Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses the Great's Death and the Afterlife of a Pharaoh
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've covered a lot of ground on Ramses II — his battles, his monuments, his family. But there's one thing every pharaoh has to face eventually, even the great ones. Luna: Death. Lucas: Exactly. And for Ramses, who ruled for 66 years and lived into his 90s, his death wasn't just the end of a life — it was a massive transition for Egypt. He outlived at least 12 of his sons, several wives, and pretty much the entire generation that remembered the Battle of Kadesh. So when he finally died around 1213 BCE, it must have felt like the end of an era. Luna: How did he prepare for his own death? I know the tombs took years to build. Lucas: He had been preparing for decades. His tomb, designated KV7 in the Valley of the Kings, was started early in his reign. But here's the thing — it's actually one of the most unusual royal tombs ever built. It's not a straight corridor like most; it has a sharp bend, almost like a dog-leg. And it's massive — over 160 meters long. But unlike his father Seti I's tomb, which has stunning painted reliefs, KV7 was badly damaged by flooding in antiquity. The plaster fell off, the paint washed away. So ironically, the great builder Ramses has one of the least well-preserved royal tombs. Luna: That's almost poetic. He built all those temples to last forever, but his own tomb couldn't handle a few flash floods. Lucas: Right? And the flooding wasn't the only problem. By the end of his reign, Egypt was facing economic strain — the gold from Nubia was dwindling, and there were signs of tomb robbery even before he died. So the priests and officials had to get creative. They started reusing older tombs, and they hid mummies in secret caches. That's how Ramses's own mummy ended up — not in KV7, but in a hidden chamber at Deir el-Bahari, along with dozens of other pharaohs. Lucas: His mummy was discovered in 1881, and it's one of the best preserved. When they unwrapped it, they found that he had red hair — which was dyed with henna, probably to keep up the god-king image even in death. And he had a pronounced overbite, a narrow face, and stood about 5 feet 7 inches. Not a giant, but then, few people were back then. Luna: Did they figure out what killed him? I've heard it was a dental abscess. Lucas: That's the leading theory. The mummy shows severe dental problems — cavities, abscesses, and one particularly bad infection in his jaw. Combined with arteriosclerosis — hardening of the arteries — which they found in many Egyptian mummies. So it's possible he died from a combination of old age, infection, and maybe even a heart attack. But there's also evidence of arthritis, so he was in pain for years. Not the glamorous end you'd expect for the guy who built Abu Simbel. Luna: What about his soul? The Egyptians had a whole complex afterlife belief. Lucas: Absolutely. For Ramses, the afterlife wasn't just a hope — it was a meticulously planned journey. His tomb was filled with funerary texts to guide him through the Duat, the underworld. He had the Book of the Dead, of course, but also the more exclusive Amduat, which describes the sun god Ra's nightly voyage through the underworld, and the Book of Gates, which shows the soul passing through guarded gates. These were like a roadmap, with spells and passwords for every obstacle. Lucas: The most important moment was the Weighing of the Heart, where his heart was weighed against the feather of Maat. If it balanced, he'd be granted eternal life in the Field of Reeds. If not, his heart would be eaten by the Devourer. But for a pharaoh like Ramses, who was considered a living god, the stakes were a bit different. He was supposed to join Ra in the solar barque, sailing across the sky forever. Luna: So did his tomb actually have those texts? Or was it too damaged? Lucas: It did — fragments of the Amduat and Book of Gates have been found on the walls, even though the paintings are mostly gone. And interestingly, his son Merneptah, who succeeded him, made sure that Ramses's funerary complex at the Ramesseum — his mortuary temple — was completed. That temple was where the daily offerings and rituals for his ka, his life force, would be performed. As long as the priests kept up the offerings, Ramses would be sustained in the afterlife. Luna: But didn't his descendants eventually stop the offerings? That always happens. Lucas: Eventually, yes. The New Kingdom declined, and the Ramesseum fell into disrepair. By the Ptolemaic period, the temple was being used as a quarry. So Ramses's ka was left to fend for itself, so to speak. But here's the twist — his name was so powerful that later pharaohs, even Greeks and Romans, invoked him. He became a legendary figure, almost a mythical king. So in a way, his afterlife wasn't just in the Field of Reeds — it was in the memory of the world. Luna: There's something sad about that. He tried so hard to control everything, even death, but he couldn't. Lucas: He couldn't. And that's what makes him human, despite all the propaganda. His tomb was robbed, his mummy was moved, his temple was stripped. Yet here we are, 3,200 years later, still talking about him. In a way, he achieved a kind of immortality — not the one he planned, but the one that matters. Luna: Do we know where his mummy is now? Lucas: It's in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo, along with several other royal mummies. They have a special hall called the Royal Mummies Hall, where they're displayed in a climate-controlled environment. But it's been controversial — some people argue that putting mummies on public display is disrespectful, while others say it's important for education and preservation. In 2021, they had a grand parade moving the mummies from the older museum to the new one. Ramses's mummy was in that procession. Luna: I can't imagine being there. Did they do any DNA testing on him? Lucas: They have done some, but it's tricky. Mummy DNA degrades over time, and there's always a risk of contamination. In the 1970s, they did a famous study — the mummy was sent to France for conservation, and they took X-rays, which revealed the dental abscess. More recently, there have been attempts to reconstruct his facial features using CT scans. But his DNA has been used to try to trace his lineage, including identifying the mummy of his father Seti I. It's a work in progress. Luna: And what about his sons? We did an episode on Amunherkhepeshef, but there were so many. Lucas: Yes, Ramses had over a hundred children, and many were buried in the Valley of the Kings — in a massive tomb called KV5, which was rediscovered in the 1990s. It has over 150 chambers, and it was used for many of his sons. That tomb is still being excavated, and it's giving us incredible insight into the royal family. But even there, the afterlife wasn't equal — the sons had to rely on their father's legacy. Without Ramses's cult, their own afterlives might have been much more precarious. Luna: It's a powerful reminder that even the greatest pharaohs couldn't escape the cycle. Lucas: Exactly. Ramses the Great, the builder, the warrior, the diplomat — he faced the same end as every farmer in the Nile Valley. But his preparation, his monuments, his propaganda, they've given him a second life in our imagination. And maybe that's the most human thing of all — the desire to leave something behind that says, 'I was here.'