Featured Episode - Ramesses the Great: Man, God and Legend
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Featured Episode - Ramesses the Great: Man, God and Legend
Issue 18
In This Episode
In this episode, host, Petros Koutoupis, looks into the life of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Ramesses the Great. How did he rule his people and how did he define his legacy? Was he the Pharaoh of the Biblical Exodus? What does the archaeology say? We will attempt to dive into all of this and more.
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Glossary
Amurru - The collective peoples and region (i.e. the Amurru lands or the land of Amor) of both Canaan and Syria.
Anatolia - The region that is Turkey today.
Avaris - The capital of Lower Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period and under the rule of the Hyksos.
BCE - Before the Common Era, the equivalent of B.C.
Canaan - The region that is the Levant and what is Israel and Syria today.
Hittite - An ancient civilization and empire that controlled most of the Anatolian mainland.
Hyksos - The Hyksos was an ethnic identity for foreign rulers (likely of Semitic origin) who migrated into the Egyptian Delta region and ruled Lower Egypt for the century that defined the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1650 - 1550 BCE) and just before the New Kingdom Period.
Kadesh - Sometimes spelled “Qadesh”, the ancient city is located in modern-day Syria and right next to the Orontes River.
Late Bronze Age - A historical period defining the end of the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean that began at c. 1500 BCE and ended c. 1200 BCE.
Levant - The general geographical region of the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia, more centralized around modern-day Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
Middle Bronze Age - A historical period defining the middle of the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean that began at c. 2050/2000 BCE and ended c. 1600/1550 BCE.
Mycenaean - A phase or period of the Bronze Age Greece, spanning from approximately 1600-1100 BCE.
Ne’arin - A Semitic term translating to “young men”, the Ne’arin in this context are documented to having served the Pharaoh, Ramesses II, and fought by his side at the Battle of Kadesh.
Shasu - Semitic nomads that wandered the region of the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages.
Recommended Books
Qadesh 1300 BC: Clash of the Warrior Kings
By Mark Healy
The earliest battle in history which can be reconstructed in detail, Qadesh (c. 1300 BC) pitted the two great warriors of the age against each other, Muwatallish of Hatti and the great warrior-Pharaoh Rameses II. With the Hittites gaining the initial advantage, all seemed lost until Rameses himself led his personal followers into the fray. However, in spite of the appearance of Egyptian reinforcements, the bravery of the pharaoh and the tactically superior showing of the Egyptian chariotry, the dislocation of his army frustrated the Pharaoh's wider strategic aspirations. Mark Healy recounts the course of this key battle, which could so easily have gone either way.
Digging Up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon
By Dr. Eric H. Cline
In 1925, James Henry Breasted, famed Egyptologist and director of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, sent a team of archaeologists to the Holy Land to excavate the ancient site of Megiddo—Armageddon in the New Testament—which the Bible says was fortified by King Solomon. Their excavations made headlines around the world and shed light on one of the most legendary cities of biblical times, yet little has been written about what happened behind the scenes. Digging Up Armageddon brings to life one of the most important archaeological expeditions ever undertaken, describing the site and what was found there, including discoveries of gold and ivory, and providing an up-close look at the internal workings of a dig in the early years of biblical archaeology.
The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World
By Dr. Kara Cooney
Written in the tradition of historians like Stacy Schiff and Amanda Foreman who find modern lessons in ancient history, this provocative narrative explores the lives of five remarkable pharaohs who ruled Egypt with absolute power, shining a new light on the country's 3,000-year empire and its meaning today.