Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses the Great's Crown: The Dual Crown of Upper and Lower Egypt
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Ramses the Great — his battles, his wives, his monuments. But I realised we've never really dug into the single most visible symbol of his power, the thing that literally sat on his head every day: the crown. Luna: The pschent, right? The double crown? Lucas: Exactly. In Egyptian, it's called the pschent — from 'pa-sekhemty', meaning 'the two powerful ones.' It combined the white crown of Upper Egypt, the hedjet, and the red crown of Lower Egypt, the deshret, into one unified symbol. And for Ramses, who ruled for sixty-six years and built monuments from the Delta to Nubia, the pschent was more than just a hat — it was the embodiment of his authority over a united land. Luna: I've seen the white crown and red crown separately in art. When did they first appear? Lucas: The hedjet — that's the tall, white, bulb-shaped crown — appears in art from the Predynastic period, around 4000 BCE. There's a famous ceramic vessel from Naqada that shows a king wearing it. The deshret, the red crown with that distinctive curving back and the curly protrusion, shows up a bit later, also in Predynastic times. But the earliest known depiction of the two crowns combined is on the Narmer Palette, from around 3100 BCE, which many scholars see as commemorating the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. Luna: So Ramses was literally wearing a symbol that was three thousand years old by his time. Lucas: That's exactly right. And he knew it. Ramses was a master of propaganda, and he deliberately linked himself to that ancient tradition. At Abu Simbel, in the Great Temple, one of the colossal seated statues of Ramses wears the pschent. And it's not just any pschent — it's carved with the uraeus, the cobra of Wadjet, and the vulture of Nekhbet, the two goddesses who protected Lower and Upper Egypt respectively. So the crown itself was a sacred object, charged with divine power. Luna: It's also interesting that the crowns had their own names and personalities, almost. Lucas: Absolutely. In Egyptian theology, the hedjet was associated with the goddess Nekhbet of El-Kab, and the deshret with Wadjet of Buto. They were often called 'the two ladies' — the nebty — and they appear in the pharaoh's titulary as part of his fivefold names. Ramses's full titulary includes the nebty name 'Mekkemetwafkhasut', meaning 'Protector of Egypt who subdues foreign lands.' So every time the crown was placed on his head, it was a ritual act that reaffirmed his role as the one who maintains Ma'at — cosmic order — over the Two Lands. Luna: And I believe you've mentioned before that this show is supported by listeners like you. Lucas: Yeah, that's right. A couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Luna: It really helps us keep doing deep dives like this. Lucas: So back to the crowns — the coronation ceremony itself included the ritual of 'appearing in the double crown,' called the 'kha' in Egyptian. The new pharaoh would process from the palace wearing the pschent, and the people would see him as the living Horus. Ramses went a step further: at Medinet Habu, his mortuary temple, there's a scene showing him wearing the pschent while being crowned by the gods Horus and Seth. It's a direct claim that his rule is sanctioned by the very forces of order and chaos. Luna: Wait — Seth, the god of chaos, is crowning him? Lucas: Yes, and that's deliberate. Seth was the god of storms and disorder, but he was also a protector of the sun barque and a god of the desert. By having Seth crown him, Ramses shows that he can even harness chaotic forces to maintain order. It's a powerful piece of iconography. And the pschent itself appears in dozens of scenes at Medinet Habu — Ramses wears it when he smites enemies, when he offers to the gods, when he celebrates the Heb Sed festival. It's his constant companion. Luna: I've read that the double crown was actually quite heavy. Lucas: It would have been. The crowns were made of materials like linen, leather, and metal — gold, electrum, copper — and could weigh several pounds. But Ramses, like all pharaohs, would have worn it for formal occasions, not daily. There's a practical side too: the pschent kept the king's head cool in the Egyptian sun? Not really, but it did make him unmistakable. In battle reliefs, you can pick out Ramses immediately because he's the one wearing the double crown, towering over the chaos of combat. Luna: Were there any other crowns Ramses wore? Lucas: Yes, several. He also wore the khepresh, the blue crown, often used in military contexts. And the atef crown, which is the white crown flanked by ostrich feathers, associated with Osiris. But the pschent was the supreme symbol of kingship. When Ramses built his capital at Pi-Ramesses, the city was designed as a microcosm of the Two Lands, with a temple to Seth in the north and a temple to Amun in the south, mirroring the duality of the crown. Everything Ramses did was about reinforcing that unity. Luna: It's fascinating how something as simple as a crown can tell such a complex story. Lucas: It really is. And the pschent didn't disappear with Ramses. It continued to be used by later pharaohs, even into Ptolemaic times, nearly a thousand years after Ramses. So when you see a statue of a pharaoh wearing that double crown, you're looking at a symbol that connects them all the way back to the dawn of Egyptian history. Ramses the Great, of course, wore it more powerfully than almost anyone else. Luna: Almost makes you want to see one in person. Lucas: Well, no actual pschent has survived from Ramses's time — they were too valuable, likely melted down or reused. But we have plenty of depictions in stone and paint. And if you ever go to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, you can see the Narmer Palette, the very first depiction of the double crown. That's about as close as you can get to the origin of the symbol that Ramses wore three thousand years ago.