King Ramses II :: History

King Ramses II Ramses II Usermaatre Setepenre,third ruler of the 19th Dynasty,was born about 1303 B.C in the Eastern Nile Delta, following the death of his grandfather King Ramses I and Father Sethi I, was one of the longest reigning pharaohs of ancient Egypt.He reigned 67 years (roughly from 1290 to 1224 B.C), during the early part of his reign, Ramses fought to regain the territory in Africa and Western Asia that Egypt had held during the 15th and 16th centuries B.C in the beginning as coregent with his father, and lived for more than 80 years, which was very rare in those days.During his life he made quite a reputation as a builder and a warrior, but also as a ladies man.He had 5 or 6 main wives, mostly of all being Nefertari, but is known to have over 100 children with all of his wives.In Ancient Egypt people seems to have made fun of this fact. Ramses II is, however, best known for all the buildings he had constructed in his name across the country.Especially the monumental temples of Karnak and Abu Simbel , and his mortuary temple The Ramesseum give evidence of his love for Grandeur.In all of his monuments he had his name cartouche and texts engraved so deep that no successor would be able to remove it. Ramses’ energetic building activities led to a degrading of Egyptian art as far as the engraving of texts and images on temple walls was concerned, for he demanded the monuments to be erected with greater speed than usual.Otherwise carefully engraved texts and images with many beautiful details were now made superficially, a practice was unfortunately continued by his successors. His most famous military engagement is the battle of Kadesh against the Hittites, which took place Northern Syria, with whom the Egyptians had been struggling for many years.He seems to have escaped by pure luck, as his main force—the pharaoh himself commanding—was ambushed by the Hittites, and was only saved just in time by reinforcements while while retreating.Both sides claimed the victory of this battle, but it seems more likely to have ended in a status quo.Ramses II recorded his victory on several monuments, showing him slaying the Hittites in person.The problems between the Egyptians and the Hittites were finally settled several years later when Ramses married a Hittite princess. After he died, Ramses was buried in the famous royal necropolis of the Valley of the Kings, located in the hills on the west bank of the Nile River near modern of Luxor.