Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / The Ramesseum: Ramses the Great's Temple of a Million Years
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Ramses's building projects — Abu Simbel, Per-Ramesses, the additions at Karnak and Luxor. But I think there's one monument that really encapsulates his ambition, his ego, and his legacy more than any other. I'm talking about the Ramesseum — his mortuary temple on the west bank of Thebes. Luna: The Ramesseum — that's the one with the huge fallen statue, right? The one that inspired the Ozymandias poem? Lucas: Exactly. That's the one. The Ramesseum was called the 'Mansion of Millions of Years' — and it was meant to be a place where Ramses would be worshipped as a god forever, long after his death. It was part of a long tradition of royal mortuary temples, but Ramses, of course, had to make his bigger and more impressive than any that came before. Lucas: Construction began around year 5 of his reign, so we're talking about the mid-1270s BCE, and it was built under the supervision of his vizier, Paser — the same guy who oversaw much of Thebes during Ramses's early years. The temple complex covered about 10 hectares — that's about 25 acres — and it was oriented northwest to southeast, right on the edge of the cultivation, where the Nile floodplain meets the desert. Luna: What was inside? Besides the famous statue, I mean. Lucas: The layout was pretty standard for a New Kingdom mortuary temple: a massive pylon at the entrance, then a large open courtyard, then a hypostyle hall with huge columns, and finally the sanctuary deep inside. But the scale was everything. The first pylon alone was about 62 meters wide, and the walls were covered with reliefs showing Ramses's greatest achievements — especially the Battle of Kadesh. There are scenes of the Egyptian camp, the Hittite attack, Ramses charging into battle alone, and then the aftermath with prisoners being presented to the gods. Lucas: And then there's the famous fallen colossus. In the first courtyard, there was a seated statue of Ramses that originally stood about 19 meters high — that's over 62 feet. It was made of granite and weighed something like 1,000 tons. When the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus saw it in the 1st century BCE, it was already fallen, and he recorded the inscription on its base: 'King of Kings am I, Ozymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works.' That's the line that inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem. Luna: Wait — Ozymandias is actually Ramses? I always thought that was just a fictional king. Lucas: It's a Greek corruption of Ramses's throne name, User-maat-re — 'Ozymandias' comes from 'User-maat-re Setepenre,' or 'The justice of Ra is powerful, chosen of Ra.' So yeah, the mighty tyrant of Shelley's poem is Ramses II. Though scholars think the inscription Diodorus recorded was probably not original to Ramses — it might have been added later by some other ruler, or it could be a Greek invention. But the image is unforgettable. Lucas: Beyond the colossus, the Ramesseum had a second courtyard with a portico of Osiride pillars — statues of Ramses in the form of Osiris, the god of the dead. And then there was the great hypostyle hall, which originally had 48 columns, though only a few are still standing today. The ceiling was painted blue with gold stars, and the walls were covered with scenes from the Festival of Opet — that huge annual celebration when the barque of Amun was carried from Karnak to Luxor. Luna: So the Ramesseum wasn't just a temple for the dead pharaoh — it was also a living religious center? Lucas: Exactly. It was a functioning temple with a full staff of priests, scribes, and workers. There were granaries and workshops attached, because the temple was also an economic hub — it collected taxes, stored grain, and redistributed food to the local population. In fact, the Ramesseum had one of the largest granary complexes ever built in Egypt — row after row of brick silos that could hold enormous amounts of grain. The French archaeologist Auguste Mariette found evidence of these in the 19th century. Lucas: And it was also a place of education. There are ostraca — pottery shards used for writing practice — that have been found at the site, showing that scribal students worked there. Some of them even doodled little sketches of the king or the temple. So it was a bustling place, not just a silent monument. Luna: What happened to it? Why is it so ruined today? Lucas: Partly it's just time — 3,200 years of weather, earthquakes, and human activity. But a lot of the damage was deliberate. After the New Kingdom, the temple was abandoned and fell into disrepair. In the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, it was used as a quarry — people carried off the stone blocks to build other structures. Some of the reliefs were hacked away or plastered over. And then there's the fact that the temple was built on the floodplain, so the foundations were weakened by groundwater over the centuries. Lucas: But even in its ruined state, it's still incredibly impressive. The French architect Jean-François Champollion, the man who deciphered hieroglyphics, visited the Ramesseum in 1829 and was awestruck. He wrote about the beauty of the reliefs and the scale of the fallen colossus. And later, in the 20th century, the Egyptian Antiquities Service did some restoration work, particularly on the hypostyle hall and the sanctuary. Luna: So the Ramesseum is basically Ramses's monument to himself, built to last forever — and yet it's mostly ruins. There's something poetic about that. Lucas: There really is. And that's exactly what Shelley captured in his poem: 'Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' — and all that's left is rubble and sand. But at the same time, the fact that we're still talking about it, still studying it, means that in a way, Ramses succeeded. His name has been remembered for over three millennia. Luna: Was there anything else unique about the Ramesseum compared to other mortuary temples? Lucas: One thing that stands out is the astronomical ceiling in the hypostyle hall. It depicted the constellations and the decans — the 36 star groups that the Egyptians used to mark the hours of the night. It's similar to the one in the tomb of Senenmut from a few centuries earlier, but the Ramesseum version is particularly well-preserved. There's also a scene of Ramses being crowned by the gods Montu and Atum, which is a bit unusual — it emphasizes his divine right to rule. Lucas: And then there are the reliefs of the 'Festival of the Valley' — a Theban celebration where the statue of Amun would cross the Nile to visit the mortuary temples on the west bank. The Ramesseum was one of the stops on that procession, so it was integrated into the larger religious landscape of Thebes. Luna: It sounds like it was also a center for the cult of the deified Ramses. Lucas: Absolutely. The main purpose of a 'Mansion of Millions of Years' was to sustain the king's cult after his death. Offerings of food, drink, and incense were made daily to his statue in the sanctuary. The temple had its own estates and endowments to fund these rituals in perpetuity. In theory, Ramses would be worshipped forever. Of course, as the state weakened, those endowments dried up, and the priests moved on. But for a few centuries, the Ramesseum was a thriving religious and economic center. Lucas: There's also a fascinating detail about the temple's name. In Egyptian, it was called 'Per-User-Maat-Re' — 'The House of User-Maat-Re,' which is Ramses's throne name. But it was also known as 'The Mansion of Millions of Years of User-Maat-Re.' That phrase 'millions of years' was a common trope, but Ramses took it literally — he wanted his temple to function for eternity. Luna: It's ironic that the very building meant to immortalize him ended up being a symbol of his impermanence. Lucas: Yeah. But you know, maybe that's the lesson. Every pharaoh built for eternity, and every one of them is now dust. What survives are the stories, the art, the ideas. And in that respect, the Ramesseum has given us a lot — not just the Ozymandias legend, but real insights into how the New Kingdom worked, how religion and economy intertwined, and how a king could project his power through stone. Luna: So if someone were to visit the Ramesseum today, what would they actually see? Lucas: You'd see the massive fallen colossus first — it's lying face down, and you can walk around it. The head and torso are broken, but you can still see the fine carving of the face. Then you'd enter the first courtyard, with the remains of the Osiride pillars and some standing columns. The hypostyle hall is partially reconstructed — some of the columns have been re-erected. And you can see the beautiful reliefs on the walls, especially the Kadesh battle scenes. They're worn but still vivid. Lucas: There's also a small museum on site that houses some of the smaller finds — statues, pottery, ostraca. And the whole site is set against the backdrop of the Theban hills, which is just stunning. It's less crowded than Karnak or the Valley of the Kings, so you can really soak in the atmosphere. Luna: I think I need to put that on my bucket list. Lucas: Absolutely do. And when you're there, you can think about Shelley's poem, and about Ramses, and about how even the greatest of kings eventually becomes a cautionary tale. But also about how, in a way, he's still speaking to us — 3,200 years later.