Ramses II Usermaatre Setepenre, son of king Sethi I, was one of the longest reigning pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. He reigned 67 years (roughly from 1290-1224 BC), 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, foremost of all being Nefertari, but is known to have had more than 100 children with all of his wives. Already in Ancient Egypt people seems to have made fun of this fact, since the contemporary and famous Turin Papyrus features erotic scenes involving a pharaoh --probably Ramses II-- and several women. 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 (near Luxor) and Abu Simbel (in the south of the country in so-called Nubia), and his mortuary temple The Ramesseum (on the West Bank near Luxor) 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 more or less 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 more superficially, a practice which was unfortunately continued by his successors. *Picture*Most famous of his military engagements is the Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites (from Western Asia), with whom the Egyptians had been struggling for many years. He seems to have escaped defeatby 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 retreating. Both sides claimed the v...
