King Ramses II :: History

King Ramses IIRamses II Usermaatre Setepenre,third regulation of the 19th Dynasty,was born about 1303 B.C in the Eastern Nile Delta, following the cobblers last of his grandfather King Ramses I and Father Sethi I, was one of the longest reign pharaohs of ancient Egypt.He reigned 67 eld (roughly from 1290 to 1224 B.C), during the early p subterfuge of his reign, Ramses fought to regain the dominion 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 constructor and a warrior, but also as a ladies man.He had 5 or 6 main wives, mostly of all being Nefertari, but is cognise to redeem 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 work evidence of his love for Grandeur.In all of his monuments he had his name cartouche and texts graven so deep that no successor would be able to eat up 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 glorious details were now made superficially, a practice was unfortunately proceed by his successors. His most famous military engagement is the battle of Kadesh against the Hittites, which took dimension Northern Syria, with whom the Egyptians had been struggling for many years.He seems to have escaped by clear luck, as his main forcethe pharaoh himself commandingwas ambushed by the Hittites, and was only save just in time by reinforcements while w hile retreating.Both sides claimed the advantage of this battle, but it seems more likely to have ended in a status quo.Ramses II recorded his victory on several monuments, exhibit 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 conceal 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.