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Ramses the Great Dies
  The Pharoah's Death   The Reign of Ramses the Great   Preparing the Pharoah for the Afterlife  
      Prosperity for the People      
Building for the Gods  
Prowess in Battle  


illustration
 
  During Ramses II's reign, the kingdom of Egypt has grown wealthy beyond imagining. This prosperity has resulted from Ramses's mastery of Ma'at, sekhem, and Heka.

dingbatThrough his attentive and pious preservation of Ma'at—truth, harmony, and justice—our dear departed ruler bestowed on his subjects the blessings of domestic tranquillity and economic prosperity.

dingbatThrough sekhem—warfare and conquest—Ramses has protected Egypt's riches from invaders and allowed him to collect tribute from conquered lands.
Through his energetic fulfillment of his Heka obligations-

dingbathis unerring performance of religious rituals
dingbathis lavish offerings to the gods
dingbathis splendid new year's ceremonies and sed festivals—Ramses has also ensured the gods' consistent blessings on the land.

photo of land along Nile River
The flooding of the Nile improved our farmland.

   
The gods rewarded Ramses for his first sed festival, mounted in the 30th year of his reign, by sending a beneficent flooding of the Nile, which deposited upon the fields an unusually thick layer of life-giving silt. Thereafter, Ramses held an unprecedented 13 more sed festivals.

The great Ramses's many construction projects provided work for countless Egyptians. He rewarded the loyal service of officers and soldiers through generous land distributions, and increased salaries for artisans and reduced their work hours. He made many agricultural reforms, increasing the yield of the land. He improved the lives of the miners who work Egypt's precious gold mines by digging wells in the desert of Nubia.

   

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