known as Ramses the Great
flourished 13th century BC
King of ancient Egypt, 1279–13 BC.
His family came to power some decades after the reign of Akhenaton . Ramses set about restoring Egypt's power by quelling rebellions in southern Syria and fighting the Kadesh . He captured towns in Galilee and Amor, but, unable to defeat the Hittites, he assented to a peace treaty in 1258 BC. He married one and perhaps two of the Hittite king's daughters, and the later part of his reign was free from war. Its prosperity may be measured by the amount of construction he undertook. Early on he built himself a residence city in the Nile delta as a base for military campaigns and resumed construction of the temple of Osiris, begun by his father. He added to the temple at Karnak and completed a funerary temple for his father at Luxor . In Nubia he built six temples, most famously those at Abu Simbel .
Ramses II, upper portion of a granite figure from Thebes, 1250 BC; in the British Museum.
Reproduced by courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum