Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses the Great's City of Per-Ramesses: Life in the Delta Capital
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the monuments Ramses II built — Abu Simbel, the Ramesseum, the temples at Karnak — but I think one of the most fascinating aspects of his reign is the city he built from scratch: Per-Ramesses, his delta capital. Luna: We touched on it in the Pi-Ramesses episode, but I'd love to go deeper into what life was actually like there. Lucas: Exactly. So, Per-Ramesses — meaning 'House of Ramses' — was located in the eastern Nile Delta, near modern-day Qantir. Ramses moved his court there from Thebes partly to be closer to the border with the Hittites and to keep an eye on the eastern frontier. Luna: So it was a strategic move. Lucas: Absolutely. The city was massive — estimates suggest it covered around 10 square kilometers. It had a huge royal palace, temples to Amun, Ptah, and especially Seth, who was the patron god of the Ramesside family. There were also sprawling administrative buildings, storehouses, and residential quarters. Lucas: Yes, it was incredibly diverse. Ramses settled captured Hittites, Canaanites, and other prisoners of war there. There were also merchants and artisans from across the eastern Mediterranean. The city was a melting pot, which you can see in the archaeological finds — pottery styles, religious practices, even personal names. Luna: What about the famous chariot stables? I've heard they were huge. Lucas: Oh, they were. Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak and his team discovered remains of what they believe were massive stables capable of housing hundreds of horses. This fits with Ramses' emphasis on chariotry after Kadesh. There were also workshops for making chariots, with evidence of bronze fittings and leather harnesses. Luna: So the city was essentially a military-industrial complex. Lucas: In many ways, yes. But it wasn't just military. Edgar Pusch, who worked with Bietak, found a huge bronze workshop — the largest known from ancient Egypt. They were producing tools, weapons, and decorative items on an industrial scale. There were also glassmaking facilities and textile workshops. The city was a production powerhouse. Luna: And it was all connected by canals to the Nile? Lucas: Right. The city was built on the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, which gave it direct access to the Mediterranean. There were harbors where ships unloaded goods from across the empire — cedar from Lebanon, copper from Cyprus, gold from Nubia. It was a trade hub. Luna: What about daily life for ordinary people? What do we know? Lucas: Not as much as we'd like, because the water table is high and organic materials don't preserve well. But we have some clues. There were neighborhoods of mudbrick houses, some with courtyards and wells. People grew vegetables, kept goats and pigs. There were bakeries and breweries. And of course, the temple complexes employed a lot of people as priests, scribes, and workers. Luna: Was there a zoo? I recall something about exotic animals. Lucas: You're thinking of the so-called 'zoological garden' — Ramses had a menagerie of exotic animals, including lions, giraffes, and even a herd of elephants, which were brought from Syria. This was part of his propaganda: showing that he controlled the natural world as well as the human one. Luna: That's incredible. But the city didn't last long after Ramses, did it? Lucas: No, it declined within a few centuries. The Pelusiac branch silted up, and by the Third Intermediate Period, the capital moved to Tanis, which actually reused a lot of the stone from Per-Ramesses. Many of the statues and obelisks you see at Tanis originally came from Ramses' city. So the city was literally dismantled and recycled. Luna: It's like a ghost city that got pillaged for parts. Lucas: Exactly. For a long time, scholars thought Tanis was actually Per-Ramesses until the archaeological work at Qantir confirmed the real location. It's a fascinating detective story. Lucas: You know, as we explore these layers of history — the city plan, the workshops, the multicultural neighborhoods — it makes me reflect on why we do this show ad-free. We want to share this kind of rich detail without interruption. Luna: Yeah, I think that's part of what makes our conversations feel so natural. And if listeners want to support that, there's a link: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Exactly. It's a way to keep this going without any sponsors. Anyway, back to the city — one of my favorite parts is the temple of Seth. Luna: Seth is such a complicated god. He was both the protector of the solar barque and the murderer of Osiris. Lucas: Right. In Per-Ramesses, Seth was the chief deity, which was unusual. The Ramessides came from the delta region where Seth had been worshipped since the Old Kingdom. By elevating him, Ramses was also asserting his family's local roots. But later, during the Third Intermediate Period, Seth became demonized, and many of his images were defaced. Luna: So the city's religious identity was tied to a god who eventually fell out of favor. Lucas: Exactly. It's one of those historical ironies. The city that was built to glorify Ramses and his patron god ended up being buried and forgotten — only to be rediscovered by archaeologists in the 20th century. And now we're here, talking about a city that hasn't seen the light of day for over 3,000 years. Luna: It's humbling, isn't it? All that power, all that ambition, and in the end, it's just dust and fragments. Lucas: But those fragments tell us so much. And that's what keeps me coming back to this history.