Ramesseum: Ramesses II's Temple and the Ozymandias Statue

The Ramesseum is the mortuary temple of Ramesses II, built on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes during his long reign of about 1279 to 1213 BC. It was meant to keep the king’s cult alive for “millions of years”, and today it is best known for the shattered granite colossus lying in its courts. Through the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, that ruined statue became the source of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sonnet “Ozymandias” (1818), one of the most famous poems in English.

Background: temples of millions of years

New Kingdom pharaohs were buried in hidden rock-cut tombs in the Valley of the Kings, but their cult was celebrated in large temples built on the edge of the cultivated land below. The Egyptians called these buildings “houses of millions of years”. They served both the king and the god Amun of Thebes, whose statue visited them each year during the Beautiful Festival of the Valley.

Ramesses II began his temple early in his reign, on a site between the earlier temples of Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV. Its ancient name was the House of Millions of Years of Usermaatre-setepenre that is united with Thebes in the domain of Amun. Most of the stone structure appears to have been completed within the first two decades of his rule, although decoration and additions continued later.

The temple and its plan

The Ramesseum follows the classic plan of an Egyptian temple, oriented roughly north-west to south-east. A visitor passed through a massive first pylon into an open court, then through a second pylon into a court lined with Osiride pillars, columns carved with the figure of the king as Osiris, god of the dead.

Beyond lay a great hypostyle hall with 48 columns, the tallest in the central aisles, followed by smaller halls, an astronomical ceiling and the sanctuaries. Next to the main temple stood a smaller temple for Ramesses’ mother Tuya and his principal queen Nefertari, as well as a palace used during festivals.

Around the stone temple stretched extensive mud-brick storerooms with vaulted roofs. These held grain, oil, wine and other goods, and show that the temple was also an economic institution. The vaults are among the best-preserved ancient brick vaults in Egypt.

The temple’s position close to the cultivated plain has shaped its fate. It was built partly on a low mound, but centuries of Nile floods, rising groundwater and salt have weakened the foundations. This is one reason why much less of the Ramesseum survives than of the later temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, which was modelled closely on it.

The fallen colossus

In the first court stood a seated statue of Ramesses II carved from a single block of granite brought from Aswan, more than 200 kilometres to the south. Estimates put its original height at around 17 to 19 metres and its weight at roughly 1,000 tonnes, making it one of the largest statues ever made in Egypt.

The colossus later broke and toppled, probably in an earthquake or through deliberate quarrying for stone in later centuries; the exact cause and date are uncertain. Fragments of its head, torso and huge feet still lie near the second pylon, where the statue fell. Another colossal statue of the king, known as the Younger Memnon, was removed from the temple by the Italian adventurer Giovanni Belzoni in 1816 and taken to the British Museum.

Reliefs and texts

The pylons carry some of the most famous war reliefs of ancient Egypt. They show the Battle of Kadesh, fought by Ramesses against the Hittites in Syria around 1274 BC, including the Egyptian camp, the Hittite chariot attack and the king fighting from his chariot. Other scenes record his campaigns in Syria and Canaan, such as the siege of the fortress of Dapur.

Inside, reliefs show processions of the king’s many sons and daughters, the festival of the harvest god Min and offerings to Amun. The astronomical ceiling in one of the inner halls depicts constellations and the months of the year.

In 1895-1896 the archaeologist James Quibell found a tomb beneath the storerooms containing a box of papyri, the so-called Ramesseum papyri. They date from the Middle Kingdom, centuries before the temple, and include literary works, medical and magical texts and a dramatic ritual.

From Osymandyas to Ozymandias

Around the first century BC, Diodorus Siculus, relying on the earlier writer Hecataeus of Abdera, described the “tomb of Osymandyas” at Thebes. He wrote of a giant seated statue whose base carried a boastful inscription in which the king challenged anyone who wished to know his greatness to surpass his works. Osymandyas is a Greek rendering of Usermaatre, the throne name of Ramesses II, and most scholars identify the building described with the Ramesseum.

In late 1817 the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his friend Horace Smith each wrote a sonnet on the subject in a friendly competition. Shelley’s “Ozymandias” was published in The Examiner on 11 January 1818. It describes a traveller who finds “two vast and trunkless legs of stone” in the desert, with a shattered face and an inscription ending in the famous line “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Shelley never visited Egypt. His poem combines Diodorus’ account with the wider European excitement about Egyptian antiquities, including the much-publicised removal of the Younger Memnon to London. The irony he drew, that the proud king’s works had crumbled into sand, matched the real state of the ruined colossus.

Later history and excavation

The temple remained in use after Ramesses’ death, but it declined as the Egyptian state weakened. Late in the reign of Ramesses III, workmen from the royal tomb-builders’ village of Deir el-Medina whose rations had not been delivered staged one of the earliest recorded strikes, protesting at temples on the west bank, including the Ramesseum.

In the Third Intermediate Period, from about 1070 BC, parts of the complex were reused as a burial ground for priests and their families. Stone was later quarried from the walls, and in Christian times part of the temple was used as a church. Champollion visited in 1829 and gave the site its modern name.

Since 1991 a joint French and Egyptian mission has excavated, studied and restored the temple, clearing the storerooms and the palace and stabilising the surviving walls.

Timeline

• c. 1279 BC: Ramesses II becomes king and begins work on his mortuary temple at Thebes.
• c. 1274 BC: The Battle of Kadesh is fought; its story is later carved on the temple’s pylons.
• c. 1213 BC: Ramesses II dies and is buried in the Valley of the Kings; his cult continues at the Ramesseum.
• 1st century BC: Diodorus Siculus describes the “tomb of Osymandyas” and its giant statue.
• 1816: Giovanni Belzoni removes the Younger Memnon bust for the British Museum.
• 1818, 11 January: Shelley’s sonnet “Ozymandias” is published in The Examiner.
• 1829: Champollion visits the ruins and names them the Ramesseum.
• 1895-1896: James Quibell finds the Ramesseum papyri in a tomb beneath the storerooms.

Why it matters

The Ramesseum shows how an Egyptian king used architecture, statues and war reliefs to make his rule eternal. Its ruins are a key source for the reign of Ramesses II and for the Battle of Kadesh. Through Shelley’s poem, the broken colossus also became a lasting image in Western culture of the impermanence of power.