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Ramesses: Egypt's greatest pharaoh

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Ramesses II was the most powerful king ever to rule Egypt, well known for his profusion of wives - Egyptian beauties, foreign princesses, and even his own daughters - who gave him children numbered in three figures. But among the royal wives, The only title which mattered was that of Great Royal Wife. Only four women held this title, two of them being blood relatives of the king. This book introduces the reader to the world of high politics and international intrigue which were part of the very fabric of life in the court of Ramesses, and to the opulent existence of the aristocratic elite.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

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About the author

Joyce A. Tyldesley

34 books167 followers
Joyce Tyldesley is a British archaeologist and Egyptologist, academic, writer and broadcaster.

Tyldesley was born in Bolton, Lancashire and attended Bolton School. In 1981, she earned a first-class honours degree in archaeology from Liverpool University, and a doctorate in Prehistoric Archaeology from Oxford in 1986. She is a Teaching Fellow at Manchester University where she is tutor and course organiser of the three-year distance learning (internet based) Certificate in Egyptology programme run from the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology.

She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology at Liverpool University, an ex-trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society, Chairperson of Bolton Archaeology and Egyptology Society, and a trustee of Chowbent Chapel.

In 2004 she established, with Steven Snape of Rutherford Press Limited, a publishing firm dedicated to publishing serious but accessible books on ancient Egypt while raising money for Egyptology field work. Donations from RPL have been made to Manchester Museum and the Egypt Exploration Society: currently all profits are donated to the ongoing fieldwork at Zawiyet umm el-Rakham.

She is married with two children to Egyptologist Steven Snape and lives in Lancashire.

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5 stars
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75 (22%)
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
Profile Image for Iset.
665 reviews608 followers
August 1, 2018

It’s surprising how few biographies there are of Ramesses the Great, considering how large he looms in ancient Egyptian history, but this book by Joyce Tyldesley does justice to its subject. Tyldesley is one of the most recognisable names in Egyptology, for both her copious output and her work producing both academic publications and popular histories. Although I haven’t read all her books, I’ve generally found her to be a thorough researcher and reliably accurate, often presenting debates objectively and avoiding sensationalist claims.

This book definitely leans towards the general audience; a smooth read that is clearly designed to be accessible. But the resources are there for the reader to take things further; a bibliography and notes attached to each chapter point the way to more detailed academic reads. As an introductory book to Ramesses II, the book succeeds in presenting the information in a lucid way whilst providing the right amount of material.

The only caveat I have with Tyldesley’s books is that they tend to be a little bit dry, and this one is no different, but anyone with an existing interest in the subject won’t be too bothered, and I would say it is worth the read. One other thing to watch out for is that this book is now a little outdated, and doesn’t mention the latest discoveries pertaining to Ramesses II in the years since publication.

9 out of 10
Profile Image for CS.
1,216 reviews
August 14, 2018
Bullet Review:

A fascinating study of Ramesses, one of the few pharaohs most people will probably know. I learned SO MUCH about him, Egyptian society and those that came before and after than I ever thought existed. WOW!
Profile Image for BenAbe.
72 reviews2 followers
December 16, 2025
The book provides a detailed account of the life and times of the 'King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Usermaatre Setepenre ,Son of Re, Ramesses II, Beloved of Amun ', the same Ramesses who is alleged to be the pharaoh of the story of Exodus, the same 'king of kings' of Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias, the same figure whose name, like that of Alexander many centuries after him, survived in myths and stories too many to tell.


It is precisely because he was such a prolific propagandist and a successful self-marketer that it is difficult to discern the man from the myth. And it is here where the author comes along. She chronicles his life and examines his reign, which lasted over six decades. In doing so, she constantly reminds us that the real Ramesses is different from the image that the pharaoh presents of himself. And using available evidence she reconstructs an account of the authentic Ramesses. She provides a multifaceted exploration of the man: Ramesses the warrior, the god, the husband, the father, the mortal. we get to see a glimpse of the world that he lived in and that of New Kingdom Egypt in general.

His reign was a golden era of peace and prosperity. And we see how he moved away from his militaristic ambitions at the start of his regency toward a project of consolidation of power. He was a builder of monuments, which he produced on a massive industrial scale. For him, what counted was not quality or architectural innovation, but quantity and the prospect of using monuments as a vehicle to communicate his image to his people and to friends and foes alike. His statues were the embodiment of the ideal ruler, ever more young and energetic, even though he himself grew old and weak at the same time that these idealized images of youth were erected.
His proclamations were naturally exaggerated and bombastic, for kingship was equated with forms which were adhered to and sought after: That of the successful general as an ideal, the great builder as a model to replicate, the dutiful son, the loving father, the pious servant of the gods, the embodiment of a living bridge halfway between the mortal and the divine. Ramesses sought to emulate the model of the ideal pharaoh, who excels at portraying each of these forms.

I personally enjoyed the aspect of ' manufactured greatness' as it gives us an idea of the dynamics between power and propaganda/image in the ancient world, and I also found the examination of different domains related to the enterprise of kingship ( such as the rules and politics of dynastic succession and the set of responsibilities around the office of king) to be informative. YET I MUST SAY that, through no fault of the author(as she seeks to provide the best possible balance between an exhaustive, systematic, and thematic approach and one that is accessible to the general reader), she sometimes gets caught up in what I can only describe as distracting trivialities, such as the tiring, almost never-ending list of principal wives and princes, with their not so easily digestible names.


On the whole, it was an informative and mostly enjoyable read that gives a fuller image of Egypt at the Time of the Ramessid dynasty (and if you are like me, it'll leave you with an irresistible itch to learn more about the Hittites). Though one thing must be said: only read it if you are interested in the topic.
However, if you are in the mood for something much lighter, I would personally recommend 'Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt' by Lionel Casson. Or better still, Joanne Fletcher’s documentaries on ancient Egypt (available on YouTube) .


Rating: 3.5/5
Profile Image for Nicky.
4,138 reviews1,116 followers
April 30, 2012
A clear and well-written account of the life and reign of Ramesses, one of the most famous Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. I didn't know much about him beyond the fact that he is often hypothesised to be the Pharaoh of Egypt during Moses' Exodus, and that a lot of the monuments and colossi and so on were his.

She didn't try so much to get an idea of his person as some of the stuff I've been reading about Akhenaten and Tutankhamen does: instead Joyce Tyldesley elucidates the kind of Pharaoh he wanted people to believe he was (and why), and how he went about it. Consequently it can be a bit of a parade of facts: he built such and such a temple, appropriated such and such a monument, restored such and such a building. But it's still fascinating, and there's sections on the reigns that came before and after his, too.
Profile Image for Patrick Martin.
256 reviews12 followers
May 29, 2019
A look at the reign of Ramesses II and the pharoanic Egypt of his time. The section regarding his personal and political life is quite shorter than I expected given the title of the book. It feels that more pages are devoted to the period before he came to the throne and the period after his death than are devoted to his actual life. That is the reason I could only give the book three stars.

It was interesting though, an in depth review of Egypt's rulers and the ruling class. How they ruled, who they were and how the ruling class practiced incest to keep the bloodline pure and portrayed themselves, believed themselves to be, God's on earth.
Profile Image for Michael Lewyn.
968 reviews29 followers
March 30, 2021
This book isn't a biography in the normal sense, because Ramesses didn't leave as much of a paper trail as a Roman emperor or a medieval king: he lived over a millenium before the Roman Empire, and pre-Roman Egypt did not have a tradition of objective history (or at least, none that has survived). As a result, we don't really know much about Ramesses as a person, other than his own propaganda and the condition of his mummy. We do know that his regime had no qualms about repurposing statutes and monuments built by other Egyptian kings, substituting his name for those of his predecessors. Tyldesley suggests that Ramesses may have had religious motives, believing that worldly notoriety would increase the length of his afterlife.

Having said that, the author does try (usually successfully) to give some flavor of New Kingdom Egypt. For example, she explains the tradition of Pharaonic incest: there was a tradition that male kings and princes could marry beneath their station, but princesses could not, nor could they go abroad for any reason. On the positive side, this meant that ambitious sons-in-law were less likely to stir up political instability. On the negative side, the princesses didn't have anyone else to marry but their relatives, and so fathers married daughters and brothers married sisters. And because kings were polygamous, they could satisfy their relatives with marriages, and marry foreign princesses to make geopolitical alliances, and marry a woman or two they actually liked as well. Typically, one wife was the queen, and there were numerous other junior-varsity wives as well. (It seems to me that this explains the Exodus story of Pharaoh's daughter hiding Moses: when the king had dozens of children from various wives, the king might never meet a grandchild or a step-grandchild).

In addition, Tyldesley shows some of the Empire's weaknesses. Although most of Egypt was far from any border, there were often border skirmishes with tribes and smaller countries, and to its east there were major rivals such as Hittites, Assyrians and (centuries later) Babylonians. And because infant mortality was high and medicine was primitive, dynasties often died out for the lack of a heir. Ramesses himself was born a commoner; his dynasty was found by his grandfather, an experienced military bureaucrat who worked under (and then succeeded) another soldier/bureaucrat. Ramesses' first twelve or sons died before him, and so he was succeeded by Merneptah, his thirteenth.
Profile Image for Leslie.
253 reviews
July 7, 2011
Joyce Tyldesley has written a great book on one of the most famous pharaohs of ancient Egypt. She includes information on life in the Nile region for the time period as well as on people who surrounded the king. As I am finding with some of the history books I have read lately, maps could have been more plentiful and detailed and pictures of artifacts and locations could have been in color. Nonetheless, the book was quite good and informative.
Profile Image for Heather.
988 reviews32 followers
May 27, 2017
Tyldesley walks a fine line between scholarly detail and the clarity and simplicity needed for popular consumption. It's not an easy thing to do.
Profile Image for Pete daPixie.
1,505 reviews3 followers
March 14, 2018
Joyce Tyldesley is Honorary Research Fellow at Liverpool University and lectures on Egyptian archaeology. She has also published a number of books on Egyptian subjects. Her expert coverage of 'Ramesses: Egypt's Greatest Pharaoh', published in 2000, built on her knowledge of the historical and archaeological evidence, brings this great figure to life with some clarity.
Ramesses II of the 19th Dynasty is considered to have lived from 1279 to 1213 BC. One of the high water marks of the ancient Egyptian histories. He certainly left his mark in the awe inspiring construction works at Thebes, Karnak and Abu Simbel. Testimonies to his reign are marked along the Nile, such as the battle against the Hittites at Kadesh and other military actions. Is he the Pharaoh of the Old Testament's story of Moses? There are no Egyptian texts to corroborate this tale. Not surprising with such far fetched rubbish.
Any dedicated Egyptologist or, like me, being fairly new to the subject, will find this work fascinating and highly informative.

'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Profile Image for Katka Olajcová.
553 reviews9 followers
October 22, 2025
Veľmi dobre spracovaná kniha zachytávajúca vládu Ramesseho II.
Je rozdelená na niekoľko tematických častí (pred nástupom na trón, Ramesse ako vojak, otec atď.), čo chválim. Keďže bolo o Ramessem už toho popísané dosť (a dosť som toho aj prečítala), oceňujem najmä kapitolu o jeho deťoch, kde sú nám prezentovaní nielen tí najznámejší, ale aj tí menej známi, o ktorých som ja nikdy nepočula.
Rozhodne odporúčam. Hoci sú to všetky fakty, čítanie nie je náročné, ale veľmi poučné.
Profile Image for Shonna.
120 reviews1 follower
November 6, 2019
I felt it was a little to digressive and could have been clearer. That being said, I understand it's hard to create a narrative with the evidence we have-- it just jumped around too much. But I did learn things!
Profile Image for J.C.
89 reviews7 followers
January 12, 2020
If you are interested in Egyptology look no further than the works of Tyldesley.
1,625 reviews
June 12, 2023
Good introduction to Ramesses II and Egyptology.
198 reviews4 followers
June 21, 2023
I guess it must be a bit dated now, maybe I should read a more modern book to see if anything has been learned since publication of this one.
Profile Image for Shae.
246 reviews1 follower
December 21, 2025
Ancient Egypt was one of my childhood hyperfixations and it’s always a fun topic to revisit. This was accessible and I didn’t know a lot about Ramses so it was really interesting. Two things that stuck out were the sheer scale of how old Egyptian society is (there were amateur Egyptologists in the time of Ramses) and incest in the royal family. I didn’t know that royal Egyptian women could only marry other royal Egyptian men, limiting their options to their close relatives. Ramses married his sisters and daughters which was gross and I’m not sure how severe birth defects weren’t more common in the royal family.
246 reviews2 followers
August 1, 2022
"To Ramesses, artistic standards were of secondary importance; his priority was to see the work completed in his own lifetime, if possible in a way which would prevent others from usurping his carvings" (Tyldesley: 92).

This book describes everything about Ramesses:  his family, his battles, his mummy or the films that were made about him.

The book aims to classify Ramesses as the greatest pharaoh ever. However, I didn't always see that. To me Ramesses was following conventions most of the time and because of that, there is nothing innovative at all. Although he may have built massively, any other pharaoh could have done that too but we don't know yet because the buildings were demolished, usurped or are still to be found. And the way in which Ramesses enhanced buildings, far from being great, is an insult to Egyptian aesthetics.

This book doesn't contain any groundbreaking theories (or at least the author did not point out clearly which ones were her own theories). Therefore, the book seems to be a collection of ideas/theories put forward by other people.

Some images are not quoted well enough because the source they come from is missing. This was irritating, as I wished to know where I can find the image of the two enemies on page 55. And the images in the book are not linked to the text either. But the book does offer interesting information about Art, and I liked that very much.
Profile Image for Jason Freeze.
50 reviews1 follower
May 31, 2014
A well laid out and informative book. The author did a great job of portraying Ramesses as something more than the larger than life figure that he is usually shown to be. Additionally, she did a solid job of humanizing history without crossing into historical fiction and did a solid job of backing up her stance on his life and times. When the author proposed her thoughts on the inner workings of Ramesses, she was able to provide multiple possibilities without asserting that any of them were absolute fact, which is a short coming of many authors who attempt this style of book. Overall, well worth the read.
Profile Image for Leonard Mokos.
Author 2 books73 followers
February 9, 2017
Not enough meat on the bone. Nothing new, no fresh insights. Capable but I think a man like Ramesses deserves a more gripping narrative.
43 reviews1 follower
February 19, 2012
A far-reaching survey of the reign of Ramesses II and pharoanic Egypt of his time. The section regarding his personal and political life is a bit brief, and at times it feels that more pages are devoted to the period before he came to the throne and the period after his death. Considering the scarcity of concrete archaeological remains and the pharoah-centric primary written sources, this is a surprisingly complete look at the history of several thousands of years ago.
Profile Image for Glenn Robinson.
425 reviews14 followers
August 22, 2014
Fascinating bio of Ramesses II, his predecessors, some of his 100+ children and the 6 unrelated Ramesses after him. Because of his 60+ years as ruler, a great deal of information about Ramesses was left behind in the form of monuments, temples, tablets and papyrus writings. He led Ancient Egypt to a period of peace and prosperity. Interesting time.
Profile Image for Stefanie Robinson.
2,412 reviews19 followers
March 1, 2021
This is another biography by Joyce Tyldesley focusing on a Pharaoh, this time Ramesses. I know I have said before that I love learning about Ancient Egypt, so it comes as no surprise that I enjoyed this book. I always find this author's work to be well written and well researched. I never get bored reading any of her work.
Profile Image for Alexander Peck.
103 reviews2 followers
January 9, 2016
I like the way this book is organized. Chronologically by topic? I would like to read more biographies organized in such a way probably hard to do generally, but Ramesses life seemed well suited for it.
Profile Image for Noel.
19 reviews5 followers
March 1, 2013
I've read a few of Joyce Tyldesley's books and they're always a great read!
Profile Image for Tanis.
214 reviews19 followers
April 12, 2013
I didn't get on with this book at all, I did try but I couldn't get anywhere with it, I've forwarded it on to my lovely niece and I hope she has better luck with it. Bit too dry for me.
Profile Image for SeaShore.
828 reviews
Want to read
June 23, 2017
From Ancient.eu

Ramesses (1279-1213 BCE, was known to the Egyptians as Userma’atre’setepenre, which means 'Keeper of Harmony and Balance, Strong in Right, Elect of Ra’.

He is also known also as Ozymandias and as Ramesses the Great.

He was the third pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty (1292-1186 BCE) who claimed to have won a decisive victory over the Hittites at The Battle of Kadesh and used this event to enhance his reputation as a great warrior. In reality, the battle was more of a draw than a decisive victory for either side but resulted in the world's first known peace treaty in 1258 BCE. Although he is regularly associated with the pharaoh from the biblical Book of Exodus there is no historical or archaeological evidence for this whatsoever.

Ramesses lived to be ninety-six years old, had over 200 wives and concubines, ninety-six sons and sixty daughters, most of whom he outlived. So long was his reign that all of his subjects, when he died, had been born knowing Ramesses as pharaoh and there was widespread panic that the world would end with the death of their king. He had his name and accomplishments inscribed from one end of Egypt to the other and there is virtually no ancient site in Egypt which does not make mention of Ramesses the Great.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews

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