Pod Insights The Ancients The House of Ramesses II: Egypt's Greatest Pharaoh? About this episode The name of Ramesses the Great is etched deeper into Egypt than almost any other ruler. Colossal statues moulded in his image tower over the Nile. Reliefs of his victories are carved into countless temple walls. But were did Ramesses II come from? And how was this legend of Egyptian history born?
In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Campbell Price to uncover the rise of the House of Ramesses and the century of crisis that paved the way for Egypt’s most famous pharaoh. From dynastic turmoil and religious upheaval to military revival and monumental propaganda, discover how Ramesses II seized his moment and shaped a legacy that has endured for over 3,000 years. Was he Egypt’s greatest ruler or its greatest architect of reputation?
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Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds
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0:00 Tristan Hughes? Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week, covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe. Hello from Abu Simbel, one of the greatest Egyptian temples surviving today. I'm currently here about 30 kilometres from the border with Sudan and I'm staring at
0:42 Tristan Hughes? four colossal statues of Ramses the Second, of Ramses the Great. Very much him showing this image that he was divine, that he was a great builder, and that he was the man in charge of this land, of the area of what was known as Lower Nubia. It's his story that we're covering today, his rise to prominence. What do we know? Well, to talk through it all, I was delighted to interview the one and only Dr Campbell Price from Manchester Museum. Let's go.
1:30 Tristan Hughes? It's 3,315 years ago and a young Egyptian prince walks through a towering monument. He is at the prestigious ancient city of Thebes in Upper Egypt, the capital of famous pharaonic predecessors like Thutmose III and Hatshepsut, and the home of a renowned temple complex dedicated to Egypt's chief god, Amun. Its name? Ipetzut Karnak.
2:03 Tristan Hughes? The young prince walks through the newest great building being constructed at the sanctuary, commissioned by his father, the current pharaoh. The interior is a dense forest of columns, more than a hundred in total, each over fifteen meters in height, closely spaced, and supporting a large roof above, with slits high up in the walls to let in beams of sunlight. This great hall was to be a centre of ceremonies and rituals for Amun, where only the pharaoh, his family, and his closest entourage could enter.
2:40 Tristan Hughes? This newest sacred space for Amun is not yet complete. Decorations still need to be added, reliefs of pharaohs, gods, and offerings still need to be carved into the walls and columns, paint still needs to be applied. But the work is underway. As the prince walks through the hall, the sounds of workmen grow louder. He exits the northern entrance and sees a great cluster of builders. They are gathered around the exterior wall, busy carving reliefs into it. The prince recognises the scene instantly. There in the wall is his victorious father, larger than any other figure, riding a chariot.
3:26 Tristan Hughes? There are countless captives bound in front of him, a river filled with crocodiles, and a city under siege.
3:35 Tristan Hughes? The scene records his father's most recent military venture up into Syria and the great bastion of Kadesh, a city hotly contested between the Egyptians and their northern rivals, the Hittites. The campaign had proven a success. The prince's father had returned to Egypt in a stronger position, consolidating his family's new hold over the throne. Seti was his name, Pharaoh Seti I. And his young son, then overseeing his father's achievements, being immortalised in stone, was none other than Ramesses, soon to be Pharaoh Ramesses II, Ramesses the Great.
4:19 Tristan Hughes? In this episode, we are going to cover this early story of Ramses. How his family, including both his father Seti and his father before him, became pharaohs of Egypt after a period of turmoil for this Bronze Age superpower, laying the foundations for Ramses and his extraordinary reign. A reign that included great battles, buildings, and so much more. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story of the rise of Ramses, with our guest, Dr Campbell Price. Campbell, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the show.
4:58 Speaker 01 Hello Tristan, it's nice to be back.
5:00 Tristan Hughes? And we've done episodes in the past up at your work home, Manchester Museum, and now you're down in our lovely studio in London. And to talk about the rise of Ramses II, first of all, and his dynasty, the 19th dynasty.
5:14 Speaker 01 Yes, I mean Ramses II is a well-known household name, but it's interesting to consider how he became the great and why people later thought he was so great.
5:23 Tristan Hughes? I mean, a 66-year reign, isn't that correct?
5:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:27 Tristan Hughes? Around that time. And normally, if someone says Ramses II or Ramses the Great, you might think, this is the pinnacle of ancient Egypt. This is when it's at the top of its military might, its wealth, its art and architecture. Is that a fair assessment?
5:41 Speaker 01 Some would tell you, some rather uncharitable people might say it well past the zenith of ancient Egypt in terms of artistic production. And there is a sense, I'm sure it'll come up as we're talking, that Ramses II is trying to recapture a few centuries before, when Egypt was really expanding, not so much an empire. I hesitated to use the word empire, but it's kind of field of influence. So he's trying to influence people and places, neighbouring countries, neighbouring cultures in ways his predecessors would.
6:13 Tristan Hughes? So actually, he's kind of looking back to a golden age of years past in a revival time, almost.
6:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, he's got a bar, I think, in his head where he's trying to reach back to it. So yeah, we're talking about the 1200s BCE, but you know, 1300s, 1400s, you're really getting the, for want of a better term, the imperial conquest.
6:30 Tristan Hughes? And paint us a bit more of a picture briefly, before we delve into the details. A quick picture of Ramses the Man, what we should get an idea of, how we should picture him before we delve into the origins of his rule and of his family.
6:43 Speaker 01 Well, as you already said. He is exceptional because he rules for sixty six years. With one exception, he's probably the longest reigning Egyptian pharaoh. So, given it was a dangerous job, being the king of any ancient power, you must have some personal charisma and command to not be attacked, you know, rebelled against or been bumped off by your family. So I think he knows his grandfather. He follows in a fairly new dynasty, a kind of arriviste group of military people, and he has a hundred children.
7:21 Tristan Hughes? Wow, okay, you save that.
7:23 Speaker 01 We'll save that till his later reign. But as a boy, he must know he's destined for greatness. That's not simply a back projection from when he becomes king, as some other pharaohs imagine, as if they'd been selected from the egg they conquered in the egg. That is something that's said of other kings. Ramses the Second as a prince really does seem to be groomed for greatness. And when he gets the chance, when his father eventually dies, he really goes for it on quite a scale.
7:52 Tristan Hughes? This is a man who's royalty throughout his life. You know, he's not the man who wins a coup or anything like that.
7:57 Speaker 01 No, exactly, yes, exactly. So he's, to himself, he's blue blooded. But the family, they're fairly new kids on the block. Given the previous dynasty, the Eighteenth Dynasty is a long stretch of very interesting characters.
8:10 Tristan Hughes? Well, the Eighteenth Dynasty, that is where we need to begin. So we're going back more than a century before Ramses's reign. And the Eighteenth Dynasty, it is full of these incredible, larger-than-life figures, isn't it? Tutankhamun, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Akhenaten. I mean, paint us a picture of the Eighteenth Dynasty quick.
8:28 Speaker 01 Oh, well, that's very difficult. Okay, so you get some heavy hitters early on. So you have essentially the War of Liberation against the Hixos, these northerners who have ruled Egypt and who need to be expelled. And that happens, that really heralds the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty, about fifteen hundred and something BCE. And that's Akmosi. Akmosi, we're now calling him the Second. He used to be called Akmosi the First.
8:54 Tristan Hughes? Okay.
8:55 Speaker 01 But because we've discovered an earlier Akmosi, we're calling him Akmosi the Second. Then he initiates.
9:02 Speaker 01 A line of not necessarily blood relations because we get Amenhotep I, who's a son of Akhenaten, but then we get Thutmose I. So he's a real warrior king and he not only repels foreign invasions, he doesn't just expel people like Akhenaten I, but he actively seeks to expand that field of influence, that sphere of influence of Egypt. And I think it's that that sets the precedent for Ramses to look back on.
9:32 Tristan Hughes? The whole dynasty, it's a time of kind of wealthy art and architecture, amazing structures like the obelisks, warrior kings, but also powerful queens as well like Hatshepsut. So as you mentioned right at the start, this actually feels like the real zenith of ancient Egypt, rather than the 19th dynasty that follows.
9:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that that's fair in kind of rough terms. If we're thinking about success as artistic quality, and that's very subjective, of course, criterion, and how much actual gold there is in the treasury. So Thutmose III is an important character. He's sometimes called the Napoleon of ancient Egypt. Expansionist, he is working in concert with his aunt, his stepmother Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh who rules for 20 odd years. By his side, much is made of the potential rivalry, the kind of the cookie cutter impression of the wicked stepmother. Forget it. The relationship is much more complicated than that.
10:31 Speaker 01 But setting the precedent for Ramses II, Thutmose III leaves things in pretty good condition. His son Amenhotep II, yeah, pretty good. By the reign of Amenhotep III, you do get the impression that he's just sat down, just enjoying being luxurious because his forefathers have done it for him. He is not really going out doing battle. And then maybe the decadence sets in. And so his son is Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaten. And he is a unapologetic weirdo for an ancient Egyptian king. He kind of rips up the rulebook to an extent.
11:12 Speaker 01 And then much is made, although I'm not sure how plausible I find this, much is made of the fact that we have an archive from the reign of Akhenaten and the end of the reign of Amenhotep III that talks about. Foreign diplomatic exchange. So you have a sense of, again, we're using modern terms, which I probably don't apply, a foreign office, which basically has cuneiform, the so-called Amarna letters, that talk about, you know, please, my brother, because they're all calling the kings of the
11:45 Tristan Hughes? This brotherhood of kings.
11:46 Speaker 01 Yes, of the Levant, of the Bronze Age, that part of the world. They are asking, you know, for the Egyptian king to send gold, because gold is as plentiful as sand. You know, send me a real gold statue, a solid gold statue, not just a plated gold statue. Send me chariots, send me all the nice stuff. But there is a sense in which, and it may be typical, we don't have the other side of the dialogue, but there is a sense that the Egyptian king Akhenaten is maybe not doing as much as he could to maintain Egyptian imperial possessions. And that is important, because there does seem to be a lull in Egyptian foreign influence in the Levant. And it is that ultimately, that the dynasty
12:29 Speaker 01 of Ramses the second seeks to re-establish.
12:32 Tristan Hughes? Exactly. So this almost steady decline of the 18th dynasty following Phutmose III, isn't it, that we're going to explore. And you mentioned source material there, like you had those letters in cuneiform. Do we have quite a rich array of source material for learning about the 18th dynasty and the latter half of the 18th dynasty as we get to the to the rise ultimately of the House of Ramses?
12:54 Speaker 01 Well, we're so dependent on official proclamations, which are given a flavour, shall we say, if we're being positivist, that give some kind of flavour, but they don't recount the detail anything like the way a historian would want today. But you're right, that those cuneiform tablets, the Amarna letters, offer a really fascinating insight, because these are one-on-one discussions. This is the queen of Egypt writes, or the king of Egypt writes to their opposite number. So you you get a sense of the geopolitics of the time, but it's shrouded in decorum. What is appropriate to say in certain contexts?
13:39 Speaker 01 And we only really have one side of the of the discussion.
13:42 Tristan Hughes? So if we have, let's say, Egypt at its height under Thutmose III, ruling an empire at that time, I mean, how big an empire should we be thinking of? And I want to ask that question first of all, because if we then fast forward to, let's say, the reign of Akhenaten, so we can get a real sense of how that empire is already transforming by that pharaoh by the time of Akhenaten and Hotep IV.
14:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, so purely in terms of geographical extent, and again, I emphasize, I wouldn't think of it as an empire like the Roman Empire or the British Empire, but it's an area of influence. Egypt itself, it should always be stressed, is the perfect country. So Egypt bordered naturally by the Mediterranean, by the deserts, by the Cathracts to the south, the Aswan, is ideal. You don't need, Egypt doesn't need to expand. It's already perfect, set by the gods. But to the north, in the reign of Thutmose III, you know, there's areas of influence up to the Euphrates. So it's a big stretch of up into what is now modern Syria and Iraq.
14:47 Speaker 01 To the south, deep into what is now Sudan. To the west, of course, there's Libya. And we'll come back to Libya because Ramesses really makes a point of that as well. And so these are the kind of the natural extents of ancient Egyptian exploitation. So they want stuff. They're not interested really in everyone believing in the Egyptian way of life. Yes, there are elite key people that pay homage to the king and send tribute. But they want stuff, they want materials, they want gold, they want, you know, access to metals, to exotic products, to people.
15:28 Speaker 01 There's exploitation of people, of course, there are enslaved people in all of this. But maybe not quite of the character that maybe we've been led to think in scriptural sources.
15:42 Tristan Hughes? And so that's hit it at its height. I mean, so how does it decline by the time we get to Akanaten, a few decades, is it quite a few decades later, isn't it?
15:51 Speaker 01 Yeah. So if we think, so two Moes is in the 1400s, Akanaten is the mid 1300s. So 60, 70, 80 years later, there is a lot of ping ponging goes on between. So if you're a kind of small state in the south of modern Syria, say, and you've got the Egyptians who claim, you know, control or some kind of nominal control of your land and want you to send tribute, that's fine if they come and they have a military sortie and they beat you up. But then when the Egyptians withdraw back to their capital at Memphis,
16:31 Speaker 01 this will be important later, then they're quite far away from the south of Syria.
16:37 Tristan Hughes? And Memphis is almost the northern capital as well, isn't it?
16:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's the apex of the of the delta, where the the delta meets the the valley in Egypt. But then if you've got the Hittites, who are the north of Syria, and you've got peoples to what is in what is now a modern Turkey, you've got the Assyrians more towards the the west. When they come and threaten you, you'll immediately change loyalty to the person, the big bad wolf that's that's closer to you. So the Egyptians always had a problem about exerting influence from so far away. And maybe that led to a shift in the the notional capital, which was affected by the 19th dynasty.
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18:30 Tristan Hughes? So that's interesting. So do you therefore see as, as those decades go on in the 18th dynasty, do you see those new powers like the Hittites, like the Assyrians, becoming more prominent? And Egypt, in contrast, you know, these rulers become a bit more obsessed with their luxuries, this idea of decadence and so on. And so Egyptian power on the, well, the Bronze Age world stage does diminish and the, the other powers like the Hittites does grow at that time.
18:56 Speaker 01 Yes, there's definitely a sense of the, the expansion and the, the kind of awakening of other powers. But you're right to say that by the reign of Amenhotep III, so again, 1300s, there is this sense of the international court. So yeah, internationalism is a sign of kind of cosmopolitan life at court for the wealthy. But while people are enjoying, you know, the latest imported pottery and very fine designs and jewellery, other military things might be slipping. And that is in, in proportion to the ambition of other powers.
19:36 Tristan Hughes? Okay. So what follows Akhenaten, it doesn't end well for Akhenaten, does it?
19:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, you could say that, I suppose. We don't know what exactly happens. Akhenaten's very experimental. The experiment backfires.
19:49 Speaker 01 And they have to undo all the revolutionary.
19:51 Tristan Hughes? We're sorry, very briefly, this experimental stuff. I know, this is another episode.
19:55 Speaker 01 Well, well, right. So Akhenaten decides there are no gods but the sun god, a special form of the sun god. And he is the unique interlocutor with the sun god, the Atten. So that's why he changes his name from Amenhotep, the god Amun is satisfied to Akhenaten, effective for the Atten. And then for, gosh, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years, he, he, and his immediate successors, to a degree we're not quite sure of, espouse the worship of the Atten and they close all the other temples. So quite apart from it just being a religious revolution, it is an economic challenge.
20:35 Speaker 01 Because imagine you're the high priest of the god Amun and the king says, nope, we're closing the temple of Karnak. Okay, then.
20:43 Tristan Hughes? This is almost a bit of economic self destruction at the same time.
20:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, people have compared it to, to Henry VIII and monasteries and, you know, trying to wrest power from these religious institutions into the hands of the king, which I think there's a good argument that that's what Akhenaten's trying to do. But it creates all kinds of issues. Anyway, Akhenaten says he himself is going back to, well, going back, going to a new virgin site, his capital city, what we call Amarna now, the city of Akhet.
21:14 Tristan Hughes? Hence the Amarna letters that you mentioned.
21:16 Speaker 01 Exactly. So this is, this is the source of the, the so-called diplomatic correspondence in the Foreign Office. But so that, that settlement in Middle Egypt is the home of the king. It's where the, the king and the elite are going to be buried. And you get the sense that Akhenaten's really kind of sequestered himself away at Amarna and is ignoring other things where traditionally the king in ancient Egypt moved around. It was a peripatetic court. As in other traditions, the king moves around to keep an eye on people, to make sure that they're loyal. Who knows what else is happening in Egypt at this time, but the court is focused in Middle Egypt. So you could see that the letters are arriving saying to Akhenaten, we could do with your help.
21:57 Speaker 01 If, if, if you want to maintain your presence in this part of the Levant, then please send help. And he doesn't seem to send help.
22:05 Tristan Hughes? He doesn't. So alarm bells are ringing, feels a bit of a tumultuous time inside Egypt and beyond for Egyptian influence. So what follows him? I mean, how do we get to these last big figures in the 18th dynasty? And I guess this, this gradual decline that follows.
22:22 Speaker 01 Well, the biggest name in terms of, you know, historical cache is of course Tutankhamun.
22:27 Tristan Hughes? Tutankhamun, okay.
22:29 Speaker 01 So Tutankhamun, by most accounts, is the son of Akhenaten, right? And he comes to the throne, we can be as sure as we can be sure, at nine or 10 years old.
22:38 Tristan Hughes? Oh dear, wow.
22:40 Speaker 01 He's a little boy and he is being controlled by kind of revisionist politicians, for want of a better term, who want to backtrack on the revolution. And so all of this is put in the words of the boy king, I have restored the temples. And where the gods, you know, abandoned and ignored Egypt, I have, I have propitiated them and put things back to how they were. Of course, a 10 year old boy is not getting in a chariot really. Maybe towards the end of his life, in his later teenage years, he is, there is evidence that Tutankhamun does engage in some kind of military activity. But there must be powers, and we know there are powers, military powers, that are not blood relations of the royal family,
23:23 Speaker 01 who are thinking, right, we need to get some action going here to reclaim, or at least to maintain, some of these, again, areas of influence. I, I don't think it's trying to defend the empire, because I think the, the empire, such as it was, had already frayed. It is about trying to push those trade alliances. Yeah, areas of influence.
23:46 Tristan Hughes? Like military advisers at court kind of thing, or actual active commanders in the field?
23:51 Speaker 01 Active commanders in the field. And so those people who usually would be kind of subordinate advisers to the king really rise in prominence. So it didn't come and dies however he dies, believe what you want, chariot accident, malaria, killed by a hippo, whatever, we'll never know. But then he's succeeded by this kind of shadowy elder figure, the god's father I, who rules for a couple of years.
24:20 Tristan Hughes? It's A Y, isn't it?
24:21 Speaker 01 Yes, A Y or A Y E. He is very odd. And then he eventually is succeeded by an out and out military man. And this is your man, Horem Heb.
24:33 Tristan Hughes? Now, this is a very interesting figure. So what do we know about Horem Heb?
24:37 Speaker 01 So Horem Heb comes from non-royal backgrounds, as far as we can tell. He must, of course, be a mover and a shaker. He's in the royal courts. But he clearly, we know from the extensive preserved evidence of his tomb at Saqqara, where he built a really impressive tomb chapel to celebrate his eternal cult. He was then in charge of the military. So he says he's the chief of the soldiers, the fighting men. He's also in charge of building works. And I think this is important to understand Horem Heb. He is not just a military man. He's in charge of the recruits. And the recruits are guys
25:18 Speaker 01 who can equally be sent on a campaign to beat people up, as they can be sent to a quarry, as they can be sent to a mine. So you're in charge, not just of, you know, military personnel, but you're in charge of people. And so he's unusual. Horem Heb is unusual because we've got statues of him where he's very proudly writing things down as a scribe. So don't think of him as a kind of, kind of meathead.
25:47 Speaker 01 Guy who's who's just a bit of a brute. I think he's intelligent. He's clearly someone who understands the workings of the state and who is proud of his ability as an administrator. So he really is an all rounder. And so when the throne eventually passes to him, you know, he's he's in charge for almost a couple of decades. He has a long reign. So he's again, holding the the reins of power. And he is the one who really goes back and tries to scrub out evidence of Akhenaten or begins that process.
26:22 Tristan Hughes? Ah, and he is, you know, he is a military usurper. So the fact that then he has a success. Oh, you you took a big breath there.
26:28 Speaker 01 I, I, yeah, I mean, that that it sounds dramatic, but I don't think you're far from the truth. And so he he instigates what is essentially a military coup.
26:37 Tristan Hughes? Yes.
26:37 Speaker 01 Yes.
26:38 Tristan Hughes? That's the thinking. And the state of the army at that time, because I can imagine almost Horemheb, if he's staged this coup, then he needs substantial support amongst the army itself. Do we know much about what the army looked like at this time? Is it split around the place? Is it professional? What should we be imagining?
26:54 Speaker 01 So compared to earlier periods, say, the Middle Kingdom, you know, you know, a few hundred years before, when we know there are military raids going on down into Nubia and up into the the Levant, it seems that to raise an army, you basically go around and say, come on, chaps, who wants to fight? Whereas by the end of the 18th dynasty, there is a professionalization. So you will say, I'm a charioteer. My father was a charioteer. So there must be, I hesitate to say a military class, but there are a group of people whose ancestors have fought and done some pretty impressive things, possibly in the 18th dynasty. So yes, I think there is a professionalization. And maybe these people have been in the reign
27:36 Speaker 01 of Akhenaten, possibly sitting around with nothing to do. And you could imagine someone like Horemheb.
27:42 Tristan Hughes? Hmm.
27:42 Speaker 01 Organizing these people and.
27:44 Tristan Hughes? A charismatic figurehead, right?
27:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. And and in Horemheb's first, because he has two tombs, because he becomes a pharaoh and therefore takes a tomb in the Valley of the Kings down at Thebes. But in his first tomb, he's showing, you know, engaged in.
28:01 Speaker 01 Things to do with military activity under Tutankhamun. So we should understand that Tutankhamun is the nominal, the notional patron. He's sending off the trips into battle, but it's Horem Heb who's actually doing it and commanding them.
28:17 Tristan Hughes? He's the one who probably has the respect more of the actual soldiers on the ground. And soldiers wise, should we be thinking the chariots for the elites and then everyday Egyptian soldiers, archers or infantry with not too much equipment?
28:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, so remember, we're still in the Bronze Age, you're fighting with bronze metal weapons. This is not the Iron Age yet in Egypt. You are going into battle, you're as a foot soldier with a shield, which is a pretty important, a dagger or a sword and an axe.
28:45 Tristan Hughes? Oh, an axe.
28:46 Speaker 01 So you're gonna axe someone. But you should also, I guess, remember that the chariot is still a fairly modern invention. It's a couple of hundreds of years old. And I think we think of ancient Egypt as always having used chariots, but they've come into Egypt from the north, maybe brought with the Heksaos and these wars of liberation. And those are only, yeah, a couple of hundred years before. So Horem Heb has the connections, the elite military connections with other generals. That's important. And then, as you say, he probably has the loyalty of the foot soldiers, the infantry.
29:25 Tristan Hughes? It's so interesting with Horem Heb because so often in ancient history, you might see a dynasty, a role figure be toppled by a military figure. But then so often, right after that, either that military figure proves incapable of being an administrator and ruling, or you see it just break out into other generals think, actually, I don't respect you as my leader anymore. I'm going to try and seize power myself. So you see a breakdown into civil war, the fracturing of kingdoms and so on. So does that make Horem Heb's achievement even greater? The fact that he does reign for a long time and does prove to be quite, it seems quite an effective ruler?
30:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, based on the evidence, always this caveat.
30:04 Tristan Hughes? That's a good point.
30:04 Speaker 01 Based on the evidence that we have, of course, the ruler is honor bound to describe themselves as the best and God given and doing everything very effectively. They're not recording.
30:15 Speaker 01 Negative things, but still you do get the sense that Horemheb is an effective ruler. The one thing that he lacks is an heir, a male heir.
30:25 Tristan Hughes? Right.
30:27 Speaker 01 And this is, again, some responsible thinking for any ruler. If you don't have an heir, you don't have a spare, you don't have a male descendant, blood descendant. You have to make plans to make it absolutely clear who is going to be the next king, because you could drop dead at any moment.
30:45 Tristan Hughes? Is adoption a thing at the time?
30:47 Speaker 01 Yes, adoption is a social practice in Egypt. It's an important social practice. So at that level, I mean, it's relatively unusual that that kings who have many wives don't somehow manage to produce a male heir. But Horemheb, for whatever reason, doesn't have surviving male, surviving sons. So he adopts, for want of a better term, this chap Pa Ramesu, who is the vizier, the the chati, the the kind of chief minister, but also has a military background. And he is from the, we know a bit about him, his background, his father Seti, based in the in the eastern Nile Delta, so the family hometown is known about.
31:30 Speaker 01 And so he has the great advantage of having a living son and probably a living grandson. So there is a line ready. So maybe these guys are just mates, they're just friends from the battlefield. But maybe there are other strategic, social, political reasons.
31:49 Tristan Hughes? So we can presume that, I mean, Horemheb choosing his heir and Pa Ramesu, you know, probably was a loyal subordinate in the close circle, but also, aside from that loyalty, someone who had that family line.
32:04 Speaker 01 Sure.
32:04 Tristan Hughes? We don't know if he had any connection to the royal family of old at all, do we?
32:07 Speaker 01 Um, you you could expect that if you didn't have a connection, you'd want there to be a connection by marrying a random princess of royal blood. That was quite effective. And it tended to be the blue blooded women who really made the king, who really confirmed the legitimacy of the line.
32:24 Tristan Hughes? So is Pa-Ramesu kind of clue in the name? Is he the beginning of this new dynasty, of the 19th dynasty?
32:30 Speaker 01 Yes, and what Egyptologists call the Ramesside Age. Because he is as king, when he becomes king for a short time, for a couple of years, he takes the name Ramses and he becomes Ramses the first.
32:42 Tristan Hughes? He's Ramses the first, because we always hear about Ramses the second, don't we? But we don't hear about Ramses the first. And do we know much about his reign? It's short-lived, as you say, but do we know much?
32:50 Speaker 01 It's short-lived. He has ambition, you know, he starts a very nice tomb in the Valley of the Kings, which has to literally be cut short because he only lives a couple of years. But something about Ramses the first. So we are using these names, which are the people in question's birth names. So the parents of Ramses the first call him Pa-Ramesu, which means literally he of the sun god.
33:16 Tristan Hughes? Wow, okay.
33:17 Speaker 01 But his name as king, he takes on a series of names. But the names the ancient Egyptians would have known these people by is the throne name, the pre-nomen, as opposed to the nomen. The nomen is your birth name, what your family might call you. But the throne name for Ramses the first is telling. So he's called Men-Pechti-Re. So that means literally the strength of the sun god is established, or establishing the strength of the sun god. So Pechti means strength. And we know that the first king of the 18th dynasty, Achmos the second, who's this military guy, he is called Neb-Pechti-Re.
34:02 Speaker 01 So there's this reference to strength. And we know also that the family are from this part of the eastern delta in the north of Egypt, where the god Seth is the local patron.
34:12 Tristan Hughes? Now, who's the god Seth?
34:13 Speaker 01 Now Seth, we've encountered him before, you and I. But Seth is kind of the ying to the yang of Horus. So he's often described in very negative terms because he's a god of storms and he tries to do nasty things to his nephew, but he's also great of strength. The god Seth is emblematic of this kind of brute, uncontrolled, voracious strength on the battlefield. So the fact that Ramses the First takes that name, I think, is politically and religiously the two are interconnected.
34:49 Tristan Hughes? And so he originates, his family originates from the north of Egypt.
34:52 Speaker 01 Yes.
34:53 Tristan Hughes? But when he becomes pharaoh, at that time, does he have to relocate himself further south? Because you mentioned the Valley of the Kings earlier.
35:01 Speaker 01 Yes.
35:02 Tristan Hughes? Although Horemheb is buried much further north at Saqqara, but is it at that time that Luxor and ancient Thebes is the main centre of Egypt?
35:10 Speaker 01 Yes, though I should, should say Horemheb's tomb is abandoned in the north because he's not really buried there.
35:16 Tristan Hughes? Oh, okay.
35:16 Speaker 01 Because he's a king, he has artisans go and add a snake to his brow on all the, almost all the depictions of him in his tomb at Saqqara in the north, because he's become a king.
35:28 Tristan Hughes? Right.
35:29 Speaker 01 But a king in the new kingdom of Egypt at that time cannot be buried in a mere Saqqara tomb. He's got to be buried in the royal cemetery.
35:38 Tristan Hughes? Right.
35:39 Speaker 01 At the Valley of the Kings.
35:40 Tristan Hughes? So there's a tomb of Horemheb at the Valley of the Kings?
35:42 Speaker 01 At the Valley of the Kings. So Ramses the First, and this is an interesting question, unlike Akhenaten, doesn't just stay in one place at one time and stick there. He moves around. I think he starts back, well, he continues this tradition of, of the peripatetic court, but there is definitely a favouring of the north.
36:03 Tristan Hughes? Oh, okay.
36:04 Speaker 01 And it may be that Ramses the First gives his name to an incredible new settlement developed by his son Seti the First and his grandson Ramses the Second, and that is called Peramsees or Per Ramses, which in ancient Egyptian means house of Ramses.
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37:31 Tristan Hughes? So this is why I want to talk about Ramses the First for quite a bit, because he lasts not very long at all. And yet, from the surviving evidence of, you know, first his son and then Ramses the Great, you can actually see perhaps a few of the projects that he had in mind that he didn't get to live long enough to see through.
37:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think that's a really good, good way to think about it, Justin, because I think, well, he gives his name to 11 kings. This whole period, as I said, is called the Ramesside period in the first Ramses. Ramses the First must have ambition because he's chosen by Horemheb. He must be quite a dynamic guy, and he must pass on, at least to his son, if not to his grandson, you know, spoken instructions for what, for what he, he wants to achieve.
38:17 Tristan Hughes? So Ramses the Great, his grandson, is alive at the time.
38:21 Speaker 01 He must be.
38:22 Tristan Hughes? That Ramses the First is ruling for that period.
38:24 Speaker 01 I think he must be. So I think whether Ramses the Second, Prince, the young prince, is already anointed.
38:34 Speaker 01 As the chosen successor, I mean, even the concept of the crown prince that you get in modern, you know, European monarchies, I don't think that quite applies. You don't have to be, it is notionally the eldest son, but there is internal competition. And I think it is up to the reigning monarch, the king, to say, okay, you're better than him.
38:58 Tristan Hughes? Right.
38:59 Speaker 01 And so, so, you know, there's the heir apparent may not necessarily be the eldest eldest boy, but I'm as sure as I can be, given the reign length of Seti the first, that the baby, young boy Ramses the second is known to his grandfather.
39:16 Tristan Hughes? Interesting. Well, then let's talk about Seti the first. So what do we know about his reign, following the death of Ramses the first?
39:25 Speaker 01 He gets to it pretty quickly. And by most Egyptologists' estimation, Seti the first really is a pretty self-conscious and effective patron of the arts. He takes this very interesting name, which is a throwback itself to earlier kings, wehem mesut, which means literally repeater of births. So literally in ancient Egyptian, it means renaissance. He wants to undo a lot of the Amarna interlude. We know that he goes around restoring images of Amun, adding his own name, where the name wasn't there previously. And in that, he inspires his son deeply. I think there is a deep psychological thing about this.
40:10 Speaker 01 Still remember New Kids in the Block, Aravist dynasty? They want to make absolutely sure that their claim is solid and will last. And they do that by restoring the works of their ancestors and shouting about how much they've restored the works of their ancestors. And so Seti the first commissions this incredible temple, which still is one of my favorite sites in Egypt, at Abydos, the site in the south of Egypt, a bit north of Thebes. That's the sacred site of the ancient god Osiris. So you very easily, by building a temple there, connect yourself to this.
40:49 Speaker 01 Very longstanding cult of the god of rebirth. And in that temple, beautifully decorated temple, there is a very significant corridor, very significant for historical reasons, because following on a tradition which itself was quite old of celebrating previous kings, there is a scene of Seti I and his young son Ramses reading out, declaiming, announcing, ritualizing the names of all their predecessors. And this Hall of Ancestors is significantly located between the abattoir and the temple offering rooms. So all the offerings of, you know, the beef have to go in front of
41:31 Speaker 01 the corridor. So you are feeding the souls of everyone named on the wall as you pass. So it's this metaphysical sense of not just celebrating, look at all these great kings who have come before, but ensuring that their souls quite literally are sustained with offerings by locating the offering list in this particular place. It also anchors Ramses II in as prince.
41:59 Tristan Hughes? Crown prince this time, we think, yeah.
42:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, really as the heir apparent. And there must be, what's not uncommon in ancient Egypt, a co-regency. So there is not just a crown prince, there is a nominated successor who kind of shares the throne. And maybe, you know, Seti I saw or foresaw that he wasn't going to live a very long life. He can only be forty-ish when he dies. And then Ramses II must come to the throne pretty young, twenty maybe.
42:30 Tristan Hughes? I mean, it feels like Seti, his reign, it's a decade or so, isn't it?
42:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, about more than a decade.
42:36 Tristan Hughes? But yes, because Ramses I has died so quickly, he is focused in like kind of consolidating the new dynasty, legitimizing its position with those kind of images, those dedications to temples and ancestors. But also, I guess, military activity too, that's another important thing he has to do.
42:53 Speaker 01 Yes, yes, absolutely. You're right. We know this on the north wall of the outside of the main temple of Amun at Karnak.
43:00 Tristan Hughes? Yes.
43:01 Speaker 01 You've been there, you've stood in front.
43:02 Tristan Hughes? Stunning.
43:03 Speaker 01 My gosh. And often it's missed by tourists. They're impressed by the hyper-style hall and ports going on inside. But if you step outside, you see an absolutely incredible.
43:14 Speaker 01 Depiction of military engagements where, you know, Seti the first is leading his troops into battle along the ways of Horus. So this is up northeast into the, into the Levant. And so there is, again, there's a lot of trying to control these ping pong states to try and get them back under Egyptian control. And where in some cases, especially when it comes to the Hittites, you get the impression that Seti the first will let some, he picks his battles quite literally, and he lets some sleeping dogs lie, where maybe Prince Ramses, who may actually be involved, he may be
43:55 Speaker 01 as a teenager, physically be involved on campaign. You get the sense maybe Seti the first stops short, where Ramses the second wants to continue and push further when eventually he becomes king.
44:10 Tristan Hughes? It's like Philip the second of Macedon and Alexander the Great. It's the dad that lays the foundations for the son to follow in the footsteps. Interesting.
44:17 Speaker 01 Good analogy, yeah.
44:18 Tristan Hughes? But no, I, I just want to focus a bit more on that north wall of the Hyrcostal Wall at Karnak, because you look at it, and one of my favorite pictures, parts of it, is you see a river full of crocodiles.
44:28 Speaker 01 Yes, you're snapping at the poor unfortunate who've gone in the river.
44:32 Tristan Hughes? This idea that the Egyptians have to cross this river, I think it's like the Sinai Peninsula, that area, they think it is around there, to get into Syria where they're campaigning. And then I think you see another depiction of Kadesh of all places in Seti's reign. And he's besieging Kadesh at that time. It's Seti, not Ramses.
44:47 Speaker 01 Indeed. So people hear Battle of Kadesh, and if they know anything about ancient warfare, they think of Ramses the second. But the, the grudge with Kadesh definitely dates back to the reign of, of Seti the first. So Kadesh is in what is now modern Syria. So it's, it's far from Egypt. You have to, it takes several weeks to, to go there by foot with a big army. But that's what Seti does. He goes, he campaigns there. And this is partly a hangover of the Amarna period, that those depictions are so detailed. That is an Amarna thing. You would never see that level of detail in the reign of Thutmose the third. And maybe there's something to be proven. Maybe it's Seti the first really trying to make the point.
45:33 Speaker 01 That there must be something like a kind of court war correspondent or war artist, because the detail is very specific. And most ancient Egyptian scenes do not reflect history as it happened and don't reflect the world as it actually is. But yeah, there are details that bring about this, this world in which foreigners, anyone who's unfortunate enough to be non Egyptian, is in disarray. And the Egyptians are successful on campaign. So the, the, the local detail, the, the scenes of, yeah, a siege, fortifications, canals, rivers, you know, siege warfare, that does seem to ring true.
46:17 Tristan Hughes? God, so fascinating, isn't it? And with Seti's reign, although he doesn't last very long, actually, one other thing, we mentioned Karnak there in the hyper-style hall, which we normally associate with Ramses the second, constructed beginning under Seti or maybe even older than that, do we think?
46:35 Speaker 01 I think it maybe was conceptualized all the way back under Amenhotep the third, and Seti the first does the bulk of the work.
46:45 Tristan Hughes? Okay.
46:45 Speaker 01 So I think it's really realized by Seti the first, and he begins to decorate it and, and by the time he dies, it's half finished.
46:54 Tristan Hughes? Right.
46:54 Speaker 01 And so Ramses the second completes it. But it is an absolutely astounding piece of architecture, you know, world architecture, absolutely breathtaking.
47:04 Tristan Hughes? And his tomb as well, in the Valley of the Kings, it's one of the most pristine, remarkable tombs.
47:08 Speaker 01 Jewel-like. And it's funny because Ramses the second's is in real terms bigger, but is much, much less well-preserved.
47:15 Tristan Hughes? Interesting. With that, Seti's reign, I mean, how successful would you argue that Seti is? Because normally it is the case that the predecessor really sets the scene for the, the greatness of the person that follows in, in several cases, once again, Philip and Alexander. How successful do you think Seti is in the context of, you know, consolidating control and getting the 19th dynasty really on track?
47:41 Speaker 01 Oh, I think, I think he's pretty successful. I think he, he, as you said. Sets the the train in motion for what he hopes is going to be a long-lived dynasty. As we'll discuss maybe in the next episode, the fact that his son is so long-lived may actually compromise Seti's plans. But as a military man, clearly, you know, I guess Seti the first would have remembered a time when he was not meant to be the king. You know, he was a military general. He was the son of a military general. He was someone important, but he had to prove himself amongst his colleagues. Yeah, his peers, exactly.
48:24 Speaker 01 So he has the kind of kingship thrust upon him, you could say. So he he has that genuine ingenuity where in his conscious life, Ramses the second was always a prince. So you always have that kind of the silver spoon in his mouth. So maybe his ambition is slightly different from his father's. But his father, in terms of, especially in terms of architectural and artistic work, as you mentioned, the tomb in the Valley of the Kings, work at Karnak, other sites as well, but the temple of Seti the first at Abydos. These are just beautiful things.
49:06 Speaker 01 And I think he does instigate this corregency that sets the scene for Ramses the second. And when eventually Ramses the second takes the throne, he says at that Abydos temple, I arrived here and found it unfinished and I finished it in honour of his father. So he he doesn't change the names. Well, he does around the edges perhaps. He completes it in his own name, which is completely okay by ancient Egyptian standards. It's not that the son is trying to elbow the father out of the way. He's simply complimenting his father because kingship is timeless. And none of those images of the kings look like the real people on the walls. So you can simply continue the imagery.
49:50 Speaker 01 It's not a conflict in the way we might think.
49:54 Tristan Hughes? And so we get to the reign of Ramses the Second. We'll cover only the first few years as we wrap up this episode. But firstly, is there any challenger to Ramses the Second's succession? If Seti's made it quite clear in his wall paintings and the reliefs that he seems to be the clear heir apparent, do we know much about the succession and whether there was any difficulty around it?
50:18 Speaker 01 Well, there's an interesting set of evidence at Karnak where there's a chap called Mehhu, Mehhu or Mehhi, I forget, who is shown in a very prominent position in these battle reliefs. So you get the sense that this guy is the right hand man. And in some of those reliefs, his image is changed to being Prince Ramses. Now, I wouldn't make too much of this. I think that's just what's appropriate to Ramses the Second. I don't think this represents another rival claimant to the throne. It may just be when the reliefs were executed, it was fitting at the time. And then as time progressed, Ramses the Second really wanted to claim part
51:03 Speaker 01 of that legacy. But no, the succession seems fairly clear. As I said, there is a co-regency. And the, for example, that scene in the Hall of Ancestors at Abydos, you can see that is a product of the work of Seti the First, when Seti the First is still alive. So it seems that Ramses the Second is the anointed heir and is accepted as such.
51:26 Tristan Hughes? And how does he initially reign? What do we know about those earliest years of Ramses the Second as pharaoh?
51:32 Speaker 01 You get the impression, well, he has to finish off some of his dad's building stuff, but you do get that sense that he's itching to get in a chariot and go and
51:42 Tristan Hughes? Really?
51:43 Speaker 01 beat up some foreigners. So as I say, it's probably likely that he had some experience in the entourage, at least of his father, whether he's actively out on the front lines is another question. That doesn't seem to happen later in Ramses the Second's own reign. But he goes, yeah, year four, year five, so early in the reign of Ramses the Second's long time in the throne, he goes out to Kadesh again. And he wants to confirm the status of these vassal states. So these are Kind of client kingdoms. Again, I resist this, this term empire. It's not like they're trying to turn them Egyptian. It's trying to get their loyalty, their fealty, their.
52:26 Tristan Hughes? It was buffer states as well, I guess, you know, buffers, vessels.
52:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, against a more problematic enemy, which in, in the early part of the reign of Ramses the second, that's the Hittites.
52:37 Tristan Hughes? It's the Hittites.
52:38 Speaker 01 That's like the north of Syria, even into, yeah, modern, modern Turkey is the, is the seat of the Hittite empire.
52:46 Tristan Hughes? So he feels he has beef, unfinished beef with Kadesh after his dad. So he goes up to Syria and is this when we get the famous Battle of Kadesh?
52:58 Speaker 01 Yes, and it's famous because he tells us so many times. He's done it. It's recorded in, in several temples, his mansion of millions of years, which we'll talk about separately. Karnak, Luxor, Abu Simbel, he's talking about this a lot. And so, yeah, the engagement is fascinating because we know a lot from recorded speeches. So you get this sense, not just of the, the action as it plays out, but of the psychology of the king. Because there are, well, we, we can tell something about the, the, the organisation of the military. So you have the infantry, you have the chariots divided up into divisions and divisions are named
53:41 Speaker 01 after gods. I don't know how common that is in the ancient world.
53:45 Tristan Hughes? I can't think of any other examples that come to mind straight away. I'm sure someone will have a comment here and saying that there might be one. But no, when you think of divisions of armies, you do think of Kadesh and this description that you have, right?
53:59 Speaker 01 Yeah. So, so you, they're named after the major gods of Egypt, Amun, Ebtah, Seth, and the sun god Re. And so in the account, it's very unusual. The, the Kadesh account is unusual because it reflects, it's unusually reflective because it allows that mistakes are made by the Egyptians. So it talks about, you know, these informants are captured and these non Egyptian informants, and they say, oh, the Hittite ruler is 120.
54:34 Tristan Hughes? Yeah, he's far away.
54:36 Speaker 01 He's really far away, leagues off. And so the Egyptians are okay with that. And so they they they kind of become a little complacent, maybe, when they're marching to make camp near Kadesh. Then they get hold of better intelligence, which says that the Hittites are much closer. And the Hittites, surprise, surprise, attack the Egyptians when they're unprepared. And so there's this extraordinary episode in which the attack comes. And it's really the king is said to be alone. He finds himself alone. And so the drama is, and of course, you can see how Ramses spins this. Basically, the greatness of the king comes at the expense of the soldiers,
55:19 Speaker 01 who are usually said to be pretty good and pretty effective. No, no, they're deserters or they're disorganized. And so Ramses personally has to fight off the Hittites, pursues them into the river, and so manages to to win a kind of stalemate. So it's less bad than it could have been. I mean, imagine the king could have been captured or killed, or much worse could have happened. The Egyptians suffer, it is acknowledged, some heavy losses, but they are able to maintain this status quo. So it's a draw, basically. The Battle of Kadesh, in the Hittite eyes, is a success for them. But in the Egyptian eyes, it's a success for the Egyptians.
56:03 Speaker 01 And Ramses, at least early on, spins this as better to kind of keep it as it is. And then later we'll go back and regroup and in a couple of years we'll.
56:13 Tristan Hughes? So he snatches a draw from the jaws of defeat.
56:16 Speaker 01 Yes.
56:17 Tristan Hughes? And you do get a sense then, don't you, putting aside all the Ramses's own spin on it that he does later.
56:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:22 Tristan Hughes? This sense of this young, rash, you know, kid, like new pharaoh. Young man, yes, yeah, young man, I know. Who wants to kind of follow in his dad's footsteps, but doesn't have the military intuition there, maybe that he's lured into a bad position, bad intelligence, then gets the better intelligence later. And he's outwitted by this other king, by this Hittite ruler and his chariots and the like, isn't it?
56:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's for the first time you see an Egyptian king and his opposite number, essentially the enemy. On a kind of even footing. So it almost emphasizes the scale of the challenge. And so the relative success of the draw, I guess, that the Hittites, in terms of numbers, are a big force. So to have got that stalemate is a win for Ramses.
57:10 Tristan Hughes? So how significant do you think is the result at Kadesh for Ramses? If you look at what he does afterwards, if you take the actual military, like, effect of it out of the picture, the fact that, okay, it is a draw, but is it ultimately a success for Ramses because of what he then later does with that?
57:31 Speaker 01 Yes, because I think he can come back to Egypt. Remember, there are no, it's obvious to say, but it sounds a bit trivial. There are no smartphones. There are no photographs. The king has come back and maybe he's captured some booty from the battlefield. And he says, yeah, great success, guys. You will believe whatever the returning force says. You don't have the fact checking. You don't have the counter narrative. So for Ramses to come back after, God, it must be more than a year away. So the king has been away from Egypt, away from the capital, away from the palace for a long time. So for him to come back with some stuff and the story is a success enough.
58:17 Tristan Hughes? And then he'll just paint that, paint those pictures of him on the walls of temples there, looking triumphant as a bigger to try and reinforce that image of a successful returning king?
58:28 Speaker 01 Absolutely. And I think also that there is a sense of it being a stopgap, because you could imagine he is still young. It's only year five, year six. You could think, right, well, I'll go back and have another go in future and then I'll re-carve the wall. Or I will achieve the success that I'm claiming on the on the wall as it stands.
58:48 Tristan Hughes? So is it very much Kadesh and its result? This is only the beginning of Ramses's story. This is only the beginning of his reign, and he's still got a lot to do, a lot to learn and a lot to show off?
59:00 Speaker 01 Yes, I think he does think of it as a lesson. I mean, if we could try and get into his head, but it's a start for 10. It's not the end of the story.
59:09 Tristan Hughes? And we'll continue that in the next episode. Campbell, as always, such a pleasure to have you on the show.
59:14 Speaker 01 Great, thanks.
59:19 Tristan Hughes? Well, there you go. There was Dr Campbell Price talking through the rise of Ramses II, his father and grandfather and Horemheb and the likes before him, how it ultimately paved the way for Ramses II to take the title of pharaoh in the early 13th century BC. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Campbell will be back next week to continue the story, to explain more about Ramses II’s long, long reign and what followed following his death. You’ve got sea peoples in there and you’ve got quite a bit of chaos, which is going to be really fun to explore. So make sure you come back for our second episode with Campbell next week.
1:00:01 Tristan Hughes? In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Ancients. If you enjoyed the episode, if you’re enjoying the show, then please make sure that you are following The Ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you’ll be doing us a big favour. If you’d also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we would really appreciate that. Don’t forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe. That’s all from me. I’ll see you in the next episode.
1:01:33 Tristan Hughes? The.
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