All in the Family: Ramesses II’s Many Wives and Children, their Hierarchy, and Role in his Ideology of Kingship

Sunday 16th February:

Lecture 1.The Dynamics of Royal Polygamy in the New Kingdom: Prestige, Hierarchy, and Favor among the King’s Wives & Children

Lecture 2.All the King’s Wives: Ramesses II’s Royal Women

These lectures examin the phenomenon of New Kingdom royal polygamy in the case of Ramesses II’s wives. At least eleven women can be identified as wives of this king, including five of his own daughters and two Hittite princesses. Among his earliest wives, Nefertari and Isetnofret stand out as being the favored and prominent, having given birth to his two eldest sons Amenhirkhopeshef and Ramesses “Junior”. Along with their sons and daughters, Nefertari and Isetnofret stood at the top of a hierarchy among Ramesses II’s wives and children, with Nefertari eclipsing the rest. The kings’ Abydos Dedicatory Inscription indicates that Ramesses married several women while he was crown prince under Sety I and began producing children by them. Eventually, he sired at least 48 sons and 53 daughters. By reconstructing Ramesses’ family and comparing it to the patterns of royal polygamy in other historic cultures, we can gain insights into the political and social dynamics of Ramesses II huge family and its ideological role in his conception of kingship.

Sunday 23rd February:

Lecture 3.All in the Family: Ramesses II’s Royal Children and their ideological role

Ramesses II is famous for his huge progeny. Indeed, the number of children he sired is often exaggerated in modern popular culture to as many as 200 or even 300 sons and daughters. In fact, ancient sources account for a still impressive count of slightly more than 100 offspring. But who were these sons and daughters? Who were their mothers? Some rose to great prominence such as the first-born son Amenhirkhopeshef, the first of four crown princes and Khaemwaset, the scholar prince and high priest of Ptah in Memphis. Likewise, five of his daughers became their father’s wives in the second half of his reign? What did this entail? But scores of his children are practically ciphers, of which we often know nothing except their name. We know of all of Ramesses IIs offspring because he chose to display them in processional lists featuring their names and images on temple walls. These lists were unprecedented and reflected an important aspect of this pharaoh’s royal ideology.

Lecture 4.The Place of the Beautiful Ones and KV 5: The Queen’s Valley & the Burial of Ramesside Queens and Royal Children

The Valley of the Queens, which the ancients called Ta Set Neferu, “The Place of the Beautiful Ones,” was the traditional burial ground for members of the royal family and sometimes privileged officials beginning in the early 18^th Dynasty. During the 18^th Dynasty, these tombs were quite small and undecorated. Beginning during the reign of Sety I and reaching a zenith during Ramesses II’s long reign, the Ramesside kings built larger, more elaborate tombs for their mothers, wives, daughters and daughter-wives. Ramesses II built a “queens’ row” of large and elaborately decorated tombs for his mother Tuya, his most favored consort Nefertari, and his five daughter-wives. While Nefertari’s tomb is almost perfectly preserved, the other tombs are heavily damaged, but enough remains to compare their decorative programs to that of Nefertary and to get a sense of the program of scenes typical of these queens’ tombs. They show these queens interacting with the gods alone without other family members—not even Ramesses II. This lecture will explore the decorative pattern and design of tombs Ramesses built for his most favored royal women and examine the meaning of their decoratio