Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / The Great Harris Papyrus: Ramses III and the Temple Economy
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've covered Ramses the Great pretty thoroughly — his battles, his monuments, his family, his mummy. But I think we missed one of the most fascinating documents from his era, and it actually belongs to his successor, Ramses III. Luna: Wait, Ramses III? I thought he was a different dynasty? Lucas: Right, he's from the Twentieth Dynasty, about a century later. But he modeled himself so much on Ramses the Great that he even named his sons after Ramses II's sons. And he left us the Great Harris Papyrus — a 40-meter-long scroll that's basically an economic and religious audit of his reign. Lucas: The papyrus was discovered in a tomb near Medinet Habu, Ramses III's mortuary temple, in the 19th century. It's named after Anthony Charles Harris, a British collector who acquired it. And it's one of the longest surviving papyri from ancient Egypt. Luna: Forty meters? That's like a city block. What's on it? Lucas: It's a record of all the donations Ramses III made to the temples of Egypt — especially to the god Amun at Karnak, but also to Ptah at Memphis and Ra at Heliopolis. It lists land, cattle, ships, workshops, grain, gold, silver — everything. The scale is staggering. For Amun alone, he gave over 400,000 head of cattle, 500,000 acres of land, and thousands of people. Lucas: Now, this isn't just a list. It's a propaganda document, a way for Ramses III to claim he restored order after the chaos of the late Nineteenth Dynasty and the invasions of the Sea Peoples. He's saying, 'Look, I defeated the enemies, I secured Egypt, and I honored the gods.' Luna: So it's like a political statement wrapped in a tax return. Lucas: Exactly. And it gives us an incredible window into the temple economy. By the end of Ramses III's reign, the temples — especially Amun's — controlled maybe a third of Egypt's arable land and employed a huge portion of the population. The priesthood became a parallel government, almost a state within a state. Lucas: This is the seed of the later power shift we talked about in episode 17. The High Priest of Amun at Thebes eventually becomes more powerful than the pharaoh. Ramses III might have accelerated that by giving away so much wealth to the temples. Luna: Was he aware of that risk? Or did he think he was securing divine favor? Lucas: Hard to say. In the papyrus, he claims he did it to 'satisfy the gods' and bring prosperity. But he also built a strong personal army of foreign mercenaries — Sherden, Libyans — maybe to counterbalance the temples. There's evidence of the first recorded labor strike in history during his reign, when the workmen at Deir el-Medina didn't get paid. That suggests even the pharaoh's own treasury was strained. Luna: A strike? Over wages? Lucas: Yes, in the 29th year of Ramses III, the tomb builders at Deir el-Medina stopped working because their grain rations hadn't arrived. They sat down on the job and chanted, 'We are hungry!' The authorities eventually paid them, but it shows the economic pressures. And the Great Harris Papyrus might have been part of an effort to justify the pharaoh's massive donations — like, 'I'm spending on the gods, not on corrupt officials.' Lucas: The papyrus also includes a summary of earlier reigns, from the founder of the Nineteenth Dynasty down to Ramses III. It's a historical document as much as an inventory. And it ends with a prayer for Ramses III's afterlife. Luna: So it's a kind of will and testament. But what happened to all that wealth after Ramses III died? Lucas: Good question. The papyrus itself was probably deposited in his mortuary temple as a sort of eternal record. But the real wealth stayed with the temples. Within a few generations, the High Priest of Amun, Herihor, took the throne himself, and the New Kingdom effectively ended. The Great Harris Papyrus marks the high point of temple endowments — after that, the pharaohs had less and less to give. Luna: I want to go back to the numbers. 400,000 cattle? That seems impossibly large. Lucas: It might be exaggerated for effect, but even if it's half that, it's enormous. Egyptologists have calculated that the donations to Amun alone could have supported an army of 100,000 men for a year. The temples were like banks — they lent grain, they owned ships that traded with Punt and Byblos, they had workshops that produced everything from linen to statues. Lucas: One of the most interesting parts of the papyrus is the list of foreign tribute. It mentions gifts from the Hittites, from Cyprus, from the Sea Peoples' lands. Some of it might be diplomatic gifts, but some might be plunder from Ramses III's campaigns. Luna: Did Ramses III really defeat the Sea Peoples? I remember you mentioned it in the Merneptah episode, but I'm fuzzy on the details. Lucas: Ramses III fought a series of land and sea battles against the Sea Peoples in his 8th year. The inscriptions at Medinet Habu show a great naval battle in the Nile Delta, with Egyptian archers shooting from the shore and ships grappling. It was a decisive victory, but it also drained Egypt's resources. The Great Harris Papyrus says he settled some of the captives in southern Canaan as vassals. Lucas: But the cost of war, plus the donations to temples, meant the state was running on fumes. And the papyrus itself might have been meant to reassure the gods and the people that the pharaoh was doing his job. Luna: It's like a giant receipt for piety. Lucas: Exactly. And it works as an historical source because it's so specific. It mentions the names of temples, the types of offerings, even the number of loaves of bread. For example, it says Amun's temple at Karnak received 1,000 loaves of bread daily, along with beer, oxen, and fowl. Lucas: There's also a section on the god's wife of Amun, a title held by royal women. She controlled a lot of wealth herself. The papyrus lists her estates separately. Luna: So the god's wife was like a CEO of a temple corporation. Lucas: In a way, yes. She was often the pharaoh's daughter or sister, and she had her own income and staff. The Great Harris Papyrus shows that the temple economy was not monolithic — there were different branches, different endowments, and different stakeholders. Lucas: And the papyrus itself is a remarkable artifact. It's written in hieratic script, not hieroglyphic, so it was meant for administrative use, not just display. It's divided into sections with red ink headings. It's as much a bureaucratic document as a religious one. Luna: I love that we have something so raw and real from that time. Not just monuments, but paperwork. Lucas: Exactly. And it's one of the few sources that gives us the voice of a pharaoh explaining his own decisions. Near the end, Ramses III says, 'I did these things with a loving heart, desiring to benefit the gods.' It's a rare glimpse of his self-image. Lucas: So if you want to understand how Egypt worked — not just the battles and temples, but the economy, the politics, the religion — the Great Harris Papyrus is the key. It's the biggest, most detailed economic document from the ancient world. Luna: And we're lucky it survived. What happened to the original papyrus? Lucas: It's now in the British Museum, though it's not always on display because of its length. But you can see it digitized online. It's still being studied — Egyptologists are finding new details about weights, measures, and even climate conditions from the grain amounts. Luna: So it's not just a historical record, it's a data set. Lucas: Exactly. And it raises questions about the role of religion in state power. Ramses III thought he was securing Egypt's future by giving everything to the gods. But in the long run, he may have weakened the monarchy. The Great Harris Papyrus is both a testament to his piety and a warning about the dangers of over-centralization. Lucas: In the end, the papyrus shows us a pharaoh trying to hold onto a golden age that was already slipping away. And that's a story we can all relate to. Luna: Thanks for unpacking that, Lucas. I'll never look at ancient paperwork the same way again.