clothes, the chariots, the armor, uh the furniture, the food, the drink, everything. So, Ramses' tomb must have been an incredible treasure trove. Complex burial rites were held to honor Ramses the Great and facilitate his journey to the afterlife.
Only the privileged few, his son Merneptah and his close circle, were present to witness this historic moment. For given his old age, the pharaoh had already buried a large number of his family members. At the moment, the tomb of Ramses II is sealed. He shall never be seen again by the world of men. In theory, it should have been something uninterrupted, an absolutely perfect and calm eternity. Except that when the tomb was closed for the very last time, Ramses didn't know that other adventures awaited him. His spirit now enters the underworld.
The pharaoh had an appointment with the gods and his ancestors. His final destination was a paradise that resembled his palace. There, he would live for eternity. He would be immortal. But in order to get there, he has to first make a very dangerous, very perilous journey. And this is part of the reason why there's so much equipment that goes with the king. For example, two daggers which are buried um with the king, very close to his body. They're kind of on his person, on the mummy wrappings. In death, too, the king had responsibilities. And without the king, nothing would work. He cannot relax like
the rest of his subjects and live in the best form of his life. He is instead eternally at battle with terrifying forces. According to the Book of Caverns of Egyptian mythology, after death, the soul of the deceased must undergo a series of tests and overcome several obstacles in an underworld called the Duat. This underworld is where the sun god Ra passes during the 12 nighttime hours. He is supposed to rise again the next morning in the east to offer Egypt an extra day.
Only this task is very difficult for the sun god. That is why Ramses II was there to help Ra rise again, not just the next day, but every day and for eternity. To do this, the pharaoh would have to cross a dangerous ocean on a barge in the black of night. When his majesty died, he became the sun on his barge. He became the evening sun called Atum. Atum must travel across the dark waters of the night. The ancient Egyptians thought after you die, you are born again. And at that point, you're not born into your old body. You are back in that kind of youthful vigorous form. So, Ramses II at this point maybe is exactly as he would have been maybe in his 20s leading his army into battle. So, his physical weakness
at the end of his life is not important anymore. It's not relevant. And Ramses wasn't alone to make the sun rise again. He had some heavyweight allies. The most powerful army of the underworld, the gods of the Egyptian pantheon, and all the pharaohs who preceded him. His entire job is to become one with the army of the pharaohs who have come before him. He is now not just one king, he's all the kings. And he is designed to eternally stand sentinel over the baby sun so that it is then reborn in the west. Together, they progress across this primordial ocean, a path dotted with pitfalls and terrifying enemies.
Enemies whose mission is not only to prevent the sun from rising at dawn, but also to destroy the Egyptian universe. They went through these terrifying caverns with decapitated enemies who are shooting fire out of their necks. They're trying to destroy the recreation of the universe because they're the enemies. They're chaos. The most fearsome enemy lurks at the seventh hour of the night. The army of immortals, protectors of the sun god Ra, must confront the snake Apep, a massive challenge that will decide the survival of the ancient Egyptian world. Apep's task is to make sure that the sun can't rise again.
He wants to return the world to its original state of inertia, a place which is neither completely liquid nor solid, where time doesn't exist and death doesn't exist. The moment that the snake attacks the golden barge is the most critical. Of course, Ra must absolutely defend himself. He's surrounded by several gods, he's not alone, but the snake does everything to try to sink the barge. It crashes into it with its head, it drinks all the water of the Nile to leave sandbanks where the barge might run aground. And at various points in the journey, we see the sun god and those around him brandishing knives and ropes. Knives to
defeat the snake, ropes to tether the snake so that he's under their control. It's a dark world where you can see nothing except gout of flame, of serpents that are breathing fire to try to destroy the boat. The boat itself at one point turns into a gigantic snake in order to defend the kings. Uh and it slithers over land with all of them riding on its back. So, there's this enormous battle and the outcome is his majesty manages to vanquish death. And the sun god gets the his energies recharged so that when he reaches the 12th hour of the night and arises in the uh eastern horizon, he is quite literally reborn.
Given that the sun has continued to rise these past 3,200 years, it would seem that it was mission accomplished for Ramses II. The moment the king manages to defeat Apep in the seventh hour, he enters the caverns where he's acclaimed and given new clothes. This is the last step before being reborn. And when his majesty is reborn like the sun, he rises into the sky and becomes a star. So, he has crossed to the other side and is welcomed as a god among the gods.
He's in his place reigning eternally. Death is not the end. But in fact, the mission isn't accomplished. It will go on eternally. You can never defeat Apep. He changes his skin and comes back eternally at the seventh hour of the night, every night until the end of time. And so, the dead king had to on a daily basis, or rather a nightly basis, make sure that the cosmos was maintained while his son in life was making sure that Egypt maintained Ma'at and survived. In many ways, Ramses II is definitely still living. Absolutely. He's He's at war.
Well, no, right now he's asleep. It's daytime. So, he's sleeping right now. Give him a couple hours, he'll be he'll wake up around 10:00. This is how Ramses II became immortal for the ancient Egyptians. But for this belief to continue, his mummy had to be saved. Otherwise, he couldn't fulfill his task in the afterlife. Having been completely x-rayed and having revealed the secrets about the end of his life, the mummy then had to be treated with gamma rays to kill the fungi and bacteria that were destroying it. For the scientists, they have one more
job when it comes to Ramses II. They have revealed a huge amount about his life, but there's still the job um of making sure that the mummy can survive for another few thousand years. And so, there was a very new machine that only existed here in France. And they used that on Ramses, which has sort of been bombarded with gamma rays. After 12 hours of radiation with cobalt-60, the mummy came out in perfect condition. And it turns out the fungus is gone. Decomposition has been stopped. That was in 1977. The mummy of Ramses II was safe and sound. The pharaoh could continue his eternal combat in the underworld against the terrible serpent Apep and help the sun god Ra be reborn every day.
The illustrious king left Paris and France and returned to his place in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. And ever since that time, um visitors to Egypt have been able to look upon the face of this incalculably important ancient personality thanks to this fantastic work done in Paris in the 1970s. Um Ramses lives on forever. A final face-to-face which has brought us closer to the great pharaoh of Egypt. Did he attain divine immortality in the afterlife of the ancient Egyptians? Perhaps one day we'll know. Ramses II wasn't immortal in our world, but he achieved another kind of immortality. He has gone down in history and will never not be a part of it.
Every way in our understanding of immortality and his own understanding immortality, Ramses is in fact immortal. Due to the fact that we have so much evidence for Ramses and we have his mummy and we have so many accounts of his life. In many ways, Ramses achieved true immortality because he has become part of pop culture. He is universally known. So, Ramses is living an eternal life. His memory lives on in the monuments and inscriptions he left behind. His reign, which lasted for more than six decades, symbolizes the height of power and longevity in ancient Egypt.
Ramses, meaning born of Ra, is the best word to define immortality and fame. He was the first king who fully understood what it meant to rule, who best embodied the notion of the almighty pharaoh with great victories, a huge family, territory that stretched forever, and who was finally able to beat death because he has never been forgotten. It was said that the name of the dead could be spoken, then their memory would live, and if their name survived and their name was spoken, then their spirit would survive forever. They would never be forgotten. We are always talking about Ramses now. So, as long as we are talking about Ramses, he is kind of alive. And now we are already 3,200 years after his death. So, this means he was quite successful
in his quest for immortality. A unique pharaoh who did all he could in his own lifetime to make his mark on Earth, father to 100 children, an ingenious builder, and a king of communication. Ramses II did everything to become immortal in the history of humankind.
