Ramesses IIرمسيس الثاني

Ramesses II was the son of Seti I and Queen Tuya, and the third king of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Taking the throne around 1279 BC, he went on to rule for an astonishing 66 years — one of the longest reigns in all of human history — and lived to around 90 years old. He reigned so long that he outlived many of his own children; his eventual successor, Merneptah, was one of his younger sons. His decades on the throne were a golden age of stability and prosperity, and in time the very name "Ramesses" became a byword for kingly greatness, taken up by a long line of later pharaohs.

Early in his reign Ramesses faced Egypt's great rival, the Hittite Empire, at the Battle of Kadesh (c. 1274 BC) in Syria — one of the largest chariot battles ever fought, with thousands of chariots in the field. Ramesses proclaimed it a glorious personal victory and had the scene carved triumphantly across temple walls throughout Egypt, though most historians now read the battle itself as a hard-fought draw. Its true legacy came years later: around 1259 BC, Egypt and the Hittites signed what is widely regarded as the world's first known peace treaty — a document so significant that a copy of it is displayed today at the United Nations. Ramesses also campaigned in Nubia, Libya, and the Levant, securing Egypt's borders and trade routes.

Above all, Ramesses was the greatest builder Egypt ever knew. His masterpiece is the great rock-cut temple of Abu Simbel in Nubia, its façade guarded by four colossal seated statues of the king more than 20 metres tall, aligned so that twice a year the rising sun strikes deep into the mountain to light the innermost sanctuary. Beside it he built a smaller temple for his queen Nefertari, where — in a rare honour — she is carved the same size as the king himself. He also raised his mortuary temple, the Ramesseum, at Thebes; built a brand-new capital, Pi-Ramesses, in the Nile Delta; and added monumental works at Karnak, Luxor, and Abydos. He even inscribed his name on older monuments, ensuring no one could forget who ruled Egypt at its height. (A fallen colossus from the Ramesseum later inspired the famous poem "Ozymandias.")

Ramesses' family was as monumental as his buildings. He had many wives — chief among them his beloved Nefertari — and is recorded as fathering more than a hundred children. So many of his sons were buried together that their shared tomb in the Valley of the Kings is among the largest ever found. In one of history's strangest postscripts, when his mummy was flown to Paris in the 1970s for conservation, the Egyptian authorities issued the long-dead king an official passport — listing his occupation as "King (deceased)." Today his remarkably preserved mummy rests in Cairo, and his monuments still draw visitors from around the world, more than three thousand years after his reign.

• Who he was: the third pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty, "Ramesses the Great."
• Arabic name: رمسيس الثاني (Ramesses II); known to the Greeks as Ozymandias.
• Reign: c. 1279–1213 BC — about 66 years; lived to around 90.
• Family: son of Seti I; many wives (chiefly Nefertari); 100+ children; succeeded by Merneptah.
• Famous battle: the Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites — likely a draw, proclaimed a triumph.
• Landmark peace: the Egyptian–Hittite treaty, widely called the world's first peace treaty.
• Greatest works: Abu Simbel, the Ramesseum, and the capital Pi-Ramesses; plus Karnak, Luxor, Abydos.
• Builder's record: more temples, statues, and monuments than any other pharaoh.
• Curiosity: his mummy was issued a modern passport to travel to France in the 1970s.

Sources include National Geographic, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the World History Encyclopedia's accounts of Ramesses II, Abu Simbel, and the Battle of Kadesh.