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Ramses II
Milano, Sugar, 1978, 8vo brossura con copertina illustrata a colori, pp. 348 con numerose illustrazioni nel testo e 20 tavole fotografiche fuori testo.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionEgypt
317 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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32 people want to read
About the author
Philipp Vandenberg
83 books65 followersPhilipp Vandenberg is the pen name of Hans Dietrich Hartel, a German author of fiction and non-fiction about the ancient world.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 20, 2012
I was very satisfied with this book because it introduced to me Ancient Egypt themes. Focus is on Ramsses II, but you will get a picture about history of New kingdom, although there are plenty of information regarding to all periods. Also, in this book you will find informations about archeological findings, archeological sites, life of Ramsses, Moses, Jews in Egypt, battle of Kadesh, Hittite people, Egyptian literature and much, much more. The writing style is somewhat atypical, and I was concerned when I heard about it, but don't worry, it's really interesting how author combines history, Indiana Jones story telling, citations from literature and so on...
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April 12, 2018This book so far is about Ramses II, how he came to be the greatest pharaoh of Egypt, his full name as per the Egyptian system, how he co-ruled Egypt with his father Sethi I who died young in his 40ies, how he seems to have somehow usurped the throne from an older brother of whom very little is known, how he managed once he was the sole ruler to take over some of the monuments erected to honor Sethi I in removing traces of his father and instead appropriating to himself the same monuments.
There is a mention of 2 sculpting styles, one said to be in relief, meaning edges of the characters stood out and another in which the characters were sculpted deep into the stone.
He is said somehow to have caused a war to start with the Hittites when what he really wanted was to extend his territory.
I'm at the point where there was a peace treaty between the Hyksos and the Egyptians and it's fascinating to see how they drafted both people. Hykosos were of Asian origins and some even ruled in Egypt so I guess the Egyptians might not have been that white or that black after all. Those who complain about Egyptians being depicted as all white, seem to forget that Egyptians married Nubians which were black. Nubians didn't live like the Egyptians did, their way of dressing themselves, their homes and even their gods were different of those of the Egyptians and it's why if's false to claim Egyptians were black and there was no diversity in Ancient Egypt. People had been traveling on the Nile long before the Pharaohs came to be and not all the ancient tribes in Africa were black as proven by the Hyksos who were Asian. I believe if there were Asians who ruled over Egypt, there was also Caucasians and also some blacks who married into the royal family for alliances. Let's not forget that Ramses had more than one queen and he had several other wives and concubines.
It is very strange that some people insist on excluding Caucasians and Asians from ancient Egypt when no black mummies were ever found in the royal families. Even when you look at hieroglyphs, the only time a character is black it is because he represents death. Even in modern Egypt, some people who may appear black do not think of themselves as black and will even describe themselves as Caucasians. Just because somebody's skin is darkened by the sun it doesn't make them negroid. If you live in oasis out in the sun all day long you will have a darker skin color than others but it is the shape of your skull that determines whether you are Caucasian, Negroid or Asian. I have never heard of black people truly black people who only intermarried with other blacks who would have children with blond or red hair and blue eyes. You can only have those if one of the parents was Caucasian and Ramses is described as having had blond hair and blue eyes.
Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with the Egyptians being black but I question how at the same time Egypt was a very important kingdom how other black tribes lived in huts, wore clothing very different than Egyptians did, didn't even have a similar alphabet as the Egyptians, didn't even adore the same gods or have the technology Egypt already had and yet all those black tribes were similar between themselves so why were Egyptians different? At this point the theory of beings coming from another planet doesn't sound so farfetched and would explain a lot. Like Akhenaton strange appearance for one thing. It is almost outerworldly.
He is a fascinating character of Ancient Egypt. He is said to have had blond hair, so much I guess for Egyptians being black.
This is a sore point with me to hear people argue without proof that all Egyptians were black just because Egypt is located in Africa. What they forget was that even in ancient times, there were travels from one place to another so more than likely there was a racial diversity in Africa just as in Asia, ancient Europe and the yet to be discovered Americas.
Archaeologists have recently found proof ancient Egyptians might not have black, not that there might not have been some as the Egyptians shared borders with Nubians who were black, there might have been intermarriages with the royal families of Egypt and those of Nubia.
More on Ramses II later on.
I just learned that Ramses was a boorish, rude person, not afraid to trample the corpses of enemies, very vain, and also very white, born with blond hair. I haven't seen too many blacks with blond hair unless they dye their hair blond proving to some extent that Gods of Egypt might not have been too white after all. After all even in ancient times, there weren't just blacks in Africa but also other races since travel by sea was very much a reality.
A poem about the battle of Quadich obviously dictated by Ramses himself proves how vain he was.
I have bad news for the people who criticized Gods of Egypt: Egypt wasn't inhabited by blacks exclusively as there seems to have been a diversity of races and ethnic groups even back then. There are some mentions and a lot of them about Asian Hyksos and some of them may even have ruled over Egypt at some point. When you look at the monuments, if you leave behind the color of the stones used, you can notice that the features of some characters are closer to what is considered Asian than negroid. I have nothing against black people but it is unrealistic to believe that at the time Ramses ruled only blacks lived in Africa. Sumerians who came before Egyptians had boats and traveled the ancient world. There was diversity.
The Egyptians cannot be compared to any of the other black tribes who lived in Africa at that time. They didn't adore the same gods, or even constructed the same type of houses. Most of the ancient black tribes would adore the same gods and would live in huts so how do we explain the huge differences between Egyptians and Nubians who were black. Simply Egypt may have been colonized by other tribes coming all the way from Asia as how to explain that Asian Hyksos lived in Egypt and even fought.
I'm not a racist at all but I do think if ancient Egyptians were black one archaeologist or anthropologist would have made a remark about the race. Now Ramses II is said to have had natural blond hair and I don't know too many black people with natural blond hair. If one has a Caucasian parent, it might be possible but then they wouldn't be fully black but a mix of 2 races. Fact is nobody knows for sure just what race first occupied Egypt.
We are told of tribes long gone like the Sumerians of which there are practically no traces left except for a few monuments on which it was evident that they traveled by boats. Is it possible one of those long gone tribes colonized what became Egypt? I believe it's possible. Just like it's unrealistic to believe that in Europe and America there have only been Caucasian people. You do not need to be a Caucasian to be a Greek or an Italian as if you came from Asia or let's say Nigeria and were raised in one of those 2 countries you would be considered a Greek or an Italian in spite of your race.
I must admit this angered me a lot reading on Twitter people tweeting pictures of wooden combs with Egyptian hieroglyphs on them and trying to argue that it proved that ancient Egyptians were black. Some may have been because there were intermarriages between princesses of other nations and pharaohs or royal princes of Egypt and this was done to prevent wars and for the pharaohs to keep control over his realm and enlarge it at the same time. But then it would be the same where Asian tribes as the Hyksos were concerned. Of course, the offsprings of such marriages would be a blend of races and it's even possible that one general who served the boy king Thoutankhamon was himself of black origin and born in what is now Sudan as that General is said to have ruled Egypt as some point as one of the Thutmosis. I do not believe stones used indicated the race of the pharaohs and his family depicted there. I simply believe such stones might have been handy at the time. In some of the hieroglyphs, some of the characters depicted seem to have red skin and since when red skin has been a sign they were black? Why not say that they might have been ancestors to those tribes we now find in America?
My guess is that a lot of races ruled over Ancient Egypt because you had Asian Hyksos, Nubians and you probably also had some Caucasian tribes which would explain Ramses' blond hair. People can appear to have dark skin if they live exposed to the sun all day long but sometimes this is not accurate. I have seen a picture of an Egyptian woman who had a tan like Caucasians will get but the color of her eyes and hair suggested she wasn't black and her features were not Asian either. More Caucasian exposed to the sun. Like I said what bothers me about the assumption that only blacks lived in Africa has already been proven as false as boats had been invented and already in those ancient times different tribes living on different continents (maybe not the ones we know now) traded between themselves and some may even have come to live in Egypt so there was diversity even as far back before even Ramses II.
To get back to the wooden combs, first of all only royalty wore those in Ancient Egypt and they wouldn't have had depicted on them regular people. The designs would have represented gods like Hathor or Isis and those combs would have been made of precious metals, not wood. Having seen some of those for myself in an exhibition on Ramses II in 1985, some of the jewelry worn by princesses represented the wings of Nephtys or even the Eye of Horus. In artifacts found among the workers, no such objects were found as they were reserved for the rich and it was considered to be a crime for a worker to own rich combs representing gods or even rulers.
Interesting. I've come to a part where they talk about Joseph from the Bible where he mentions Palestine as the Land of the Hebrews. So maybe time in present times for both Hebrews and Palestinians to try and live in peace as that land was the land God told Moses he would lead his people to and it would be the land of milk and honey after 40 years in the desert. So who are the invaders here? The Palestinians or simply the Hebrews? It seems from this part that the Hebrews were simply going to the land God gave them.
Joseph seems to have been the one to foresee for the Pharaoh who named him visir and let him marry his daughter 7 years of opulence and 7 years of famine for Egypt which came true. There is a very shocking part in the book where we are told that there was a big famine during the reign of a predecessor of Ramses II and the famine was such people sold their children in exchange of food and others devoured human flesh. Not really surprised as I heard of cannibalism in Ancient Egypt. Some pharaohs even had living servants entombed with them when they died. I guess they ate first the food offering and then when there was nothing left the strong turned upon the weaker ones.
Ramses II is deemed to have offered his people the most opulent life during his reign, food was in abundance under his reign. There were many big celebrations so much so that it seemed nobody worked a long time in between celebrations. The monuments he had erected in his honor do show that Egypt was rich and powerful under his reign.
I'm in the section where we learn that Ramses had 4 queens and many concubines, over 162 children of which he kept records I guess to remember their names.
His first royal queen was Nofretari who was older than he was. His second queen was Nefet, I cannot remember the last part of her name but this is the one who bore him the son he wanted as his heir, his favorite though he was the 4th son.
One of his son became high priest of Ptah.
Ramses even married one of his daughters with Nefet and some of his other daughters as well. It seems incest in the royal family was normal but if a peasant did the same thing had intercourse with his sister or daughter he could be put to death for it.
Nofretari of all his wives was the only one so honored by him that her likeness was reproduced at Abu Simbel where she can be seen near his own massive reproductions of himself. One of her daughter, Meriet-Ammon would marry her own father at some point and gave him son.
Long after Nofretari died, Ramses fell in love with a beautiful Hittite princess whom he married.
There was a chapter about how Ramses would choose his bed partners as having many wives and concubines was never enough for this very lustful monarch. Obviously his active sex life didn't kill him as he lived well in his 90ies. He was given to orgies and some of the women he shared his bed with some were with him only once.
If he lived now he might be accused of pedophilia as his taste in women was for the young nubile maidens of 13.
Ramses adored Set the god of chaos, of all the gods of Egypt, Set was the one he looked up to along with Ammon, Hathor and Ptah.
The writer goes on and on about who took over Egypt when Ramses died. Not one of his successors had a long reign like he did. Actually there were several Ramses after Ramses II but none of them were as powerful or did anything to make of Egypt the successful country it was under his reign. Actually during the reign of Ramses III, the workers even went on a strike while under Ramses II, everybody seemed happy and successful.
This book is very technical and though I'm very fascinated with ancient Egypt I couldn't wait to finish it.
There is a mention of 2 sculpting styles, one said to be in relief, meaning edges of the characters stood out and another in which the characters were sculpted deep into the stone.
He is said somehow to have caused a war to start with the Hittites when what he really wanted was to extend his territory.
I'm at the point where there was a peace treaty between the Hyksos and the Egyptians and it's fascinating to see how they drafted both people. Hykosos were of Asian origins and some even ruled in Egypt so I guess the Egyptians might not have been that white or that black after all. Those who complain about Egyptians being depicted as all white, seem to forget that Egyptians married Nubians which were black. Nubians didn't live like the Egyptians did, their way of dressing themselves, their homes and even their gods were different of those of the Egyptians and it's why if's false to claim Egyptians were black and there was no diversity in Ancient Egypt. People had been traveling on the Nile long before the Pharaohs came to be and not all the ancient tribes in Africa were black as proven by the Hyksos who were Asian. I believe if there were Asians who ruled over Egypt, there was also Caucasians and also some blacks who married into the royal family for alliances. Let's not forget that Ramses had more than one queen and he had several other wives and concubines.
It is very strange that some people insist on excluding Caucasians and Asians from ancient Egypt when no black mummies were ever found in the royal families. Even when you look at hieroglyphs, the only time a character is black it is because he represents death. Even in modern Egypt, some people who may appear black do not think of themselves as black and will even describe themselves as Caucasians. Just because somebody's skin is darkened by the sun it doesn't make them negroid. If you live in oasis out in the sun all day long you will have a darker skin color than others but it is the shape of your skull that determines whether you are Caucasian, Negroid or Asian. I have never heard of black people truly black people who only intermarried with other blacks who would have children with blond or red hair and blue eyes. You can only have those if one of the parents was Caucasian and Ramses is described as having had blond hair and blue eyes.
Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with the Egyptians being black but I question how at the same time Egypt was a very important kingdom how other black tribes lived in huts, wore clothing very different than Egyptians did, didn't even have a similar alphabet as the Egyptians, didn't even adore the same gods or have the technology Egypt already had and yet all those black tribes were similar between themselves so why were Egyptians different? At this point the theory of beings coming from another planet doesn't sound so farfetched and would explain a lot. Like Akhenaton strange appearance for one thing. It is almost outerworldly.
He is a fascinating character of Ancient Egypt. He is said to have had blond hair, so much I guess for Egyptians being black.
This is a sore point with me to hear people argue without proof that all Egyptians were black just because Egypt is located in Africa. What they forget was that even in ancient times, there were travels from one place to another so more than likely there was a racial diversity in Africa just as in Asia, ancient Europe and the yet to be discovered Americas.
Archaeologists have recently found proof ancient Egyptians might not have black, not that there might not have been some as the Egyptians shared borders with Nubians who were black, there might have been intermarriages with the royal families of Egypt and those of Nubia.
More on Ramses II later on.
I just learned that Ramses was a boorish, rude person, not afraid to trample the corpses of enemies, very vain, and also very white, born with blond hair. I haven't seen too many blacks with blond hair unless they dye their hair blond proving to some extent that Gods of Egypt might not have been too white after all. After all even in ancient times, there weren't just blacks in Africa but also other races since travel by sea was very much a reality.
A poem about the battle of Quadich obviously dictated by Ramses himself proves how vain he was.
I have bad news for the people who criticized Gods of Egypt: Egypt wasn't inhabited by blacks exclusively as there seems to have been a diversity of races and ethnic groups even back then. There are some mentions and a lot of them about Asian Hyksos and some of them may even have ruled over Egypt at some point. When you look at the monuments, if you leave behind the color of the stones used, you can notice that the features of some characters are closer to what is considered Asian than negroid. I have nothing against black people but it is unrealistic to believe that at the time Ramses ruled only blacks lived in Africa. Sumerians who came before Egyptians had boats and traveled the ancient world. There was diversity.
The Egyptians cannot be compared to any of the other black tribes who lived in Africa at that time. They didn't adore the same gods, or even constructed the same type of houses. Most of the ancient black tribes would adore the same gods and would live in huts so how do we explain the huge differences between Egyptians and Nubians who were black. Simply Egypt may have been colonized by other tribes coming all the way from Asia as how to explain that Asian Hyksos lived in Egypt and even fought.
I'm not a racist at all but I do think if ancient Egyptians were black one archaeologist or anthropologist would have made a remark about the race. Now Ramses II is said to have had natural blond hair and I don't know too many black people with natural blond hair. If one has a Caucasian parent, it might be possible but then they wouldn't be fully black but a mix of 2 races. Fact is nobody knows for sure just what race first occupied Egypt.
We are told of tribes long gone like the Sumerians of which there are practically no traces left except for a few monuments on which it was evident that they traveled by boats. Is it possible one of those long gone tribes colonized what became Egypt? I believe it's possible. Just like it's unrealistic to believe that in Europe and America there have only been Caucasian people. You do not need to be a Caucasian to be a Greek or an Italian as if you came from Asia or let's say Nigeria and were raised in one of those 2 countries you would be considered a Greek or an Italian in spite of your race.
I must admit this angered me a lot reading on Twitter people tweeting pictures of wooden combs with Egyptian hieroglyphs on them and trying to argue that it proved that ancient Egyptians were black. Some may have been because there were intermarriages between princesses of other nations and pharaohs or royal princes of Egypt and this was done to prevent wars and for the pharaohs to keep control over his realm and enlarge it at the same time. But then it would be the same where Asian tribes as the Hyksos were concerned. Of course, the offsprings of such marriages would be a blend of races and it's even possible that one general who served the boy king Thoutankhamon was himself of black origin and born in what is now Sudan as that General is said to have ruled Egypt as some point as one of the Thutmosis. I do not believe stones used indicated the race of the pharaohs and his family depicted there. I simply believe such stones might have been handy at the time. In some of the hieroglyphs, some of the characters depicted seem to have red skin and since when red skin has been a sign they were black? Why not say that they might have been ancestors to those tribes we now find in America?
My guess is that a lot of races ruled over Ancient Egypt because you had Asian Hyksos, Nubians and you probably also had some Caucasian tribes which would explain Ramses' blond hair. People can appear to have dark skin if they live exposed to the sun all day long but sometimes this is not accurate. I have seen a picture of an Egyptian woman who had a tan like Caucasians will get but the color of her eyes and hair suggested she wasn't black and her features were not Asian either. More Caucasian exposed to the sun. Like I said what bothers me about the assumption that only blacks lived in Africa has already been proven as false as boats had been invented and already in those ancient times different tribes living on different continents (maybe not the ones we know now) traded between themselves and some may even have come to live in Egypt so there was diversity even as far back before even Ramses II.
To get back to the wooden combs, first of all only royalty wore those in Ancient Egypt and they wouldn't have had depicted on them regular people. The designs would have represented gods like Hathor or Isis and those combs would have been made of precious metals, not wood. Having seen some of those for myself in an exhibition on Ramses II in 1985, some of the jewelry worn by princesses represented the wings of Nephtys or even the Eye of Horus. In artifacts found among the workers, no such objects were found as they were reserved for the rich and it was considered to be a crime for a worker to own rich combs representing gods or even rulers.
Interesting. I've come to a part where they talk about Joseph from the Bible where he mentions Palestine as the Land of the Hebrews. So maybe time in present times for both Hebrews and Palestinians to try and live in peace as that land was the land God told Moses he would lead his people to and it would be the land of milk and honey after 40 years in the desert. So who are the invaders here? The Palestinians or simply the Hebrews? It seems from this part that the Hebrews were simply going to the land God gave them.
Joseph seems to have been the one to foresee for the Pharaoh who named him visir and let him marry his daughter 7 years of opulence and 7 years of famine for Egypt which came true. There is a very shocking part in the book where we are told that there was a big famine during the reign of a predecessor of Ramses II and the famine was such people sold their children in exchange of food and others devoured human flesh. Not really surprised as I heard of cannibalism in Ancient Egypt. Some pharaohs even had living servants entombed with them when they died. I guess they ate first the food offering and then when there was nothing left the strong turned upon the weaker ones.
Ramses II is deemed to have offered his people the most opulent life during his reign, food was in abundance under his reign. There were many big celebrations so much so that it seemed nobody worked a long time in between celebrations. The monuments he had erected in his honor do show that Egypt was rich and powerful under his reign.
I'm in the section where we learn that Ramses had 4 queens and many concubines, over 162 children of which he kept records I guess to remember their names.
His first royal queen was Nofretari who was older than he was. His second queen was Nefet, I cannot remember the last part of her name but this is the one who bore him the son he wanted as his heir, his favorite though he was the 4th son.
One of his son became high priest of Ptah.
Ramses even married one of his daughters with Nefet and some of his other daughters as well. It seems incest in the royal family was normal but if a peasant did the same thing had intercourse with his sister or daughter he could be put to death for it.
Nofretari of all his wives was the only one so honored by him that her likeness was reproduced at Abu Simbel where she can be seen near his own massive reproductions of himself. One of her daughter, Meriet-Ammon would marry her own father at some point and gave him son.
Long after Nofretari died, Ramses fell in love with a beautiful Hittite princess whom he married.
There was a chapter about how Ramses would choose his bed partners as having many wives and concubines was never enough for this very lustful monarch. Obviously his active sex life didn't kill him as he lived well in his 90ies. He was given to orgies and some of the women he shared his bed with some were with him only once.
If he lived now he might be accused of pedophilia as his taste in women was for the young nubile maidens of 13.
Ramses adored Set the god of chaos, of all the gods of Egypt, Set was the one he looked up to along with Ammon, Hathor and Ptah.
The writer goes on and on about who took over Egypt when Ramses died. Not one of his successors had a long reign like he did. Actually there were several Ramses after Ramses II but none of them were as powerful or did anything to make of Egypt the successful country it was under his reign. Actually during the reign of Ramses III, the workers even went on a strike while under Ramses II, everybody seemed happy and successful.
This book is very technical and though I'm very fascinated with ancient Egypt I couldn't wait to finish it.
January 10, 2016
"Ramses Veliký"
February 2, 2026
Hat sich überraschend gut lesen lassen, aber ich denke, da hat sich in der Forschung schon bisschen was getan, seit es erschienen ist.
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