Rameses II - one of the stars of the British Museum

/ British Museum/
Find Rameses II in room 4 on the ground floor.

Find Rameses II in room 4 on the ground floor.

Ramesses II, the man who tried to be the greatest ever Pharaoh and one of its gods!

Who was Ramesses II?

Ramesses was born in 1303 BC and reached the aged of 90 before dyingin 1213BC. He is a famous building numerous cities temples and monuments in his reign. Included in his long list are the temples that heand his wife, Nefertari, carved out of the mountainous rock at AbuSimbel. Making sure that there is no mistaking who built the temples, they are fronted by huge sculptures of them both. The temple complexwas created to commemorate, what he considered to be a decisivevictory over the Hittites in the Battle of Kadesh. In it he apparently led an army of 100 000 men.

What else is he famous for?

He had over 150 children! He was husband to 200 wives and concubines (women whom he lived

with but of a lower status than a wife). He had 96 sons and 60daughters which makes him the 10 th greatest father of all time! To some his death heralded the end of the world! He reigned for so long that, to most of his subjects, he was the only pharaoh that existed and so when he died there was panic because many thought that the world would come to the end. As a consequence of his long reign, most ancient Egyptian sites have a reference to Ramesses and as a consequence he is often referred to as Ramesses the Great.

Was he linked to the Bible story of Moses and the Exodus?

Moses rescued the Israelites from Ramesses, at least according to Hollywood films! Hollywood believes that he was the Egyptian pharaoh who featured in the Book of Exodus in the Holy Bible. In it, Moses heroically delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt ruled by Ramesses, to safety in the “Promised Land”. There is not a shred of evidence for this being linked to Ramesses but Hollywood likes to use his name to make a good story. There are extensive records from the reign of Ramesses II but there is no mention of a large population of Hebrew slaves and no mass fleeing.