Ramses III

After the deaths of Siptah and Tawosret, the last rulers of the 19th Dynasty, the throne of Egypt passed to a king named Setnakht, whose origins are obscure but who was likely related in some way to the Ramesside royal line. Setnakht himself ruled for only a few years. He was succeeded by his son, Ramses III, who is considered the last of the great “warrior pharaohs” of the New Kingdom.

Over the course of a 32-year reign, Ramses III fought a number of notable battles and is remembered as skilled in the art of warfare. The first decade of his reign was marked by battles against the Libyans and the Sea Peoples, a result of turmoil and population upheaval in the Mediterranean world. His early years were also occupied with stabilizing Egypt’s internal political situation in the wake of the political confusion of the previous reigns. Ramses III built a great mortuary temple at Medinet Habu, where he recorded his military exploits. Records from this reign reveal a difficult economic situation, exacerbated by the expense of the king’s wars against invaders. One papyrus details the first recorded labor strike, carried out by the royal artisans at Deir elMedina, who had been denied their wages. Despite his great victories and accomplishments, Ramses III fell victim to a plot devised by a minor wife, Tiye, to put her son Pentawer on the throne. Several papyri tell of this “harem conspiracy” to kill the king, which involved various officers, members of the royal harem, and high court officials. It is not clear from the papyri, which record the trials of the conspirators, whether or not the plot succeeded. However, the CT scan carried out by the Egyptian Mummy Project clearly showed that the king’s throat had been cut from behind. DNA analysis also confirmed that Unknown Man E (the “screaming mummy,” also found in the Deir el-Bahari cache) was a son of Ramses III, and could be Prince Pentawer. The king was originally buried in KV 11, the abandoned tomb of his father Setnakht; his mummy was restored by the later priests and eventually moved to the Deir el-Bahari cache.