Amenhotep III: Pharaoh of Egypt

There cannot be many people who have not heard of Tutankhamun, the boy pharaoh whose tomb contained a dazzling array of treasures. However, more attention should probably be paid to his grandfather, Amenhotep III, who was pharaoh during a golden age for ancient Egypt, the 18^th dynasty, when it was the most powerful nation on Earth.

Amenhotep reigned for about 60 years, ending in 1352 BC. He increased the wealth of Egypt by controlling the gold mines of Nubia, making himself the world’s richest man, with the result that neighbouring powers were keen to pay tribute to him. He was a consummate politician and diplomat, which ensured the peace of the whole region.

Wealth and security enabled Amenhotep to become Egypt’s most prolific builder of all time, although his reign was long after the Pyramids had been built. He became known as “Monument Man”, with projects such as the temple at Karnak that had walls studded with gold and gems and a statue of himself that was over 20 metres tall.

Amenhotep’s funerary temple, at Kom el-Hatan, was the largest royal temple ever built in Egypt. It was fronted by two statues known as the Colossi of Memnon, and originally contained hundreds more, examples of which have only been discovered relatively recently by archaeologists. This temple must count as the largest sculptural programme in history.

The reign of Amenhotep III was one of peace and prosperity. He well deserved the self-conferred title of “living sun god”, and all subsequent pharaohs sought to model themselves on his legacy.

© John Welford

Ramses II, Pharoah of Egypt a.k.a. Ozymandias

Ramses II (an alternative spelling is Ramesses) ruled Egypt for 66 years in the 13^th century BC, making him the longest-reigning of all Egypt’s pharaohs.

Ramses was not royal by birth (which was probably in 1303 BC). His father was a general who became Pharaoh Seti I when the incumbent pharaoh died without leaving an heir. Ramses inherited the throne on his father’s death in 1279 BC.

Ramses is noted for his military campaigns, primarily against the Hittites, and for his building programme. As a general, his feats may have been exaggerated by the scribes of his time, but he certainly appears to have reversed earlier territorial losses and to have extended the Egyptian Empire into Canaan. His capture of Canaanite princes, who were then taken as prisoners to Egypt, may have been the origin of the story told in the Book of Exodus of the slavery of the Israelites and their escape led by Moses.

It is as a builder of cities and monuments that Ramses is most renowned. He built a new capital city named Pi Ramesse Aa-nakhta, which translates as “House of Ramses Great of Victories”, although little can be seen of this city today.

The same cannot be said of the large number of statues of himself that were constructed across Egypt. These include the four massive statues at Abu Simbel and his memorial temple at Luxor, the Ramesseum.

It was normal for Egyptian pharaohs to have several names, and one of those held by Ramses II was Usermaatre, which was later corrupted to Ozymandias. This is the title of a famous poem (a sonnet) by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), in which a broken statue of Ozymandias is found in the desert and the poet mocks the fact that time and the forces of nature have put the power of the subject of the statue into context. The inscription “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair” is absurdly inappropriate.

However, maybe Shelley was more than a little unfair to Ramses, given the beliefs that were held in ancient Egypt. Ramses may have been guilty of self-glorification, but the main reason for having images of oneself created was to ensure one’s future in the afterlife. A human soul could only go to the “Kingdom of Osiris” if the body survived, and that could be achieved both by mummification and by having images preserved in the form of statues. The more of the latter there were, the better one’s chances.

When Ramses II died at an advanced age in 1213 BC the mummification of his body took 70 days. It would appear that the embalmers did a particularly good job, because in June 1886 a French archaeologist opened the bandages on Ramses’ mummy and revealed the well-preserved face of an old man with red hair. Ramses II is now an exhibit in the Cairo Museum, more than 3,000 years after his death. Whether or not his soul is enjoying the delights of the Kingdom of Osiris is a matter for speculation!

© John Welford

The Weighing of the Heart in ancient Egypt

Christian tradition has it that, when you die, your soul is judged by St Peter before it is permitted to enter Heaven via the Pearly Gates, to which St Peter has the key. The ancient Egyptians had a similar belief, but this took the form of a symbolic ceremony called The Weighing of the Heart, as depicted in chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead.

A trial for a dead Egyptian

The candidate for the Afterlife stood before Osiris and a panel of 42 other deities. The deceased had to name each of them and swear that he (or she) had never committed any of a long list of offences. If they could do so, they were likely to be allowed through. The proceedings were recorded by Thoth, the scribe of the gods.

Of course, just saying that you were innocent of all the accusations, which included giving way to anger, was not enough. You also had to prove it by having your heart weighed in the scales of justice. The heart was placed on one side and a feather on the other. If the heart made the scales sink, due to the weight of wrongdoing that it carried, it would be grabbed by a beast called Ammit that, not surprisingly, had the head of a crocodile. If the heart was eaten, the individual would die. The Egyptian alternative to entering the Afterlife was non-existence.

A get-out-of-jail-free card

The way to avoid this fate was to include a copy of chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead, together with an illustration of a perfectly weighted heart, in the tomb of the deceased. Of course, this meant that you, if the deceased person, would have to have been rich enough to afford the services of a scribe and the necessary materials to make the copy. If you were, and the correct document was present for inspection, then progress beyond the weighing ceremony was virtually guaranteed. The heart would be returned to you and you would be reborn to enter the Field of Hetep.

However, if you did not have enough wealth for this get-out clause, your chances of rebirth were slim. It added a whole new meaning to the concept of being “heavy hearted” as death approached.

The importance of the heart, as the seat of thought, emotion and memory, was the reason why it was never removed from the body during the process of embalming.

To make absolutely sure that the weighing would go according to plan, the Book of the Dead also provided spells that guaranteed success. Chapters 26 to 29 were what you needed!

© John Welford

Jean-François Champollion and the Rosetta Stone

Jean-François Champollion, one of the fathers of modern archaeology, was born on 23^rd December 1790. Among his many claims to fame was that he unlocked the mystery of the Rosetta Stone and was thus able to offer a key to the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

As well as being an archaeologist with a particular interest in ancient Egypt, Champollion was also a brilliant linguist, particularly in ancient languages. He was therefore well placed to decipher the Rosetta Stone.

The stone in question had been unearthed by the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte when they invaded Egypt in 1799. The slab of black basalt was unearthed at the town of Rosetta in the Nile delta and was found to bear an inscription in three distinct writing systems, namely Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphic and Demotic, which is a non-hieroglyphic form of the Egyptian language.

The stone was captured by the British when Napoleon was expelled from Egypt in 1801. It was sent to the British Museum in London where it has been ever since. However, transcriptions were made of the texts and it was these that Champollion was able to study in Paris in 1809.

It soon became obvious to him that the text was simply three ways of saying the same thing, namely giving an account of the deeds of Pharaoh Ptolemy V Epiphanes. It was therefore possible to date the stone to 196 BC. With his knowledge of Greek it was relatively straightforward for Champollion to decipher the other texts although it did take him 13 years to finish the task. With this problem solved, the inscriptions that adorned ancient buildings throughout Egypt could now be understood.

© John Welford