Why Was Ramses II Ancient Egypt's Greatest Pharaoh? | History Makers | Odyssey

this channel is part of the history hit Network [Music] today the Egypt of the modern world looks upon the wonders of its ancient past undimmed by the passing centuries such Eternal splendors of the pyramids at Giza and the Great Sphinx still stand as breathtaking tributes to Egypt's ancient forefathers perhaps they are a little beaten and battered by the hot Desert Winds and the burning Sun but these Treasures still endure like the endless Sands which have helped preserve them for thousands of years the ancient civilization which spawns such awesome structures continues to fasten its it contains an irresistible mix of Splendor and mystery and at that civilization's very heart were the mighty pharaohs the great Kings of the 30 dynasties whose lives were revealed to us through the discovery of their Splendid and opulent tombs [Music] [Applause] [Music] laughs perhaps the most extraordinary pharaoh of all was the great warrior king Ramses II remembered simply as Ramses the Great [Music] the lifeblood of the ancient Egyptian civilization was the River Nile it nourished here people and gave them the raw materials they needed to make their extraordinary achievements cutting a sway through the desert from its source in the nioharango river a tributary of Lake Victoria it flows to the Delta on the Mediterranean Coast a journey of nearly 6500 kilometers it was the ancient Greek historian Herodotus who declared that Egypt is the gift of the Nile together with the sun it was perceived by the ancient Egyptians to be the very source of life the mile was for them like a huge clock that organized their world and that's why they had to watch out for it that's why they had to think in the way of denial and agriculture the agricultural cycle that's why when you talk about spring summer Autumn and went and you don't find that in ancient Egypt you find the name in ancient Egypt in addition they're coming out of the plants and the so-called summer three seasons [Music] watch hundreds of exclusive history documentaries with a subscription to history hit our goal is to bring you award-winning documentaries that cover the events and figures that have shaped our world all in one place learn more about the wonderful and Mysterious World of the Ancients with history follow us as we take you around some world famous sites including Pompeii and the stunning Temple complex at Karnak we also aim to bring you the stories and legends that shaped our world through our award-winning podcast Network sign up now for a free trial and odyssey fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use the code Odyssey at checkout foreign [Music] [Music] I think that a lot of the reasons why Egypt was able to remain a dominant world power for so long can ultimately be ascribed to geographical factors if you think about the geography of Egypt it has a lot of very strong natural boundaries the Mediterranean in the north the rocky cataracts of the Nile in the South and the deserts to the east and west and these boundaries are pretty impregnable which can obviously has effects on internal consolidation so Egypt is able to be a stronger power internally than a lot of other countries which don't have these natural geographical boundaries the greater part of ancient Egyptian Society was made up of simple peasant folk who scratched a meager living from the vast planes that surround the River Nile [Music] [Music] although the land was fertile they lived on a diet of core sweet bread beans and figs and like all civilizations of the ancient world mortality rates were high [Music] [Music] how these humble people must have gazed in awe that the cream of Egyptian Society those who frequented the Royal Court the Royal Court was made up of the heads of various administrative offices such as the treasury the Judiciary and the Diplomatic service standing above these dignitaries in the social order was the vizier or prime minister but the great figure who ruled overall was the Pharaoh the all-powerful head of the people [Music] thank you [Music] there were just over 170 pharaohs but there's one who stands literally Head and Shoulders above the others the name that everybody knows Ramesses the second the word pharaoh originally meant Royal Palace and it was not until around 1580 BC that it came to refer to the ruler who lived inside these potentates were venerated by their people as descendants of the Gods as Supreme Mortals and on occasion they even earned a Godlike Aura for themselves and none more so than Ramses the Great it was in 1269 BC that he assumed the great double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt the kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt the unified kingdom is one of the greatest in the ancient world the unification is actually symbolized by two crowns the Pharaoh had a Red Crown which was for Lower Egypt which is the area of the Delta and the White Crown which is a tall conical crown for Upper Egypt which is really from Cairo down to Aswan and then he could put the two crowns together to be the king of our knowledge if they sat one within each other and he's often shown in the release and the statutory in this fashion thereby the iconography the emblem of the king of up and Lower Egypt of the two kingdoms Ramses the Great took the throne name of user matray setup enray which means the justice of Rey is powerful chosen of Rey his elaborate name was a direct reference to Rey the sun god the most omnipotent of all the Egyptian gods [Music] Ramses the Great was born in 1304 BC into the 19th dynasty of Egyptian kings the son of seti the first and the grandson of Ramses the first the 19th Dynasty ruled during a phase of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom spanning the years between 1580 BC and 1090 BC the new kingdom is generally held by historians to have been the Golden Age of the ancient Egyptian civilization the New Kingdom lasted for a very long time we know it's almost 500 years and as you know it's Genesis from 18 to 20. it was a new landmark in the history of ancient Egypt they found that for the first time in their history in their long history and Empire Egypt again for the first time became from a lot or transferred from being a local power into an international power she had a role to play in Africa in the Sudan in East Africa and the ancient new East and even in the Eastern Mediterranean this had its own Reflections and its own results for the first time the Egyptians opened up on the outside world I didn't know exactly how much how how did they feel then but at the beginning they must have had what you can call a cultural shock for the first time the Egyptians were so cocooned within within themselves they must have felt that there were other nations other cultures other peoples other languages and they were not less than themselves it was a period which saw many pharaohs leave their indelible mark on the pages of History rulers such as tooth Moses had shepsut acnotton Tutankhamun and Ramses [Music] it was during the reign of King seti the first that Egypt saw the first beginnings of the Bold new foreign policy which included famous military Expeditions against both Syria and Lebanon seti the first father have been a very short-lived King called Ramesses the first and they began the 19th Dynasty the Pharaohs the military pharaohs if you like and so father and grandfather of Ramesses II were great military men they were at the top of the tree in ancient Egypt they were Generals his inheritance was I suppose one would say from a military family and he had the backing of and courtiers who'd served under his father and he had the knowledge of his kingdom and what lay Beyond it so that he could then go forward and make the great Empire that became Egypt for the 19th Dynasty however a more lasting tribute to the reign of King seti were to be the Magnificent buildings that he constructed which included the hippa-style hall in the temple of Amun at Karnak and the remarkable temples at abidos [Music] the young Ramses became the focus of attention at court when seti's only other son died leaving him Heir Apparent to the throne the Young Prince was therefore given the new title of eldest King's son at the age of only ten and thereafter the formative years of his teens were spent almost exclusively in the company of his father the perfect preparation for his future role as king Ramsay certainly shared his father's enthusiasm for building a passion that would characterize his own later years as pharaoh while still a young prince he not only supervised the construction of his father's temples but also commissioned one of his own to be built to the god Osiris at abidos Ramesses II of great grand Mercy succeeded his father seti the first in 1279 BC and so therefore he finished building his father's Temple and that's why on the palastas in front of us we see not seti but Ramses himself being greeted by all the different gods and of course underneath his representation there is there are the titles of Ramses and his name in his Cartouche foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the Aging seti seems to have appreciated his son's outstanding qualities for perhaps sensing that his own end was near he appointed Ramsay's co-regent during the last year of his reign the Young Prince recalled the thrill of his unexpected promotion which brought him Riches of a very different kind the old Lord himself made me great while I was a child until I reigned I was installed as eldest son as hereditary Prince upon the throne of Geb said he said crown him as king that I may see his beauty while I live with him he equipped me with women a royal Harem as beautiful as those of the palace those of the South and North were under my feet The Harem is perhaps one of the most enduring images of ancient Egypt for in those far-off days the pharaoh's exalted position allowed him a choice of women and of course a selection of different wives what thoughts therefore spun around the head of young Ramses as the Harem girls and exotic dancers were brought before him to bewitch him with their shapely charms [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] oh [Music] my God [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] but for all his achievements as a builder of magnificent temples it is probably Ramsay's victories on the field of battle which are best remembered by history and which most earned him the Epitaph great during his long Reign he procured a formidable reputation as a warrior a fact borne out by contemporary depictions such as the one seen here [Music] the mighty Pharaoh is holding a group of cowering Asiatic prisoners by the hare in Readiness to behead them with his ax during his early years Ramses had accompanied his father on campaigns against the Hittites in Syria since that time the Hittites had retained control of the Northern parts of Syria most notably the city of Kadesh while Egypt exercised her major influence over the more Southern regions but within four years of Ramsay's accession to the throne in 1292 BC a Revolt in the Levant forced him to mobilize his troops in order to put the Insurrection down in the spring of 1275 BC with a force of some twenty thousand men under his command Ramses LED his men up through the Gaza Strip to an encampment west of the city of Kadesh the site was originally chosen on the basis of information extracted from two unfortunate spies which suggested that the hittite Army was at a base 100 miles to the north of the city but when two more Hittites were captured by Ramsay's army they confirmed under torture that Ramses had in fact been led into a trap the enemy was actually on the other side of Kadesh preparing an ambush for the Egyptian forces although the Egyptian Army was greater in Number the hittite Army led by their King muatalis was even greater 37 000 men plus 2 500 chariots were now ranged against the pharaoh first of all you see the cavalry there they are in their chariots the trumpet sounds the order to charge and the horses Leap Forward in each of the Chariots there are two people one is the Chariot here driving towards the enemy and the other is the warrior with his shield ready to fight from The Chariot or Dismount once they engage with a hittite enemy the Hittites they have three men in their chariots they're very eager for the fight but they're soon going to be very badly disillusioned by ramazis [Applause] thank you foreign [Applause] [Applause] the Egyptians weren't fighting on their own either they had mercenaries helping them with their Curious horned helmets they're called the sardinio they were quite vicious as they go into battle with their short very sharp swords the sardini oi give No Quarter when they meet the hittite foe they slit their throats and then they cut off the hands the right hand of the dead so they can have an accounting afterwards of the enemy slain [Applause] come on [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] laughs [Applause] it's a curious battle because Ramesses almost lost it he was very impetuous he tells us in his own words in the inscriptions that we find on the 10th award how he rushed forward as soon solely with his own personal bodyguard and he was cut off by the hit times it was at this desperate moment that Ramses offered up a prayer to his God oh thou Divine Ammon Lord of Eternity Creator and organizer Of The World God who provides all Lord of all the kingdoms of the earth see I am alone are you not my father and I your son my arm has always done thy will o Divine Ammon now that I am alone and abandoned by all I extend to you my hands and my prayer are you not stronger than a thousand arches then hundreds of Heroes [Applause] oh it was only by fortune and another arm of his army coming up which rescued him [Applause] foreign [Applause] Chariot tree soon meet disaster the horses fall they stumble in the river the Egyptians attack them they hit Heights drown in the river and the bodies float away in spite of his great Victory Ramsay soon realized that it would be impossible for him to maintain a Garrison so far to the North at the same time the new hittite king hatusilis concluded that sustaining a force in the southern reaches of Syria would be Beyond his resources the respective leaders therefore agreed to coexist in peace and in the year 1259 BC a historic treaty was drawn up between the terms of the treaty were carved on the walls of the ramosium and at Karnak while the Hittites recorded them on clay tablets which survived to this day making it the first known treaty between countries so an Egyptian record we read of Ramesses great fig tree and it was sealed by his marriage to a hittite princess but like most things there's another sign to the coin another side to the story and the excavations at hatusas the ancient city of hatusas now bogus koi in Turkey there the hittite account was found and according to that the Hittites one and it was sealed by the marriage of a hittite princess to the Pharaoh Ramesses II in fact it seems honors even two great nations came together in a Clash they found friendship after a battle but Ramesses II was terribly lucky to get out of it alive as we have seen it was also as a builder that Ramses achieved his greatness for it was he who built the temples at Karnak Luxor abidos the ramosium and of course the rock Temple of Abu symbol remarkable legacies of the ancient Egyptian civilization which draw or struck visitors from all over the world to this very day um [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign statue of Ramesses II is one of the finest portraits of the king extant it's made of limestone it's over 20 feet high weighs over 40 tons and when it's originally discovered and it's nearly 200 years ago now at the beginning of the 19th century by an Italian cavillier it was in a deep pit and at the inundation it was wet and therefore was very difficult to see it people only used to come here in July and August and go down into the pit to see The Marvelous features of the king he's the great king and on his belt you can see his Cartouche there several cartouches in fact which read his name user Mart rahl and that if you translate it means powerful is the strength the truth of the Sun God Ra we're looking at the face here of Ramesses II the most powerful King one of the best known names of all of ancient Egypt he lived in the 13th century BC he lived into his 90s his mummy is still preserved in the Cairo Museum the inscriptions tell us his great Deeds of Valor mention his sons that he said he had up to a hundred the daughters he never bothered to count and quite recently in the Valley of the Kings in Kings Valley tomb number five excavations have indicated that many of his sons who died before him were actually buried there this is part of the continuing work of egyptology not only in the Valley of the Kings but in the whole of Egypt by many many foreign Expeditions as well as Egyptian egyptologists foreign [Music] foreign [Music] although we always think of the Pharaoh in ancient Egypt we mustn't forget the ladies the queens were terribly important because of course They Carried the Royal bloodline then you have Queens who are the great supporters of their pharaohs their husbands and nefertari the wife of the great Pharaoh Ramesses II was much beloved by her husband she had a splendid a marvelously decorated tomb in the Valley of the queens and huge statues offer were carved outside the smaller Temple at Abu symbol so much did ramazi II love his wife the smaller of the two magnificent temples of Abu simbel was dedicated to the goddess hathor and the pharaoh's favorite wife nefertari who having attended its dedication ceremony died the following year in 1254 BC one breathtaking feature of the Great temple which is built into the side of a mountain is the four gigantic seated figures which represent the king guarding the entrance to the temple the imposing figures measure 18 meters in height it is amazing to think that the temple was designed to specifications so exactly that at the Equinox on the 22nd of February and the 22nd of October the Rising Sun shined through the entrance and floods with light three of the four Gods whose statues are seated in the sanctuary 70 meters within the hillside but why only three of the Gods it is because the remaining God tar was Lord of the underworld and he therefore remains an eternal Darkness [Music] while modern day visitors to Abu simbel are still filled with wonder at the miracle of its construction it surprises many to learn of a feat of engineering equally miraculous which was carried out on that site during the 20th century in the 1960s when the Great High Dam the sadel Ali was being built just to the south of Aswan it was realized that the rising Waters of the lake which was called Lake NASA would engulf the temple and being Sandstone of course it would crumble so it was a great International push if you like a Consortium as to how to save the temples many schemes were put forward and the one which was followed eventually was to cut the temple and the interior Chambers and there's a temple close by the smaller Temple dedicated to nefertari who was Ramsey's II's favorite wife the idea was to remove both temples from The Rock like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle and actually they were cut very carefully because Sandstone is terribly friable into these huge blocks which were then lifted up 300 feet into the air because a new site was made and it was then rebuilt 200 feet further to the north so it still stands there the mountain into which it had been cut has been recreated behind it it's not only a Wonder of ancient engineering it's a wonder of modern engineering which has saved one of the great monuments of the world and the world came together to help save it and it's not often that one can say this about our cultural inheritance even now some 3200 years after his death Ramses the Great continues to be the focus of speculation and debate for modern day Scholars and historians for many believe that the pharaoh who features in one of the great biblical events The Exodus of the Israelites is indeed Ramses himself in the Bible the book of Exodus tells us that the Pharaoh had Enslaved the entire nation of Israelites to provide Egypt with manpower to build his temples when God sent Moses to deliver them from their captors Moses is said to have confronted pharaoh thus saith the Lord God of Israel let my people go and Pharaoh said who is the Lord that I should obey his voice and let Israel go I know not the Lord nor will I let Israel go wherefore do ye Moses let the people from their Works get you unto your burdens of course the Bible tells us that Moses eventually LED his people to freedom and parted the Red Sea thus allowing the Israelites to escape from their Egyptian captures but was Ramses the Great the Israelites unnamed Tormentor is it he who features in one of the most famous stories in the Bible is one of the very few Egyptian names which is mentioned by Connection in the Bible they always talk about the city of Ramesses well he was the Ramesses the modern Scholars would like to connect with one of the most famous ly and that's the Exodus of our brothers that are Jews from Egypt and it seems that he's been him in a way he fits the bill if you talk about him and the picture is given in the Bible he might have been the person if Ramses is the Pharaoh in the Bible then his portrayal is less than flattering but by his own people Ramses was accorded almost god-like status indeed Egyptian theology encompassed the belief that when a pharaoh died he became a God and part of the burial ceremony Incorporated rituals that was said to release the soul of the deceased ruler so that it could fly up to the stars and take its place among the rest of the pantheon the Pharaoh is a god before he even dies and we have to think of the processes that go on after death as making him into a different kind of God from the one he was before during his life the Pharaoh is the living embodiment of Horus the son of Osiris uh when he dies he actually becomes an Osiris so maybe we need to think of the whole process as being one of going from one type of divinity to the next the whole process of the of moving from one state to the next is seen very literally as a journey as Crossing thresholds as Crossing lakes and this is made quite clear for instance in paintings in the Tomb of mosso the third in the Valley of the Kings where you see the king sailing across lakes and going through doorways now when you go through these doorways you need to speak the right magical words and the king is already apprised of these and he will successfully complete these Transitions and ultimately be reborn as Osiris when he's made that Journey along with their concern for the spirit of the deceased the ancient Egyptians set great store in preserving the Mortal remains for use in the afterlife as well when a person died the body was mummified and in the case of a pharaoh particular care was taken the word mummy comes from the Arabic word Mamiya meaning bitumen or pitch after death the brains of the deceased were extracted from the cranium via the nostrils using a special iron Hook and the skull was rinsed with palm wine and resin the body was emptied at everything except the heart rinsed well and then filled with myrrh and spices the entire corpse was then soaked in Natron strong salt or sodium bicarbonate for between 30 and 50 days and then finally The Mummy was coated with resin that held the bandaging strips of linen that were applied last of all with this elaborate and painstaking Method All Air was completely excluded from The Mummy the internal organs which had been removed were also soaked and then stored in four canopic jars when these were placed next to the sarcophagus in the Tomb the personality of the deceased was believed to return to the physical frame the whole process of mummification took 70 days when Ramses the Great died in 1212 BC he was aged approximately 92. he had reigned as head of his people for some 67 years as was the custom the great Pharaoh's mummy was laid to rest in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings together with a fabulous array of artifacts which had been placed there to commemorate his life and for his use in the afterlife this is the entrance of Tomb of Ramesses II the great Pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty but although we're looking at the entrance behind it the tomb is very unsafe it's impossible to get down to the burial chamber it's never been properly cleared and it's quite incredible if we think of this King in relation to Tutankhamun What Treasures may have once been in this tomb thank you sadly owing to the work of Tomb robbers over the centuries only a handful of these remain in fact the pilfering of Royal Graves became so popular that in 1054 BC Ramsay's mummy was removed from its resting place and hidden for its own protection in a cache at De El bahri his new resting place was discovered only as recently as 1881. and in 1976 the mighty Pharaoh made news by moving yet again II is one of the very very few King Kings to quote an expression by one of my friends who flew to use the airplane to go to Europe the modern Egyptians always tend to think that if I'm Ill seriously I'd like to be treated in Europe Ramses was treated in Europe he was treated in Paris he had a full treatment and in fact when he was meeting the airport he had a Regal treatment which which befitted him and which you would have liked it very much I'm sure II as he believed in other life he must have been a very happy man to flew out to fly that way to be treated there like a king and when he came back to Egypt he was again met like a king So in many ways he worked hard to earn his uh maturity in his Fame we love him we respect him but we don't take him seriously most of the time sometimes he can over exaggerate which can be in a way an Egyptian treat so I like even that in him [Music] thank you [Music] foreign disease's most important Legacy is as the embodiment of the great dynastic past as the warrior Pharaoh par excellence and I think a lot of this can be ascribed to the enormous building programs that he sponsored there are so many monuments of ramazzis II and he also uses up the monuments of so many other people that his name is is literally everywhere and I think that had an enormous impact in propagating this image of him as the mighty Pharaoh or the mightiest of them all and I think this image has persisted even now a very common boy's name in in Egypt is is Ramses which I think is shows the very special place that he has within Egyptian culture he encompassed the whole of Egypt he was the embodiment of it he pushed its Empire wide its boundaries up through Palestine modern Israel up to Syria he was baking everything in his stature in his life he lived into his 90s he was one amongst the longest lived of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs his monuments are still there they've outlasted so many other things I suppose he really has deserved it he was very bombastic you can't get away from that you look at the inscriptions on the temples they're full of his doings he thought he was great and subsequent Generations have agreed with him thank you [Music] foreign

Channel: Odyssey - Ancient History Documentaries

Views: 23,338

Keywords: ancient history, classical history, ancient civilisations, classical antiquity, history documentary, classical documentary, Ancient Egypt, ancient civilizations, ancient civilizations documentary, pyramids, ramses ii, ramses the, ramses the great, ramses the great and the gold of the pharaohs

Id: rruu24y67cU

Length: 47min 39sec (2859 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023