Ramses II was the fourth king of the Nineteenth Dynasty (1292-1225 B. c:.) and the son of Seti I. He was pure black, had thick lips and a broad nose like the people of the western Sudan today. He was a warlike pharaoh, industrious and energetic, ruling Egypt for sixty-seven years. In the early years of his reign, he engaged in the important campaign against the Hittites. At Kadesh, near Syria, the battle was indecisive. Einally, he signed a permanent peace treaty with the king of the Hittites, married the king's daughter; and the remaining years of his life were relatively peaceful.
Ramses II is also known for his national public work projects, because these projects retpiired the forced labor of thousands of Hebrew. slaves, he is known as the Pharaoh of the Oppression. He was a boastful, vaingloriou. s, tyrannical personality who sought to astound humanity by covering the country with megalithic structures. This Ramses transferred the capital to the Nile delta. The black Jews constructed the treasure cities, Pithom and Ramses. Ramses developed the Nile delta and had the slaves build Egypt's megaliths: the colonnade at Luxor and its gigantic pylon, in front of which he placed six colossal statues of himself. Each of these statues was almost sixty feet high. Ramses II erased his predecessors' names from the records and sub-
Stitutcd his own. This Ramses also constructed the hyposlyle hall at Karnak and the temple called “The Ramesscum" near Thebes.
During this period Egypt enjoyed a high degree of prosperity; a great boom just before the recession. When.fer-neptali, the son of Ramses II, came to the throne the entire empire was falling apart.
Moses entered Egypt, probably during the reign of Ramses II or Merneptah. l ie (.Moses) was commissioned by the Ckxl of Israel to go down into Egypt and to tell Pharaoh to let his people go. Moses did not have any great dilTiculty entering the palace of Pharaoh; he had been reared in the king’s palace, and he knew Egyptian protocol. lie decided to enter the palace at the time that Pharaoh was entertaining various ambassadors from foreign nations.
After Egypt was weakened and terrified by the scourge of the ten plagues. Pharaoh agreed to emancipate the Hebrew slaves.
IJeginning with the reign of Merneptah and the kings of the Twentieth Dynasty, Egypt was in a state of decline. There were revolts throughout the Empire. It is evident that the emancipation of the Hebrew slaves may have triggered these revolts, producing a chain reaction. Weakness at home and attack from the external enemies marked the defeat and decline of the Empire. In the tenth century b. c., the Libyans invaded Egypt and established the Twenty-second Rubastite Dynasty. Under this Libyan Dynasty, Egypt tried to revive ilie empire. Sheshonk or Shishak invaded Palestine and entered into combat with the Davidic Dynasty. At this time, most of Shishak’s troops were Libyans and Cushites. After two hundred years of Libyan rule, the Cushites inv. idcd Egypt and the Middle East, making themselves a great power. Then the Assyrians, llabylonians, Persians, (irceks, Romans, and Arabs invaded Egypt consecutively, terminating Egyptian rule.
World History
