Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses II and the Longest Reign: A Look at His 66 Years on the Throne
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've spent a lot of time with Ramses the Great, from his battles to his building projects, but today I want to step back and look at the sheer length of his reign. I mean, the man was on the throne for sixty-six years. That's extraordinary for any ruler, let alone a pharaoh of the New Kingdom. Luna: Sixty-six years. That's a lifetime. How did he even manage that? Lucas: Well, part of it was luck, part of it was genes, but also a very deliberate political strategy. Ramses wasn't even the heir apparent, you know. His father Seti I had chosen him as co-regent early on, probably to ensure a smooth transition. Ramses was about twenty or so when he started ruling alongside his father, and when Seti died, he was already seasoned. Lucas: That co-regency is a topic of some debate, actually. Some Egyptologists question whether it happened at all, but the evidence — inscriptions, dates, that kind of thing — strongly suggests Ramses shared the throne with Seti for a couple of years. It gave him a head start. Luna: So he was basically an apprentice pharaoh. That's clever. Lucas: Exactly. And once he was on his own, he had the time and the resources to build an empire of monuments. We've talked about Abu Simbel, the Ramesseum, the great hall at Karnak — all of that took decades. If you only reigned for ten or fifteen years, you couldn't do all that. Lucas: But a long reign also meant he outlived many of his heirs. He had over a hundred children, we think, and a lot of them died before him. The succession at the end was a bit messy. His thirteenth son, Merenptah, eventually took over, and he was already quite old by then. Luna: A hundred children. That's a lot of princes and princesses to keep track of. Lucas: It was a logistical nightmare, honestly. But it also served a purpose. Having so many sons meant he could place them in key positions, like priests or army commanders. His son Khaemwaset, for instance, was a high priest of Ptah and is often called the first Egyptologist because he restored ancient monuments. Lucas: And then there was the Sed festival. That was a ritual renewal of kingship that Ramses celebrated every thirty years or so. He held at least fourteen of them, probably more. These festivals were a way to reaffirm his divine status, especially as he got older. Luna: So he was basically using festivals to say 'I'm still got it'. Lucas: Pretty much. And he also had to manage the empire diplomatically. The peace treaty with the Hittites, the marriage to the Hittite princess — that all happened in his later years. It was a recognition that after decades of conflict, it was better to align with a powerful neighbor. Lucas: But a long reign also has its downsides. The state had to function smoothly while the king aged, and there were inevitable power struggles. Some evidence suggests that a few of his sons were jockeying for position, though nothing as dramatic as the harem conspiracy that plagued Ramses III later. Luna: So it wasn't all smooth sailing towards the end. Lucas: No, and there's also the practical question of what happened to Ramses' mummy. After he died, he was buried in the Valley of the Kings, but his mummy was moved several times by priests to protect it from tomb robbers. It ended up in the Deir el-Bahari cache, where it was found in 1881. Lucas: When they unwrapped it, they could see he was quite old, with a hooked nose and a prominent jaw. He had some arthritis and dental issues, which we talked about in a previous episode. But he still had that presence, even in death. Luna: It's almost like he's still bossing everyone around. Lucas: Ha, yeah. And his name lived on in Greek and Roman sources too. Diodorus Siculus and others wrote about him as Ozymandias, and that inspired Shelley's famous poem. So his legacy was already legendary in antiquity. Luna: I wonder what he'd think of all that attention. Lucas: Probably that it was deserved. But let me shift gears a bit. This kind of long reign, it's not just about personal ambition. It's also about the stability of Kemet. When a king sits on the throne for that long, it sends a message to both internal rivals and external enemies: this throne is solid. Lucas: And we've been exploring all these facets of Ramses' world through these conversations. If you've been getting something out of them, and you've got a couple of dollars to spare, it genuinely helps keep these episodes going. You can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's the site where listeners can chip in a small amount now and then. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to keep the history coming. And we really appreciate that. Lucas: So where were we? Right — the end of his reign. When Ramses finally died in his nineties, after sixty-six years, Egypt had been through a remarkable period of peace and monumental construction. His successors, starting with Merenptah, had big sandals to fill. Lucas: But the very fact that he lived so long meant that the throne was never empty, and the machinery of state kept running. It's one of the reasons why the Ramesside period is so well documented. We have so many inscriptions and texts from those years simply because there was a stable king for so long. Luna: So longevity itself was a kind of power. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's something we don't often think about when we talk about ancient rulers. We focus on battles and conquests, but just staying alive and on the throne for that long is a feat in itself. Lucas: Now, one thing I find fascinating is how Ramses used the memory of his father Seti to bolster his own legitimacy. You see, Seti had already built the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, but Ramses finished it and put his name on it, which is a classic pharaonic move. He didn't have to erase his father, but he made sure his own name was everywhere. Luna: A bit of subtle PR, then. Lucas: Exactly. And he did that all across Egypt. The more he built, the more he could claim he was the greatest. And because he lived so long, he had time to build more than anyone else. Lucas: But there's also a darker side to longevity. Some Egyptologists argue that the country's resources were stretched by Ramses' massive building projects, and that his successors had to deal with economic strain. So his long reign might have laid the groundwork for problems later in the twentieth dynasty. Luna: So it's not all glory, then. Lucas: No, it's a mixed legacy. But for us, looking back, the sheer scale of what Ramses accomplished is what stands out. And the fact that we have so much evidence from his reign is a direct result of how long he stayed in power. Lucas: I think that's the real takeaway. When you think about Ramses the Great, it's not just about the battles or the temples. It's about how a single ruler's longevity can shape an entire civilization's history. Luna: And we still feel it today, thousands of years later. Lucas: Exactly. So next time you see a statue of Ramses, remember he earned that title 'Great' not just by conquering, but by outlasting everyone else.