Ramesses II: Anatomy of a Pharaoh
His Family (Specifically, his Women)
Before
Ramesses II was a great king, he had a family and throughout
his reign, his growing family would serve to strengthen his
rule of Egypt. In fact, of all the rulers in Egypt, Ramesses
II may have had one of the largest of all families, consisting
of many wives, and as many as fifty sons and fifty daughters
of his principal consorts. However, it is likely that his
extended family was even much larger than this. He may have
certainly sired children who he never even became aware of,
by legitimate consorts.
The Reign of Ramesses II was during
a period of heightened status for royal women. After the rule
of Queen Hatshepsut, Amenhotep III who was more or less usurped
by his stepmother, seems to have reduced the importance of
women for obvious reasons during the early part of the 18th
Dynasty. But by the end of that period, and particularly during
the beginning of the 19th Dynasty, the royal women were once
again evident to the public eye, though perhaps not as politically
ambitious as some of their predecessors.
The first woman Ramesses was involved
with was, of course, his mother. Like all good Egyptians,
both ancient and modern, he appears to have loved her and
treated her with respect. She had really been a commoner at
birth, the daughter of the Lieutenant of Chariotry, Raia.
Her name was Tuya, or Mut-Tuya, and as so often happens in
ancient Egypt, she outlived Ramesses II's real father, Seti
I, by many years.
Luckily,
in Egypt there was a place for both a new queen, as well as
the king's mother. Upon the death of Seti I, Nefertari, Ramesses
II's chief wife, took on the duties of the queen, while Tuya
immediately shed those responsibilities for the influential
role of King's Mother. During this period, the function of
King's Mother seems to have been accorded a political role,
functioning as her son's advisor. In fact, it may have even
fallen on her shoulders to protect the king's interest at
home while he was away on foreign campaigns.
In fact, our best recordings of Tuya's
life were provided from the period after her husband's death.
We know that she was important enough politically to have
corresponded with the Hittite court. We find her image in
important monuments, such as the facade of her Abu Simbel
temple where she appears on the same scale as the other royal
women and sons., standing beside the second and fourth colossi.
She was also featured in the Ramesseum where she sat in colossal
form beside her much larger son in the first courtyard, and
along with Nefertari, she shakes her sistrum on the walls
of the hypostyle hall.
Her promotion by Ramesses II probably
went beyond love, however. A king could gain status from that
of his mother, and in fact he set out to rewrite the story
of his own miraculous birth so as to provide himself with
a divine father. Ramesses had actually been born to his common
mother prior to his father ascending the throne. However,
Ramesses, always a self promoter, which was not an unusual
trait in Egyptian pharaohs, had inscribed a new tale of his
birth where he was not only the son of Seti I, but of Amun,
the high god himself. To many of those who study ancient Egyptian
history, this is of course nothing new, but indeed, he was
only the third New Kingdom pharaoh to make such a claim.
However, though mothers often outlived
their sons in ancient Egypt, because of Ramesses II's extremely
long life, Tuya did not. She appears to have died soon after
his 22nd year as ruler of Egypt, and was interred in an impressive
tomb in the Valley of the Queens (QV80).
Queens, Consorts and More than Enough of All
Even
today, it is rare for a ruler, or president of any country
to be unmarried. Likewise, in ancient Egypt it would have
probably been blasphemous, violating Ma'at, the ancient Egyptian
concept of balance and order. Practically, the pharaoh needed
an heir from a legitimate queen, and in almost all cases,
she fulfilled many other responsibilities to the people of
Egypt.
In reality, the king of Egypt produced
families on a number of different levels, according to the
placement of his wives. The royal harem, an institution in
ancient Egypt which appears to have had no counterpart in
the private sector of those times, was not only the home of
those most favored wives of the king, but also provided a
patronage for the loose and unattached women of the court,
including unmarried and widowed sisters, daughters and other
family members of the king, foreign brides, high born Egyptian
women, and numerous concubines of relatively humble birth
who might also include the servants and attendants of the
higher ranking ladies. It is likely that many of these ladies
of Ramesses II's harem never even meet their king, let alone
bore his child, but from year to year their would of course
be a nursery resounding with the gurgles, yelps and whimpers
of each year's crop of bouncing royal babies. Only those children
of the king's primary wives, and of a few of his favored secondary
consorts, would ever have the opportunity to become king,
or for that matter, the opportunity for us to know of them.
The wife of an Egyptian pharaoh is
often referred to by Egyptologists as a consort. This is probably
due to the fact that in some people's minds, the Egyptian
queen was not a wife because of the lack of a specific religious
celebration of marriage. There appears to have been marriage
contracts, but little in the way of our modern concept of
a marriage ceremony. Also, to many of us today, the concept
of having perhaps hundreds of "wives" negates the institution
of holy matrimony. However, some astute queens probably welcomed
this "sexual variety" for their husbands, for it may have
relieved them from the frequent pregnancies that so often
led to death in females of these times. Nevertheless, and
regardless of our views, the "Chief King's Wife" was the closest
counterpart of our modern concept of a wife.
The principal wives of Kings were
almost always of royal blood and were often either the full
or half sister of the king. These incestuous marriages, which
we find few if any examples of in the general population,
had several practical benefits to the crown ruler. They kept
outsiders at arms length from the royal family, and produced
at least a limited number of royal children eligible to inherit
the thrown. Furthermore, they also ensured that a suitably
trained princess would be placed in the most important role
available to an Egyptian woman: that of queen. In fact, while
the king could marry a commoner, or for that matter, whoever
he wished, royal females could not marry below their royal
status, and therefore the field of potential bridegrooms beyond
their brother (or sometimes father) was extremely limited.
Egyptian princesses were even denied marriage to foreign royalty,
who might later claim some justification to the thrown of
Egypt.
We are not sure of the parentage
of Ramesses II's first principal wife (Chief King's Wife),
Nefertari, though she had to have probably been of royal blood
(though almost certainly not of the immediate royal family).
It has been suggested that she may have been a daughter or
at least related to King Ay (granddaughter, niece or great-niece),
one
of the last rulers of the 18th Dynasty. Ramesses II was the
first ruler of the 19th Dynasty who, at the time he chose
his principal queen, was already destined to rule Egypt. Other
major wives included Istnofret (Iset-Nofret), Bent'anta (Bintanath),
Merit-Amun (Meritamen), Nebttaui, Hentmire, Maathomeferure
and perhaps, others. Several of these queens, such as Merit-Amun,
were also his daughters.
These queens would have been the
top tier in his harem, and some would have remained by his
side much of the time (though during different periods of
his rule). While the king would have maintained harems all
along the Nile Valley in regional locations, with many women
who he hardly knew, or knew not at all, these queens would
have probably resided near their husband in the main palace
harem.
Undoubtedly, Nefertari held some
power over Ramesses II. It was probably love, but we cannot
say for certain. Certainly, Miss Emelia Edwards though, upon
visiting her temple at Abu Simbel, that Ramesses II loved
her. She states:
"On every pillar, in every act of worship pictured
on the walls, even in the sanctuary, we find the names of
Ramesses and Nefertari 'coupled and inseparable'...We see,
at all events, that Ramesses and Nefertari desired to leave
behind them an imperishable record of the affection which
united them on earth, and which they hoped would unit them
in Amenti. What more do we need to know? We see the Queen
was fair, that the King was in his prime. We divine the rest;
and the poetry of the place at all events is ours. Even in
these barren solitude's there is wafted to us a breath from
the shores of old romance. We feel that love once passed this
way, and that the ground is still hallowed where he trod."
There could be only one "Chief King's
Wife" at any one time, and Nefertari held that designation
from the beginning. What we do know is that Ramesses II lavished
upon her at least several important monuments, including the
small temple at Abu Simbel and her wonderful tomb in the Valley
of the Queens.
Yet
the many monuments that Ramesses II lavished upon Nefertari
cannot simply be attributed to love. There is no question
that a revered, respected and occasionally worshipped wife
brought nothing but glory to her husband and so these monuments
were also meant to honor their builder as well. In fact, within
Nefertari's temple at Abu Simbel, it is not she, but rather
the image of Ramesses II himself that adorns the inner walls
of the sanctuary.
From the very beginning of her husband's
reign, Nefertari appears as a dutiful wife, supporting Ramesses
on all appropriate ceremonial occasions. She received the
two titles, Mistress of the South and North, and Lady of the
Two Lands, which parallel Ramesses II's titles.
However, her duties extended considerably
beyond that of simply supporting her husband from the rear
ranks. She may have frequently filled in for her husband in
certain ceremonies, often taking the male role and accompanied
by one of her daughters as a "feminine side", so that Ma'at
would be balanced.
Regrettably, while we may find any
number of monuments, statues and decorations depicting Nefertari,
we know precious little about her actual life. We do know
that she was not the only one of his queens to be honored
in an age when Egyptian kings did not always give outward
recognition to their women. We find Nefertari missing from
the jubilee celebrations of Ramesses II's 30th year in office,
which may tentatively suggest that she died prior to this.
She was buried in her wonderful tomb in the Valley of the
Queens, but almost immediately, a new Chief King's Wife would
have been selected.
However,
Ramesses II's later wives are as mysterious to us as Nefertari,
though he continued to build some monuments to them. It may
have been Iset-Nofret who assumed the role of Chief King's
Wife upon the death of Nefertari. However, she was completely
contemporary to Nefertari, having probably married Ramesses
II at the same time, and there is little evidence that can
prove that she outlived Nefertari. Most of the artifacts and
monuments depicting her seem to have actually been created
by her famous priest son, Khaemwaset. One such monument was
a stelae erected at the temple of Horemheb at Gebel Silsila
sometimes between year 33 and 34 of Ramesses II's rule. Here,
Iset-Nofret holds an ankh sign, the symbol of life, while
her daughter Bintanath holds a papyrus. While this evidence
is certainly limited, it would seem that by this time she
had probably died. Of course, her most notable act was to
give birth before her death to Ramesses II's thirteenth son,
Merenptah, would would be the oldest of his children to outlive
him, and thus take control of Egypt.
We really do not know for certain
who became the Chief King's Wife after Nefertari, but it may
well have been one of his daughters. The most suitable wife
for a king of Egypt was the daughter of a king of Egypt, and
Ramesses II 
was
a stickler for tradition. He ended up marrying no less than
four of his daughters (that we know of). They were Bintanath,
Meritamen, Nebettawi and the relatively unknown Hentmire.
In defence of these incestuous relationships of Ramesses II
to our modern eyes, this was an ancient pharaonic custom among
kings well established long before Ramesses II's lifetime.
Daughters of the King of Egypt had
few possibilities of marriage. They were not allowed to marry
below their position, or even to non-Egyptian royalty. Their
only opportunities for marriage seems to have been either
princes or the King himself, and in fact many princesses lived
out their lives without a mate. Hence, since father-daughter
incest is taboo in our modern, western societies, we would
like to think of such a marriage as being purely symbolic,
but this was clearly not the case. We know, for example, that
Bintanath, the first daughter he married, bore him at least
one child, and we have examples of other kings producing children
by their daughters.
The dynamics these incestuous relationships
are largely unknown. In some situations, the father, in this
case Ramesses II, married a daughter it would seem as a replacement
after the death of her mother. However, at other times the
mother and daughter were married to the king at the same time.
However, there is no simple indication 
that
when the daughter married the king, she superceded her mother.
In many cases, the mothers and daughters appear to act together.
In fact, the daughters at times seem to act as deputy consorts,
filling in for their older mothers whenever required. Some
Egyptologists believe that the daughters provided a well earned
for their mothers at an age when the older queen was past
the child bearing age. However, it may have been that the
mother could then fulfill the valuable and stately role of
King's Mother. However, this was certainly not always the
case.
Regardless, the daughters could assume
significant status as queens. In the stela of Hekanakht at
Abu Simbel, we find depicted a still living Nefertari sitting
by as her daughter and much beloved offspring of Ramesses
II, takes over her role as queen. While we have no positive
evidence as confirmation, it may have been she who assumed
the role of Great King's Wife after the death of her mother,
though it is equally likely that Iset-Nofret took up that
position. However, Iset Nofret would have soon died, and there
seems to have been few choice for Great King's Wife afterwards,
and for some years.
But by Year 35 of Ramesses II's reign,
having been twice widow and with three of his daughters serving
as queen, he could not resist the daughter of the Hittite
king who was offered to him, along with a larger dowry. The
arrangements for this marriage seem to have been considerably
complex, taking some time in the making. 
However,
eventually the Hittite princess was received at Pi-Ramesses,
Ramesses II's new capital, and accordingly was "beautiful
in the heart of his majesty, and he loved her more than anything".
Her Egyptian name was Maathorneferure, meaning the "One who
sees Horus, the Visible Splendor of Re", and she was immediately
promoted to the role of "principal wife", which was an unusual
honor for a foreign born queen.
However, by this time in Ramesses
II's life, the position of :"Chief King's Wife" seems to have
deteriorated to some extent. Certainly Maathorneferure soon
started to appear on royal monuments as the Egyptian queen,
but this seems to have been somewhat of an illusion. Perhaps
she, being a foreign born princess, would have been completely
ignorant of Egypt's ceremonial and ritual celebrations, for
it was Bintanath and her half-sisters, first Meritamen and
then Nebettawi, who continued to function as principal wives.
We know that Maathorneferure lived
for some time at Pi-Ramesse, and we even know that she bore
at least one child, a daughter, by Ramesses II. However, she
soon disappeared from the royal records. Perhaps the most
logical explanation is simply that she died young. This seems
to have created no ill will between the Hittite and Egyptian
royal courts for some ten years later, Hattusilis, the Hittite
king, apparently agreed to supply Ramesses II with a second
princes. The Egyptians recorded this event, saying: