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| The Ramesside period of the New Kingdom in ancient Egypt |
The reigns of the Amarna pharaohs were
eventually to be subsumed into his own, leaving no official record of
what posterity deemed to be an unorthodox and distasteful interlude.
Having no son, he selected his general and vizier, Ramses, to succeed him.
Ramses I and Seti I
Ramses I (ruled 1292–90 BCE)
hailed from the eastern Nile River delta, and with the 19th dynasty, there was a political shift into the delta.
Ramses I was succeeded by his son and
coregent, Seti I, who buried his father and provided him with mortuary
buildings at Thebes and Abydos.
Seti I (ruled 1290–79 BCE) was a
successful military leader who reasserted authority over Egypt’s weakened empire in
the Middle East.
The Mitanni state had been
dismembered, and the Hittites had become the dominant Asian power. Before
tackling them, Seti laid the groundwork for military operations in Syria by
fighting farther south against nomads and Palestinian city-states; then,
following the strategy of Thutmose III, he secured the coastal cities and
gained Kadesh. Although his engagement with the Hittites was successful, Egypt
acquired only temporary control of part of the north Syrian plain.
A treaty was concluded with the Hittites,
who, however, subsequently pushed farther southward and regained Kadesh by the
time of Ramses II.
Seti I ended a new threat to Egyptian
security when he defeated Libyans attempting to enter the delta. He also
mounted a southern campaign, probably to the Fifth Cataract region.
Seti I restored countless monuments that
had been defaced in the Amarna period, and the refined decoration of his
monuments, particularly his temple at Abydos, shows a classicizing tendency.
He also commissioned striking and novel
reliefs showing stages of his campaigns, which are preserved notably on the
north wall of the great hypostyle hall at Karnak.
This diversity of artistic approach is characteristic of the Ramesside period, which was culturally and
ethnically pluralistic.
Ramses II
Well before his death, Seti I appointed
his son Ramses II, sometimes called Ramses the Great, as crown prince.
During the long reign of Ramses II
(1279–13 BCE), there was a prodigious amount of building, ranging from
religious edifices throughout Egypt and Nubia to a new cosmopolitan capital, Pi
Ramesses, in the eastern delta; his cartouches were carved ubiquitously, often
on earlier monuments.
Ramses II’s penchant for decorating vast
temple walls with battle scenes gives the impression of a mighty warrior king.
His campaigns were, however, relatively
few, and after the first decade, his reign was peaceful. The most famous scenes
record the battle of Kadesh, fought in his fifth regnal year.
These and extensive accompanying texts
present the battle as an Egyptian victory, but in fact, the opposing Hittite
coalition fared at least as well as the Egyptians.
After this inconclusive struggle, his
officers advised him to make peace, saying, “There is no reproach in reconciliation
when you make it.” In succeeding years Ramses II campaigned in Syria; after a
decade of stalemate, a treaty in his 21st year was concluded with Hattusilis
III, the Hittite king.
Egyptian and Hittite versions of the
treaty survive. It contained a renunciation of further hostilities, a mutual
alliance against outside attack and internal rebellion, and the extradition of
fugitives.
The gods of both lands were invoked as
witnesses. The treaty was further cemented 13 years later by Ramses II’s
marriage to a Hittite princess.
The king had an immense family with numerous wives, among whom he especially honored Nefertari. He dedicated
a temple to her at Abū Simbel, in Nubia, and built a magnificent tomb for
her in the Valley of the Queens.
For the first time in more than a
millennium, princes were prominently represented on the monuments. Ramses II’s
fourth surviving son, Khaemwese, was famous as the high priest of Ptah at Memphis.
He restored many monuments in the Memphite
area, including pyramids and pyramid temples of the Old Kingdom, and
had buildings constructed near the Sarapeum at Ṣaqqārah.
He was celebrated in Roman times as a
sage and magician and became the hero of a cycle of stories.
Merneptah
Ramses II’s 13th son, Merneptah (ruled
1213–04 BCE), was his successor.
Several of Merneptah’s inscriptions, of
unusual literary style, treat an invasion of the western delta in his fifth
year by Libyans, supported by groups of Sea Peoples who had traveled
from Anatolia to Libya in search of new homes. The Egyptians defeated
this confederation and settled captives in military camps to serve as Egyptian
mercenaries.
One of the inscriptions concludes with a
poem of victory (written about another battle), famous for its words “Israel is
desolated and has no seed.” This is the earliest documented mention of Israel;
it is generally assumed that the exodus of the Jews from Egypt took
place under Ramses II.
Merneptah was able to hold most of Egypt’s
possessions, although early in his reign he had to reassert Egyptian suzerainty
in Palestine, destroying Gezer in the process.
Peaceful relations with the Hittites and
respect for the treaty of Ramses II are indicated by Merneptah’s dispatch of
grain to them during a famine and by Egyptian military aid in the protection of
Hittite possessions in Syria.
Last years of the 19th dynasty
Upon the death of Merneptah, competing
factions within the royal family contended for the succession.
Merneptah’s son Seti II (ruled
1204–1198 BCE) had to face a usurper, Amenmeses, who rebelled in Nubia and
was accepted in Upper Egypt. His successor, Siptah, was installed on
the throne by a Syrian royal butler, Bay, who had become chancellor of Egypt.
Siptah was succeeded by Seti II’s
widow Tausert, who ruled as king from 1193 to 1190 BCE, counting her
regnal years from the death of Seti II, whose name she restored over that of
Siptah.
A description in a later papyrus of
the end of the dynasty alludes to a Syrian usurper, probably
Bay, who subjected the land to harsh taxation and treated the gods as mortals
with no offerings in their temples.
The early 20th dynasty " Setnakht and Ramses III "
Order was restored by a man of obscure origin,
Setnakht (ruled 1190–87 BCE), the founder of the 20th dynasty, who appropriated Tausert’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. An inscription of
Setnakht recounts his struggle to pacify the land, which ended in the second of
his three regnal years.
Setnakht’s son Ramses III (ruled
1187–56 BCE) was the last great king of the New Kingdom.
There are problems in evaluating his
achievements because he emulated Ramses II and copied numerous scenes and texts
of Ramses II in his mortuary temple at Madīnat Habu, one of the
best-preserved temples of the empire period.
Thus, the historicity of certain Nubian
and Syrian wars depicted as his accomplishments is subject to doubt.
He did, however, fight battles that were
more decisive than any fought by Ramses II. In his fifth year, Ramses III
defeated a large-scale Libyan invasion of the delta in a battle in which
thousands of the enemy perished.
A greater menace lay to the north, where a
confederation of Sea Peoples was progressing by land and sea toward
Egypt.
This alliance of obscure tribes traveled
south in the aftermath of the destruction of the Hittite empire.
In his eighth regnal year, Ramses III
engaged them successfully on two frontiers—a land battle in Palestine and a
naval engagement in one of the mouths of the delta.
Because of these two victories, Egypt did
not undergo political turmoil or experience the rapid technological advance of
the early Iron Age in the Near East. Forced away from the
borders of Egypt, the Sea Peoples sailed farther westward, and some of their
groups may have given their names to the Sicilians, Sardinians, and Etruscans.
The Philistine and Tjekker
peoples, who had come by land, were established in the southern Palestinian
coastal district in an area where the overland trade route to Syria was
threatened by attacks by nomads.
Initially settled to protect Egyptian interests, these groups later became independent of Egypt. Ramses III used some of these people as mercenaries, even in the battle against their own kinfolk.
In his 11th year, he successfully repulsed
another great Libyan invasion by the Meshwesh tribes.
Meshwesh prisoners of war, branded with
the king’s name, were settled in military camps in Egypt, and in later
centuries their descendants became politically important because of their
ethnic cohesiveness and their military role.
The economic resources of Egypt were in
decline at that time. Under Ramses III the estate of Amon received only
one-fifth as much gold as in Thutmose III’s time.
Even at the great temple of Madīnat Habu,
the quality of the masonry betrays a decline. Toward the end of his reign,
administrative inefficiency and the deteriorating economic situation resulted
in the government’s failure to deliver grain rations on time to necropolis
workers, whose dissatisfaction was expressed in demonstrations and in the first
recorded strikes in history.
Involved in the plot were the palace and harem
personnel, government officials, and army officers.
A special court of 12 judges was
formed to try the accused, who received the death sentence.
Many literary works date to the Ramesside
period. Earlier works in Middle Egyptian were copied in schools and in good
papyrus copies, and new texts were composed in Late Egyptian.
Notable among the latter are stories,
several with mythological or allegorical content, that look to folk models
rather than to the elaborate written literary types of the Middle Kingdom.
Ramses IV
Ramses III was succeeded by his son Ramses
IV (ruled 1156–50 BCE). In an act of piety that also reinforced his
legitimacy, Ramses IV saw to the compilation of a long papyrus in
which the deceased Ramses III confirmed the temple holdings throughout Egypt;
Ramses III had provided the largest benefactions to the Theban temples, in
terms of donations of both land and personnel.
Most of these probably endorsed earlier
donations, to which each king added his own gifts. Of the annual income to
temples, 86 percent of the silver and 62 percent of the grain were awarded to
Amon.
The document demonstrates the economic
power of the Theban temples, for the tremendous landholdings of Amon’s estate
throughout Egypt involved the labor of a considerable portion of the population;
but the ratio of a temple to state income is not known, and the two were not
administratively separate.
In addition, the temple of Amon, which
figures prominently in the papyrus included within its estates the king’s own
mortuary temple, for Ramses III, was himself deified as a form of Amon-Re,
known as Imbued with Eternity.
The later Ramesside kings
The Ramesside period saw a tendency toward
the formation of high-priestly families, which kings sometimes tried to counter
by appointing outside men to the high priesthood.
One such family had developed at Thebes in the second half of the 19th dynasty and Ramses IV tried to control it by installing Ramessesnakht, the son of a royal steward, as Theban high priest. Ramessesnakht participated in administrative as well as priestly affairs; he personally led an expedition to the Wadi Ḥammāmāt (present-day Wādī Rawḍ ʿĀʾid) quarries in the Eastern Desert, and at Thebes, he supervised the distribution of rations to the workmen decorating the royal tomb.
Under Ramses V (ruled
1150–45 BCE), Ramessesnakht’s son not only served as steward of Amon but
also held the post of administrator of royal lands and chief taxing master.
Thus, this family acquired extensive
authority over the wealth of Amon and over state finances, but to what extent
this threatened royal authority is uncertain.
Part of the problem in evaluating the
evidence is that Ramesside's history is viewed from a Theban bias because Thebes
is the major source of information.
Evidence from Lower Egypt, where the
king normally resided, is meager because conditions there were unfavorable for
preserving monuments or papyri.
A long papyrus from the reign of Ramses V
contains valuable information on the ownership of land and taxation.
In Ramesside Egypt most of the land
belonged to the state and the temples, while most peasants served as tenant
farmers.
Some scholars interpret this document as
indicating that the state retained its right to tax temple property, at an
estimated one-tenth of the crop.
Ramses VI (ruled 1145–37 BCE),
probably a son of Ramses III usurped much of his two predecessors’ work,
including the tomb of Ramses V; a papyrus refers to a possible civil war at
Thebes. Following the death of Ramses III and the disrupted migrations of the Late Bronze
Age, the Asian empire had rapidly withered away, and Ramses VI is the last king
whose name appears in the Sinai turquoise mines.
The next two Ramses (ruled
1137–26 BCE) were obscure rulers, whose sequence has been questioned.
During the reigns of Ramses IX (ruled 1126–08 BCE) and Ramses
X (1108–04 BCE), there are frequent references in the papyri to the
disruptions of marauding Libyans near the Theban necropolis.
By the time of Ramses IX the Theban high, the priest had attained great local influence, though he was still outranked by the
king.
By Ramses XI’s 19th regnal year the
new high priest of Amon, Herihor—who seems to have had a military
background and also claimed the vizierate and the office of the viceroy of
Cush—controlled the Theban area. In reliefs at the temple of Khons at Karnak,
Herihor was represented as the high priest of Amon in scenes adjoining
those of Ramses XI. This in itself was unusual, but subsequently, he took an
even bolder step in having himself depicted as king to the exclusion of the still-reigning
Ramses XI. Herihor’s limited kingship was restricted only to Thebes, where
those years were referred to as a “repeating of [royal] manifestations,” which
lasted a decade.
During the reign of Ramses IX, the
inhabitants of western Thebes were found to have pillaged the tombs of kings
and nobles (already a common practice in the latter case); the despoiling
continued into the reign of Ramses XI, and even the royal mortuary temples were
stripped of their valuable furnishings. Nubian troops, called in to restore
order at Thebes, themselves contributed to the depredation of monuments. This
pillaging brought fresh gold and silver into the economy, and the price of
copper rose. The price of grain, which had become inflated, dropped.
The Ramesside growth of priestly power
was matched by increasingly overt religiosity.
Private tombs, the decoration of which had
been mostly secular until then, came to include only religious
scenes; oracles were invoked in many kinds of decisions, and private letters
contain frequent references to prayer and to regular visits to small temples to
perform rituals or consult oracles.
The common expression used in letters, “I
am all right today; tomorrow is in the hands of god,” reflects the ethos of
the age.
This fatalism, which emphasizes that God may be capricious and that his wishes cannot be known, is also
typical of late New Kingdom Instruction Texts, which show a marked change from
their Middle Kingdom forerunners by moving toward passivity and quietism that
suits a less expensive age.
Some of the religious material of the
Ramesside period exhibits changes in conventions of display, and some
categories have no parallel in the less abundant earlier record, but the shift
is real as well as apparent.
In its later periods, Egyptian society, the values of which had previously tended to be centralized, secular, and politics became more locally based and more thoroughly pervaded by religion, looking to the temple as the chief institution.
While Ramses XI was still king, Herihor
died and was succeeded as a high priest by Piankh, a man of similar military
background.
A series of letters from Thebes tell of
Piankh’s military venture in Nubia against the former viceroy of Cush
while Egypt was on the verge of losing control of the south.
With the death of Ramses XI, the governor
of Tanis, Smendes, became king, founding the 21st dynasty (known as
the Tanite).
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