Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses the Great's Mummy: The Pharaoh Who Would Not Die
Transcript
- Lucas: For anyone coming with us through these conversations about North Africa and the ancient world, we've spent a lot of time on Ramses the Great as a builder, a warrior, a diplomat. But there's one part of his story that feels almost like science fiction, and it's completely real. Luna: You mean the mummy, right? Lucas: Exactly. Ramses II's body has been preserved for over 3,200 years. It's been unwrapped, examined, X-rayed, ct scanned, and even sent to Paris for conservation. And the whole journey—from the embalming table to a museum case in Cairo—is an incredible story. Lucas: Quick honest thing—a handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these. No ads, no sponsors, just people who care about history. It means we can keep digging into stories like this one. Luna: Yeah, it's a small group, but it makes a huge difference. And we're grateful. Lucas: Alright, so Ramses died around 1213 BCE after a reign of 66 years. The embalmers had about seventy days to prepare his body for eternity. Luna: That's the standard mummification period, right? Lucas: It is. They removed his internal organs—lungs, stomach, liver, intestines—and placed them in canopic jars. His heart, though, they left in place because the heart was considered the seat of the soul. Then they dehydrated the body with natron, a natural salt, for forty days. Luna: And then they wrapped him in linen, layer after layer. Lucas: Yes, up to twenty layers in some places, with resin and amulets tucked between them. Ramses was buried in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, KV7, laden with treasure. But within a few generations, tomb robbing had become so rampant that the priests of the 21st Dynasty had to act. Lucas: Around 1000 BCE, the high priest of Amun, Pinedjem I, ordered the reburial of many royal mummies. They moved Ramses to a secret cache in the cliffs of Deir el-Bahari—a deep shaft tomb originally built for a queen of the 18th Dynasty. There he lay, undisturbed, for almost three thousand years. Luna: Until 1881. That's when Émile Brugsch, an Egyptologist working for the Egyptian Antiquities Service, found the cache. Lucas: He didn't find it alone—he was led there by a local family who had been secretly plundering the site. Brugsch climbed down into the shaft and found himself in a chamber packed with coffins and mummies, including Ramses II, Seti I, Thutmose III, and many others. He later said the sight left him speechless. Luna: And the mummies were in remarkable condition. Lucas: They were. When Ramses was unwrapped for the first time in 1886 by the director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, Gaston Maspero, they found the king's face still recognizable—a long, narrow face with a prominent nose and a strong jaw. Maspero noted that Ramses had red hair. Luna: Wait, red hair? That seems unusual for an Egyptian. Lucas: It was. Some scholars have suggested it might have been dyed with henna, which was used in mummification. But CT scans later confirmed that Ramses had naturally red hair, which may indicate he was a redhead. It wasn't uncommon among ancient Egyptians, but it's rare enough to be noteworthy. Lucas: The most dramatic chapter came in 1976 when the mummy was showing signs of fungal deterioration. The Egyptian government agreed to send it to France for conservation—the only time an ancient pharaoh has ever traveled abroad for medical treatment. Luna: I remember that. They gave him a passport, didn't they? Lucas: They did. The passport listed his occupation as 'king ' and he was received at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris with full military honors. Scientists spent months treating the fungus with gamma radiation and carefully cleaning the body. Lucas: While he was there, they also did a full CT scan and X-rays. Those revealed a lot about his life. They found that Ramses suffered from arthritis in his hips and knees, probably from years of chariot riding. They also found calcification in his arteries—evidence of atherosclerosis. Luna: So even a pharaoh had heart trouble. Lucas: Exactly. And the scans showed he was about 1.7 meters tall, which was average for the time. They also analyzed pollen from his lungs and found traces of plants that suggested he had been in marshy areas, maybe near the Nile Delta. Luna: That matches what we know about his capital, Per-Ramesses, which was in the Delta. Lucas: It does. The scientific evidence dovetails beautifully with the historical record. Even his cause of death is uncertain—some think it was a heart attack, others old age. He was probably in his nineties, which is extraordinary for the time. Lucas: But there's one more twist. In 2012, a team of researchers published a study claiming that Ramses II's mummy had been damaged by a fire in the 1970s, before the Paris trip. They said the body had been partially charred and that earlier descriptions of its condition were exaggerated. Luna: That's controversial. So the narrative keeps evolving. Lucas: And that's part of what makes it fascinating. Every generation brings new technology and new questions. We're not just looking at a dead king—we're looking at a story that's still being written. Luna: It makes you wonder what else we'll learn about him in another fifty years. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the thing about history—it never really ends. The mummy of Ramses II still has secrets to tell.