Ramses II the Great
Ramses II was a very important person in ancient egypt. he was the son of the Pharaoh Set I, so when he died, Ramses would rule in his place. he was born in 1303 BC and ruled in the 19th dynasty. He was a builder, a warrior and a religious man. he was believed to be quite the ladies man. He had over a dozen wives and 100 children. He lived for 80 years, which was considered lucky because the average person only lived for 40 years back then.
Ramses II was extremely important to ancient Egypt. Ramses II built many famous monuments in Egypt, such as Abu Simel, the Mortuary Temple Ramesseum, Pi-Ramesses in the Delta and most importantly, the Temple at Karnak. He would have statues of himself carved into the front of all of the monuments he made so that everyone would remember him and so his name would live on in ancient egyptian history. These carvings of Ramses II were carved very deep into the sandstone to make sure that they were not easily destroyed. The reason they were carvings and not free standing statues, is they thought that many
people would try to steal the statues, but if they were carvings, they would be there forever and very difficult to remove.
Ramses II was believed to be very selfish and quite rude. Many monuments created by other pharaohs before him were destroyed so that the materials from those could be used to make statues of Ramses II. Also, some of the bricks from the pyramids were taken to finish off One of Ramses’ creations.
His most important monument created was the Great Hall at the Temple at Karnak, mainly because of its size. The hall is a 60,000 square feet area with 16 rows and 134 columns. each column is about 50 feet tall. Ramses II also created an incredible temple in memory of his wife Nefertari. they married young, but Nefertari died not long after. The temple is filled with magnificent works of art. It was believed that Nefertari was buried inside the temple.
Ramses II ruled for a whopping 67 years before he died of old age in 1213 BC.
References-
kidzworld.com, http://www.kidzworld.com/article/996-egypt-famous-pharaohs (7/8/15) wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II (3/8/15
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