Reign of Ramesses Ii

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The reign on Ramesses II was a very significant event in New Kingdom Egypt. His 67 year reign had many influences and factors which made him a great pharaoh. The influences and factors are building program, foreign policy and his wife, Nefertari. Today, the main reason why Ramesses II was a powerful pharaoh is that of his large buildings and structures which are still standing, such as the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. These sites provide significant knowledge for historians and archaeologists to learn about Ramesses’ II reign and the impact which has continued for over 3000 years. Ramesses II built more monuments than any other pharaoh. Ramesses II building program was a devotion to the gods. He raised obelisks, statues and temples to honour them, to please them and gain their favor on his rule. The structures were also as a form of making him seem immortal to all those who knew and those who are against him. However, the large scale of the building program required a lot of materials and workers to be completed, which had a great impact on New Kingdom Egypt and its people. The construction of such large buildings was a change from the rulings of previous pharaohs. Since Ramesses II built “without concern for quality”, many more workers were needed for manual labor and construction. Ramesses II want fast results which forced him to ransack many other monuments of previous periods to obtain building stone that were already cut to size. The last remaining buildings of Akhenaten, for example, were removed for his own projects. Many other Egyptian buildings that were not ransacked were redesigned or claimed to be his own project, sometimes by constructing new entrances with great structures of himself at the front, such as the Temple of Luxor which was built largely by Amenhotep III. The Battle of Kadesh had been inscribed numerous times on the walls

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