Ramesses goes back to school.
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Luxor Temple is a magnificent monument, in a city full of them. The sanctuary you visit today is, in large part, the work of Ramesses’ early reign. New pylons, colossal statues, obelisks, and dedicatory texts provide the testament to the young pharaoh’s work. Exploring these, we also get a surprising insight into temple archives and educational facilities, embodied in the Per-Ankh / House of Life…
Outro music: Jeffrey Goodman, “Prophetic Harps of Amun-Ra,” used with permission.
Ramesses II’s Luxor Dedications
Early in his reign, Ramesses continued an unfinished project of his father Sety I. He describes this in a hieroglyph inscription at Luxor Temple: “[It was] the King himself who issued commands to conduct the effective works… all ranks of artisans, who make the images (statues and so forth)… Renenutet (goddess of grain) took up her place (in the temple)… she gave a hand in directing the work… she supplied the needs (of the workers) in grain of northern and southern Egypt. The hearts (of the builders) were happy, their arms were strong… none of them said ‘Oh, I wish we had this or that!’ … The work was finished in Year 3, the month IV of Akhet, day [10+]… [It was made] in all its work, being the craft of Ptah, made of granite from Abu (Elephantine)… with precious stones… its perfect name is the ‘Noble Shrine within the Temple… of Ramesses Who is United with Eternity.’”
Ramesses in the House of Life (Per Ankh)
As part of his work at Luxor, Ramesses claims to have researched in the temple archives: “[As for] this good god (the King), he is a scribe, who is excellent in skill and in knowledge, just like Djehuty (Thoth). He is one who knows the procedures, who is skilled in the required acts… effective in actions. His Person (Ramesses) researched in the chamber of writings, and he opened the writing-scrolls of the House of Life. Thus, he knew the hidden things of the sky and all the secrets of the earth. He learned that Waset… was a primeval mound that arose in the beginning, since the land existed, and when Amun-Ra ruled as King… (The god’s) right eye…is located at the Southern Iunu (that is Waset); his left eye, is in the Northern Iunu (Heliopolis); he is the King of Southern and Northern Egypt, Amun-Ra. Eternity is his name, everlastingness is his nature, his ka-spirit is everything.”
To learn more about the House of Life, and scribal practices of the Ramessid period, see Niv Allon and Hana Navratilova, Ancient Egyptian Scribes: A Cultural Exploration (2017) and Christopher Eyre, The Use of Documents in Pharaonic Egypt (2013)
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Bibliography
- Ramesses at Luxor Temple
- Brand, P. J. (2023). Ramesses II: Egypt’s Ultimate Pharaoh. Lockwood Press. https://www.lockwoodpress.com/product-page/ramesses-ii-egypt-s-ultimate-pharaoh-paper
- Gorringe, H. H. (1882). Egyptian Obelisks. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
- Helck, W. (1968). Die Ritualszenen auf der Umfassungsmauer Ramses’ II. in Karnak. Otto Harrassowitz.
- Kitchen, K. A. (1975). Ramesside Inscriptions Historical and Biographical (Vols. 1–8). Blackwell. https://archive.org/details/KennethA.KitchenRamessideInscriptionsVol1
- Kitchen, K. A. (1993a). Ramesside Inscriptions Translated and Annotated: Notes and Comments (Vols. 1–2). Blackwell.
- Kitchen, K. A. (1993b). Ramesside Inscriptions Translated and Annotated: Translations (Vols. 1–7). Blackwell.
- Kuentz, C. (1971). La face sud du massif est du pylone de Ramses II a Louxor. Centre d’études et de documentation sur l’ancienne Égypte.
- Siuda, T. L. (2024). The Complete Encyclopedia of Egyptian Deities. Llewellyn Publications.
- The House of Life (Per-Ankh)
- Allon, N., & Navratilova, H. (2017). Ancient Egyptian Scribes: A Cultural Exploration. Bloomsbury Academic.
- Barbotin, C., & Leblanc, C. (2023). Le Ramesseum, secteur sud-est (STO), l’école du temple: Description archélogique, catalogue des ostraca inscrits, catalogue des ostraca figurés. Cliché.
- Eyre, C. (2013). The Use of Documents in Pharaonic Egypt. Oxford University Press.
- Gardiner, A. H. (1938). The House of Life. The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 24, 157–179. https://doi.org/10.2307/3854786
- Janssen, Jac. J., & Janssen, R. M. (1990). Growing up in Ancient Egypt. Rubicon Press. https://archive.org/details/growingupinancie0000jans
- Leblanc, C. (2004). L’école du temple (ât-Sebaït) et le per-ankh (maison de vie): À propos de récentes découvertes effectuées dans le contexte du Ramesseum. Memnonia, 15, 93–101.
- Leblanc, C. (2019). Ramsès II et le Ramesseum: De la splendeur au déclin d’un temple de millions d’années. L’Harmattan.
- Zinn, K. (2007). Libraries and Archives: The Organization of Collective Wisdom in Ancient Egypt. In C. Adams & M. Cannata (Eds.), Current Research in Egyptology 2006 (pp. 169–176). Oxbow.
