RamsesII
...c building activities led to a degrading of Egyptian art as far as the engraving of texts and images on temple walls was concerned, for he demanded the monuments to be erected with greater speed than usual. Otherwise carefully engraved texts and images with many beautiful details were now made superficially; a practice was unfortunately continued by his successors. His most famous military engagement is the battle of Kadesh against the Hittites, which took place Northern Syria, with whom the Egyptians had been struggling for many years. He seems to have escaped by pure luck, as his main force—the pharaoh himself commanding—was ambushed by the Hittites, and was only saved just in time by reinforcements while retreating. Both sides claimed the victory of this battle, but it seems more likely to have ended in a status quo.Ramses II recorded his victory on several monuments, showing him slaying the Hittites in person. The problems between the Egyptians and the Hittites were finally settled several years later when Ramses married a Hittite princess. After he died, Ramses was buried in the famous royal necropolis of the Valley of the Kings, located in the hills on the west bank of the Nile River near modern of Luxor.However, the mummy of Ramses II was not found on location in his tomb, but was discovered in 1881 among many other royal mummies in the so-called Royal Cache in Deir el-Bahri on the Theban west bank.According to a hieroglyphic text found on the mummy it was removed from the actual royal tomb for safety reasons by Egyptian priests in the 10th year of the reign of king Pinodjem after robbers violated the burial. Though the text stated it was placed together with the body of his father, Seti, in the tomb of Amenhotep I, it was apparently later moved again to its final resting place in the royal cache. The mummy is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Ramses II has recently gained prominence among Egyptologists following the 1995 discovery of this pharaoh’s family mausoleum, the largest tomb ever found in Egypt in which the sons of Ramses II were buried. It should be open to the public about a year from now, when excavations and restorations are complete. Reportedly, Ramses II had as many as 100 children of whom about 50 of his 52 sons are thought to buried there. It is hoped that the study of the artifacts, hieroglyphics and information from the mummies can be used to confirm whether Ramses II is indeed the pharaoh in the bible of the Hebrew’s enslavement and exodus....