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Volume 9 issue 3 December 2008

ANCIENT EGYPT explores the WORLD WIDE WEB ...

THE SONS OF RAMESES THE GREAT

This month’s NETFISHING continues its look at the history of Egypt by seeing what the World Wide Web has to say about the sons of Rameses II, and his successor King Merenptah.

The reign of Rameses II has left behind many great monuments, but perhaps one of the most perplexing of all is the largest of all the tombs to be found in the Valley of the Kings, Tomb KV5 – the tomb of the sons of Rameses II. This was cut into a much better rock strata than Rameses’ own royal tomb (KV7), and KV5 was extended and extended to form a sepulcre of well over one hundred rooms. Refer:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/kv51.htm

http://www.thebanmappingproject.com/sites/browse_tomb_819.html

‘Rameses the Great’ claimed to have fathered over a hundred sons; we know the names of many of them as a very large number of them are depicted on his monuments. Refer:

http://touregypt.net/featurestories/ramesses2children.htm

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/ramesses2ssons.htm

The most famous of his sons was Khaemwaset, Rameses’ fourth son, and his second son by his Great Royal Wife Istnofret. Khaemwaset became High Priest of Ptah at Memphis, and so was responsible for the burial of the Apis bulls. As such, he oversaw the construction of the first underground galley of the Serapeum at Saqqara. He is often termed the first archaeologist because of his interest in Egypt’s past and the restoration work he conducted on the pyramids of the Old Kingdom, most notably his restoration inscription on the pyramid of King Unas (of the Fifth Dynasty) which can still be seen today. He became Crown Prince in Year 52 of his father’s reign, when he was most probably in his sixties, but died only a few years later (in regnal Year 55). He may well have been buried in a gallery of the Serapeum itself. Refer:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/khaemwese.htm 

http://egyptphoto.ncf.ca/unas%20khaemwaset%20inscription.htm 

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/3441/Relief_of_Khaemwaset 

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/112878/the_papyrus_from_the_setne_khaemwaset.html 

http://members.tripod.com/ib205/apis_6.html 

Rameses died in his sixty-seventh regnal year, probably aged about ninety-two. This was quite an exceptional age for ancient times and by this point he was most probably considered to be a ‘living god’ by his subjects. Having lived for such a long time many of his sons had pre-deceased him, and so it was his thirteenth son, Merenptah, who became the next pharaoh. Refer:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/merenptah.htm

Merenptah was not a young man, however, due to the length of his father’s reign, and was probably around sixty when he finally became king. His reign was therefore destined to be of modest length – only about ten years. The early years of his reign were ones of famine in the Near East and he honoured his father’s peace treaty with the Hittites by sending food to them when they requested help. Such food shortages may have brought about the greatest challenge he was to face during his reign when, in Year 5, a coalition of Libyan invaders and the ‘Sea Peoples’ launched a combined attack against Egypt. He successfully defeated them and as a result the Sea Peoples turned north, and invaded, and brought about the end of, the Hittite Empire. The Nubians had also conspired with the Libyans to attack Egypt, and once again Merenptah proved his worth as a military commander by soundly defeating them. He had shown that despite the loss of ‘Rameses the Great’, Egypt was not a country to be taken lightly. The victories of Merenptah are recorded on his ‘Great Victory Stela’, which is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Refer:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/merenphatvictorystele.htm

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2006/03/The-Merenptah-Stela.aspx

https://www.courses.psu.edu/cams/cams400w_aek11/www/merenpta.html

This stela is famous as it provides the first mention in Egypt of the ancient Israelites, whom he claims to have conquered. Interestingly, he does not claim to have conquered ‘the Land of Israel’ but rather its people (the hieroglyphic determinative used being that of a man and a woman); so does this date to the period when the Jewish people were ‘wandering in the wilderness’ after their Exodus from Egypt (in the reign of his father)? Merenptah’s moment of greatness had passed, and after his death the royal succession, at the end of the Nineteenth Dynasty, has proved a complex matter, provoking much debate – as will be considered in the next edition.

 Victor Blunden

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