Some pharaohs ruled for only a year or two. Ramesses II ruled for 66 years! Later Egyptians remembered him as a great king, and today we often call him Ramesses the Great.
Key idea
Ramesses II ruled in the New Kingdom (c. 1279–1213 BC). He built huge temples, like the two at Abu Simbel, fought the Hittites at Kadesh, and later made a peace treaty with them.
Why it works
A very long reign gave Ramesses time to build. His name was carved all over Egypt, sometimes even on older monuments. At Abu Simbel, four giant statues of him, each about 20 meters tall, were cut out of a cliff. Many people were born, grew up and grew old while he was king.
Worked example: Saving a temple
In the 1960s a new dam made a huge lake that would cover Abu Simbel. What did people do?
- Engineers cut the temples into more than a thousand blocks.
- They moved the blocks to higher ground and put them back together (1964–68).
Answer: They moved the whole temple, block by block, to higher ground.
Common mistake
Thinking one pharaoh ruled for all of history. There were hundreds of kings over about three thousand years. Even Ramesses, with 66 years, ruled for only a small part of it.
Ramesses had a very large family: lists on his temples name dozens of sons and daughters.