The
Ramesseum is the
memorial templeThe term Temple of a Million years is a translation of the Ancient Egyptian term used to refer to the mortuary temples of the pharaohs of the New Kingdom, mainly in the Theban Necropolis area.-History:...
(or
mortuary templeMortuary temples were temples constructed adjacent to, or in the vicinity of, royal tombs in the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom periods of Ancient Egypt. The temples were designed to commemorate the reign of the pharaoh by whom they were built, as well as for use by the pharaoh's cult after death...
) of
PharaohPharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. In antiquity this title began to be used for the ruler who was the religious and political leader of united ancient Egypt. This was true only during the New Kingdom, specifically during the middle of...
Ramesses IIRamesses II was the third Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty...
("Ramesses the Great", also spelled "Ramses" and "Rameses"). It is located in the
ThebanThebes is the Greek name for a city in Ancient Egypt located about 800 km south of the Mediterranean, on the east bank of the river Nile . It was inhabited beginning in around 3200 BC. It was the eponymous capital of Waset, the fourth Upper Egyptian nome...
necropolisA necropolis is a large cemetery or burial ground, usually including structural tombs. The word comes from the Greek νεκρόπολις - nekropolis, meaning "city of the dead"...
in
Upper EgyptUpper Egypt is the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur . The northern section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Sohag is sometimes known as Middle Egypt...
, across the
River NileThe Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world....
from the modern city of
LuxorLuxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. The population numbers 376,022 , with an area of approximately...
. The name – or at least its
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
form,
Rhamesséion – was coined by
Jean-François ChampollionJean-François Champollion was a French classical scholar, philologist and orientalist, decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs....
, who visited the ruins of the site in 1829 and first identified the hieroglyphs making up Ramesses's names and titles on the walls. It was originally called the
House of millions of years of Usermaatra-setepenra that unites with Thebes-the-city in the domain of AmonAmun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a deity in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...
.
Ramesses II
(ramses the great)
Ramesses II was a pharaoh of the
19th dynastyThe Nineteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt was one of the periods of the Egyptian New Kingdom. Founded by Vizier Ramesses I, whom Pharaoh Horemheb chose as his successor to the throne, this dynasty is best known for its military conquests in modern Israel, Lebanon, and Syria.The warrior kings of the...
Egypt. He ruled for 66 years and 2 months during the
13th century BCThe 13th century BC was the period from 1300 to 1201 BC.-Events:*1300 BC: Cemetery H culture comes to an end.*1292 BC: End of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, start of the Nineteenth Dynasty....
, the apogee of
Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
's power and glory. This extraordinarily long reign, the wealth available in the state coffers, and, undeniably, the pharaoh's personal vanity meant that Ramesses, of all the ancient rulers, left what is perhaps the most indelible mark on the country. His legacy can be seen most clearly in the
archaeological recordThe archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past...
– in the many buildings that Ramesses modified, usurped, or constructed from the ground up.
Most splendid of these, in accordance with
New KingdomThe New Kingdom, sometimes referred to as the Egyptian Empire, is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was...
Royal burial practices, would have been his memorial temple: a place of worship dedicated to pharaoh, god on earth, where his memory would have been kept alive after his passing from this world. Surviving records indicate that work on the project began shortly after the start of his reign and continued for 20 years.
The design of Ramesses's mortuary temple abides by the standard canons of New Kingdom temple architecture. Oriented northwest and southeast, the temple itself comprised two stone
pylonPylon is the Greek term for a monumental gateway of an Egyptian temple It consists of two tapering towers, each surmounted by a cornice, joined by a less elevated section which enclosed the entrance between them. The entrance was generally about half the height of the towers...
s (gateways, some 60 m wide), one after the other, each leading into a courtyard. Beyond the second courtyard, at the centre of the complex, was a covered 48-column hypostyle hall, surrounding the inner sanctuary.
An enormous
pylonPylon is the Greek term for a monumental gateway of an Egyptian temple It consists of two tapering towers, each surmounted by a cornice, joined by a less elevated section which enclosed the entrance between them. The entrance was generally about half the height of the towers...
(gateways, some 60 m wide) stood before the first court, with the royal palace at the left and the gigantic statue of the king looming up at the back.
As is customary, the pylons and outer walls were decorated with scenes commemorating pharaoh's military victories and leaving due record of his dedication to, and kinship with, the
godsAncient Egyptian religion encompasses the various religious beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Egypt over more than 3,000 years, from the predynastic period until the adoption of Christianity in the early centuries AD...
. In Ramesses's case, much importance is placed on the
Battle of KadeshThe Battle of Kadesh took place between the forces of the Egyptian Empire under Ramesses II and the Hittite Empire under Muwatalli II at the city of Kadesh on the Orontes River, in what is now the Syrian Arab Republic....
(ca. 1285 BC); more intriguingly, however, one block atop the first pylon records his pillaging, in the eighth year of his reign, a city called "Shalem", which may or may not have been
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
.
The scenes of the great pharaoh and his army triumphing over the Hittite forces fleeing before
KadeshThis article is about Kadesh in the lands of the Amurru, bordering on Damascus Syria up to Hammath; see also Kadesh or Kedesh Kadesh was an ancient city of the Levant, located on or near the headwaters or ford of the Orontes River It is surmised by Kenneth Kitchen to be the ruins at Tell Nebi...
, represented in line with the canons of the "epic poem of Pentaur", can still be made out of the pylon.
Only fragments of the base and torso remain of the syenite statue of the enthroned pharaoh, 62 feet (19 metres) high and weighing more than 1000 tons. This was alleged to have been transported 170 miles over land. This is the largest remaining colossal statue (except statues done in situ) in the world. However fragments of 4 granite Colossi of Ramses were found in Tanis (northern Egypt). Estimated height is 69 to 92 feet (21 to 28 meters). Like four of the six colossi of Amenhotep III (
Colossi of MemnonThe Colossi of Memnon are two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. For the past 3400 years they have stood in the Theban necropolis, across the River Nile from the modern city of Luxor.-Description:The twin statues depict Amenhotep III The Colossi of Memnon (known to locals as...
) there are no longer complete remains so it is based partly on unconfirmed estimates.
Remains of the second court include part of the internal façade of the pylon and a portion of the Osiride portico on the right. Scenes of war and the rout the
HittitesThe Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height ca...
at Kadesh are repeated on the walls. In the upper
registersRegister is a term that refers to pictographic representation of a scene, and its separation from an adjoining scene by putting the scene in regestered sections. This term can be applied in sculpture, or ancient artwork, or languages...
, feast and honour of the phallic god
MinMin is an Ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times . He was represented in many different forms, but was often represented in male human form, shown with an erect penis which he holds in his left hand and an upheld right arm holding a flail...
, god of fertility. On the opposite side of the court the few Osiride pillars and columns still left can furnish an idea of the original grandeur. Scattered remains of the two statues of the seated king can also be seen, one in pink granite and the other in black granite, which once flanked the entrance to the
templeA temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
. Thirty-nine out of the forty-eight columns in the great hypostyle hall (m 41x 31) still stand in the central rows. They are decorated with the usual scenes of the king before various gods. Part of the ceiling decorated with gold stars on a blue ground has also been preserved. The sons and daughters of Ramesses appear in the procession on the few walls left. The sanctuary was composed of three consecutive rooms, with eight columns and the tetrastyle cell. Part of the first room, with the ceiling decorated with astral scenes, and few remains of the second room are all that is left.
Adjacent to the north of the hypostyle hall was a smaller temple; this was dedicated to Ramesses's mother,
TuyaA tuya is a type of distinctive, flat-topped, steep-sided volcano formed when lava erupts through a thick glacier or ice sheet. They are somewhat rare worldwide, being confined to regions which were formerly covered by continental ice sheets and also had active volcanism during the same time...
, and his beloved chief wife,
NefertariNefertari was one of the Great Royal Wives of Ramesses the Great. Nefertari means Beautiful Companion. She is one of the best known Egyptian queens, next to Cleopatra, Nefertiti and Hatshepsut. Her lavishly decorated tomb, QV66, is the largest and most spectacular in the Valley of the Queens...
. To the south of the first courtyard stood the temple palace. The complex was surrounded by various storerooms, granaries, workshops, and other ancillary buildings, some built as late as
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
times.
A temple of
Seti IMenmaatre Seti I was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt , the son of Ramesses I and Queen Sitre, and the father of Ramesses II...
, of which nothing is now left but the foundations, once stood to the right of the hypostyle hall. It consisted of a peristyle court with two chapel shrines. The entire complex was enclosed in mud brick walls which started at the gigantic southeast pylon.
A cache of
papyriPapyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
and
ostracaAn ostracon is a piece of pottery , usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In archaeology, ostraca may contain scratched-in words or other forms of writing which may give clues as to the time when the piece was in use...
dating back to the third intermediate period (
11thThe eleventh century
BC comprises all years from 1100
BC to 1001
BC. Although many human societies were literate in this period, some of the individuals mentioned below must be considered legendary rather than fully historical.-Events:* 1089 BC:...
to
8th centuries BCThe 8th century BC started the first day of 800 BC and ended the last day of 701 BC.- Overview :The 8th century BC was a period of great changes in civilizations. In Egypt, the 23rd and 24th dynasties led to rule from Nubia in the 25 Dynasty...
) indicates that the temple was also the site of an important
scribalA scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
school.
The site was in use before Ramesses had the first stone put in place: beneath the hypostyle hall, modern archaeologists have found a
shaft tombA shaft tomb or shaft grave is a type of burial structure formed from a deep and narrow shaft sunk into natural rock. Burials were then placed at the bottom...
from the Middle Kingdom, yielding a rich hoard of religious and funerary artifacts.
Remains
Unlike the massive stone temples that Ramesses ordered carved from the face of the
NubiaNubia is the region in the south of Egypt, along the Nile and in northern Sudan. Most of Nubia is situated in Sudan with about a quarter of its territory in Egypt...
n mountains at
Abu SimbelAbu Simbel is an archaeological site comprising two massive rock temples in Nubia, southern Egypt on the western bank of Lake Nasser about 290 km southwest of Aswan...
, the inexorable passage of three millennia was not kind to his "temple of a million years" at Thebes. This was mostly due to its location on the very edge of the
NileThe Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world....
floodplain||-||-||-||-||-||-||-||}A floodplain, or flood plain, is flat or nearly flat land adjacent to a stream or river that experiences occasional or periodic flooding...
, with the annual inundation gradually undermining the foundations of this temple, and its neighbours. Neglect and the arrival of new faiths also took their toll: for example, in the early years of the
Common EraCommon Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the calendar system most commonly used world-wide for numbering the year part of the date...
, the temple was put into service as a
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
church.
This is all standard fare for a temple of its kind built at the time it was. Leaving aside the escalation of scale – whereby each successive New Kingdom pharaoh strove to outdo his predecessors in volume and scope – the Ramesseum is largely cast in the same mould as Ramesses III's Medinet Habu or the
ruined templeThe Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III is located in the Theban necropolis, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor in Egypt. It was built for the Pharaoh Amenhotep III...
of
Amenhotep IIIAmenhotep III was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty. According to different authors, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC or June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC after his father Thutmose IV died...
that stood behind the "
Colossi of MemnonThe Colossi of Memnon are two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. For the past 3400 years they have stood in the Theban necropolis, across the River Nile from the modern city of Luxor.-Description:The twin statues depict Amenhotep III The Colossi of Memnon (known to locals as...
" a kilometre or so away. Instead, the significance that the Ramesseum enjoys today owes more to the time and manner of its rediscovery by
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
ans.
Excavation and Studies
The origins of modern
EgyptologyEgyptology Egyptology Egyptology (from Egypt and Greek , -logia. , is a major field of archaeology, the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century...
can be traced to the arrival in Egypt of
Napoleon BonaparteNapoleon Bonaparte later known as Napoleon I, and previously Napoleone di Buonaparte, was a military and political leader of France whose actions shaped European politics in the early 19th century.Born in Corsica and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France, Bonaparte rose to prominence...
in the summer of 1798.
While undeniably an invasion by an alien imperialist power, this was nonetheless an invasion of its times, informed by Enlightenment ideas: alongside Napoleon's troops went men of science, the same whose toil under the desert sun would later yield the seminal 23-volume
Description de l'ÉgypteDescription de l'Égypte is the title of several books.* Description de l'Égypte - Description de l'Égypte ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l'expédition de l'armée française Pub; First Edition , L'Imprimerie Imperiale, 1809-1813; l'Imprimerie...
.
Two
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
engineers,
Jean-Baptiste Prosper JolloisJean-Baptiste Prosper Jollois was a French engineer who together with Édouard de Villiers du Terrage journeyed with Napoleon to Egypt, and prepared the Description de l'Egypte....
and
Édouard de Villiers du TerrageÉdouard de Villiers du Terrage was a French engineer who together with Jean-Baptiste Prosper Jollois journeyed with Napoleon to Egypt, and prepared the Description de l'Égypte....
, were assigned to study the Ramesseum site, and it was with much fanfare that they identified it with the "Tomb of Ozymandias" or "Palace of Memnon" of which
DiodorusDiodorus Siculus , was a Greek historian who flourished in the 1st century BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doing than is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca historica...
of Sicily had written in the
1st century BCThe 1st century BC, also known as the last century BC or 1st century BCE started on the first day of 100 BC and ended on the last day of 1 BC.It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period...
.
The next visitor of note was Giovanni Belzoni, a showman and engineer of
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
origin and, latterly, an archaeologist and antiques dealer. Belzoni's travels took him in 1815 to
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
, where he sold Mehemet Ali a hydraulic engine of his own invention. There he met British Consul General
Henry SaltHenry Salt was an English artist, traveler, diplomat, and Egyptologist.-Biography:Salt, the son of a physician, was born in Lichfield. He trained as a portrait painter, first in Lichfield and then in London under Joseph Farington and John Hoppner. In 1802 he was appointed secretary and draughtsman...
, who hired his services to collect from the temple in Thebes the so-called '
Younger MemnonThe Younger Memnon statue is one of two colossal granite heads from the Ancient Egyptian mortuary temple called the Ramesseum at Thebes, depicting the pharaoh Ramesses II wearing the nemes head-dress with a cobra diadem on top.-Description:...
', one of two colossal granite heads depicting Ramesses II, and transport it to
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Thanks to Belzoni's hydraulics and his skill as an engineer (Napoleon's men had failed in the same endeavour a decade or so earlier), the 7-ton stone head arrived in London in 1818, where it was dubbed "The Younger Memnon" and, some years later, given pride of place in the
British MuseumThe British Museum is a museum of human history and culture situated in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from...
.
It was against the backdrop of intense excitement surrounding the statue's arrival, and having heard wondrous tales of other, less transportable treasures still in the desert, that the poet
Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language...
penned his sonnet "
OzymandiasI met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command...
". In particular, one massive fallen statue at the Ramesseum is now inextricably linked with Shelley, because of the
cartoucheIn Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oblong enclosure with a horizontal line at one end, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name, coming into use during the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Pharaoh Sneferu, replacing the earlier serekh. The Ancient Egyptian word for it was...
on its shoulder bearing Ramesses's throne name,
User-maat-re Setep-en-re, the first part of which Diodorus transliterated into Greek as "Ozymandias".
While Shelley's "vast and trunkless legs of stone" owe more to poetic license than to archaeology, the "half sunk... shattered visage" lying on the sand is an accurate description of part of the wrecked statue. The hands, and the feet, lie nearby. Were it still standing, the Ozymandias colossus would tower 18 metres above the ground, rivalling the
Colossi of MemnonThe Colossi of Memnon are two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. For the past 3400 years they have stood in the Theban necropolis, across the River Nile from the modern city of Luxor.-Description:The twin statues depict Amenhotep III The Colossi of Memnon (known to locals as...
and the statues of Ramesses carved into the mountain at Abu Simbel.
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