Great ruler or great bragger?
Historians have many primary sources about Rameses II because he built monuments celebrating his achievements. He constructed large statues portraying himself as a handsome, smiling and powerful ruler. At his temple in Abu Simbel, each of the four cliff-carved statues is nearly 20 metres tall. Records of his battles, including victories over the Hittites, were engraved on monuments across Egypt. His reputation was so great that nine future pharaohs adopted his name.
SOURCE3 This relief sculpture in Luxor shows Hittite soldiers crushed under the wheels of Rameses II’s chariot at the Battle of Kadesh.
SOURCE4 From a poem inscribed by order of Rameses II on the walls of ýve temples to commemorate his victory at Kadesh
In the midst of many peoples, all unknown, Unnumbered as the sand, Here I stand, All alone; There is no-one at my side; My warriors and chariots afeared [frightened], Have deserted me . . . . . . Two thousand and ýve hundred pairs of horses were around, And I þew into the middle of their ring, By my horse-hoofs they were dashed all in pieces to the ground . . .
SOURCE5 Detail of Rameses II from sculptures and hieroglyphs at his temple in AbuSimbel
Did you know? In the 1960s, an international effort saved the Abu Simbel temple and statues by cutting them into sections and relocating them to higher ground, preventing submersion from rising water behind the Aswan High Dam.
112 Jacaranda Humanities Alive 7 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
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