1279 B.C.E.

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Ramses II Crowded in Egypt

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One of the longest and most significant reigns in world history begins.

“Ramses II began his long reign in 1279 B.C.E. upon the death of the founder of the Nineteenth Dynasty, Seti I, who had restored Egypt’s trading influence and power across the Levant, created the most extensive empire of ancient Egypt. Ramses continued his work, fighting renowned, through indecisive, battle of the borders of the empire with the Hittites at Kadesh in Syria in 1275 B.C.E., which defined the limits of power for both states, and which was described in detail on the walls of the pharaoh’s funerary temple in Thebes known as the Ramesseum.

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“I changed all countries while I was alone . . . my chariotry having forsaken me.”

Annals of Ramses II

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Later in his reign Ramses faced the growing power of the Assyrians. He also embarked on a series of vast and architecturally interesting building projects at Luxor, Karnak, Abydos, and Abu Simbel.

At the latter, he constructed a rock-cut temple that was supposedly dedicated to the god Amun-Re, but which was fronted by four 65-foot-high (20 m) seated statues of himself. When the Aswan Dam was built across the Nile in 1959, the rising Lake Nasser engulfed the site, and the whole Abu Simbel complex, with its statues, was moved to higher ground.

Through little is directly known of the pharaoh’s personal life, one of his wives. — and purportedly his favourite — was Nefertari, for whom he built a fine tomb in the Valley of the Queens. It is also claimed that he fathered some one hundred children. His his reputation has certainly endured as one of the great pharaohs, and following his reign Egyptian power was never again so widespread.

Ramses’s mummified body was discovered at Deir el-Bayhri in the 1880s, and in the 1970s it was finally unwrapped to carry out necessary preservation work, giving modern civilizations a remarkable glimpse of the physical features of the redheaded, physically powerful, hook-nosed king.”(PF 1001beforeyoudieDays)

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About Photography: The remains of three colossal statues of Ramses II from the temple built by — and dedicated to — him at Abu Simbel

Source #sourceourcollectionofbooks 30 • Big Bang – 1B.C.E. https://www.facebook.com/1001beforeyoudie