Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses the Great's Royal Wives: Diplomacy and Dynasty
Transcript
- Lucas: Last time we left off with Ramses and his Hittite peace treaty, but today I want to zoom in on the women behind the throne — not just Nefertari, who we covered before, but the other royal wives who helped hold the empire together through diplomacy and dynastic strategy. Luna: The other wives? I thought Nefertari was the great love of his life. Lucas: She was, in many ways. But Ramses had at least seven Great Royal Wives over his reign — and some of them were political necessities. Take Maathorneferure, for example. She was a Hittite princess sent by Hattusili III to seal the peace treaty after Kadesh. Her Egyptian name means 'She Who Sees Horus, the Visible Splendor of the Sun'. Luna: Wait, so she was a real person? I thought that marriage was just a symbolic gesture. Lucas: Oh, she was very real. We actually have a record of her arrival — Egyptian officials traveled to the border to meet her, and there's a stela that describes her entering Egypt with great fanfare. But here's the twist: she wasn't the only Hittite princess he married. Years later, after Hattusili's death, Ramses married another Hittite princess whose name we don't even know. She's only referred to as 'the daughter of the Great Prince of Hatti' in the records. Luna: Two Hittite princesses? That's a lot of diplomatic baggage. Lucas: Exactly. It shows how important the peace was to both sides. But these marriages weren't just about the Hittites. Ramses also married Babylonian and Syrian princesses. We have a letter from the Babylonian king to Ramses complaining that his daughter wasn't treated with proper honor — which tells us these unions were taken very seriously by both courts. Luna: So Ramses was building a network of royal in-laws across the Near East. Lucas: Precisely. And the Egyptian queens weren't just passive brides. Some of them wielded real power. Take Isetnofret, for example. She was Ramses's second Great Royal Wife after Nefertari, and she was the mother of Merenptah, who would become Ramses's successor. She also played a major role in the cult of Ptah at Memphis — we find her name on monuments there, participating in religious ceremonies. Luna: So she was politically active, not just a baby factory. Lucas: Not at all. And then there's the darker side of royal wives — the harem conspiracy. In the last years of Ramses's reign, a group of minor wives and officials allegedly plotted to assassinate him and put one of their own sons on the throne. We know about it from papyri that detail the trial — the Turin Judicial Papyrus and the Papyrus Lee. They name names: Queen Tiye, one of his lesser wives, and her son Pentawer. The conspiracy was uncovered, and the conspirators were executed or forced to commit suicide. Luna: So even Ramses, the great king, had to worry about betrayal from within his own household. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's a reminder that the royal women were not just ornaments — they were players in a high-stakes game of succession. Nefertari herself might have been involved in diplomatic correspondence with the Hittite queen Puduhepa. We have a letter from Puduhepa to Nefertari, discussing trade and the marriage of Maathorneferure. So these women were corresponding in Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the age. Luna: That's fascinating. They were essentially ambassadors in their own right. Lucas: Right. And it's easy to overlook because the monuments focus on Ramses. But if you dig into the papyri and the diplomatic archives from Hattusa, a different picture emerges — of smart, politically savvy women who helped run an empire. Luna: I never really thought about the political role of queens in ancient Egypt. It's like a whole hidden dimension. Lucas: And that's why episodes like this are important — because history isn't just about the big names. It's about the networks that supported them. And speaking of support, if you've been enjoying these deep dives into Ramses's world, it's worth mentioning that listener contributions genuinely keep this show going. A couple of dollars a month on buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo makes a real difference — no ads, no sponsors, just history. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to help us keep exploring stories like these. Lucas: So back to the women. Another queen we should mention is Merytmut, Nefertari's daughter who became a royal wife herself — though that wasn't unusual in Egyptian dynasties. Ramses also married two of his own daughters, which shocks modern sensibilities, but in ancient Egypt it was a way to keep the royal bloodline pure and consolidate power. It was a tradition going back to the Old Kingdom. Luna: Wait, he married his own daughters? That's... a lot. Lucas: It was a different world. The incest taboo didn't apply to the royal family in the same way. The pharaoh was seen as a living god, and the queen had to be of divine blood. Marrying a daughter was one way to ensure that. Ramses's daughter Bintanath, for example, held the title of Great Royal Wife alongside Nefertari and Isetnofret. She appears in monuments at Abu Simbel and the Ramesseum. Luna: So she was both daughter and wife. That must have created interesting family dynamics. Lucas: It likely did. But we don't have personal letters to tell us how they felt. What we do have are titles and temple scenes that show these women performing rituals, offering to the gods, and standing beside the pharaoh. That's how we know they mattered — they were literally carved into stone. Luna: It makes you wonder how many other stories are hidden in plain sight on those temple walls. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what keeps us digging. Next time, we'll look at Ramses's children — the dozens of princes and princesses who were supposed to carry on his legacy, and how many of them didn't make it.