Ramesses III

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Ramesses III : biography

Usimare Ramesses III (also written Ramses and Rameses) was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty and is considered to be the last great New Kingdom king to wield any substantial authority over Egypt.

Ramesses III was the son of Setnakhte and Queen Tiy-Merenese. He was probably murdered by an assassin in a conspiracy led by one of his secondary wives and her minor son.

Conspiracy and death

Thanks to the discovery of papyrus trial transcripts (dated to Ramesses III), it is now known that there was a plot against his life as a result of a royal harem conspiracy during a celebration at Medinet Habu. The conspiracy was instigated by Tiye, one of his three known wives (the others being Tyti and Iset Ta-Hemdjert), over whose son would inherit the throne. Tyti’s son, Ramesses Amonhirkhopshef (the future Ramesses IV), was the eldest and the successor chosen by Ramesses III in preference to Tiye’s son Pentaweret.

The trial documentsJ. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Four, §§423-456 show that many individuals were implicated in the plot.James H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Four, §§416-417 Chief among them were Queen Tiye and her son Pentaweret, Ramesses’ chief of the chamber, Pebekkamen, seven royal butlers (a respectable state office), two Treasury overseers, two Army standard bearers, two royal scribes and a herald. There is little doubt that all of the main conspirators were executed: some of the condemned were given the option of committing suicide (possibly by poison) rather than being put to death.James H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Four, §§446-450 According to the surviving trials transcripts, 3 separate trials were started in total while 38 people were sentenced to death.Joyce Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt, Thames & Hudson October 2006, p.170 The tombs of Tiye and her son Pentaweret were robbed and their names erased to prevent them from enjoying an afterlife. The Egyptians did such a thorough job of this that the only references to them are the trial documents and what remains of their tombs.

Some of the accused harem women tried to seduce the members of the judiciary who tried them but were caught in the act. Judges who were involved were severely punished.Cambridge Ancient History, Cambridge University Press 2000, p.247

It is not certain whether the assassination plot succeeded. However, Ramesses III died in his 32nd year before the summaries of the sentences were composed,J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, p.418 but the same year that the trial documents record the trial and execution of the conspirators.

Although it was long believed that Ramesses III’s body showed no obvious wounds, a recent examination of the mummy by a German forensic team, televised in the documentary Rameses on the Science Channel in 2011, showed excessive bandages around the neck. A subsequent CT scan that was done in Egypt by Ashraf Selim and Sahar Saleem, professors of Radiology in Cairo University, revealed that beneath the bandages was a deep knife wound across the throat, deep enough to reach the vertebrae. According to the documentary narrator, "It was a wound no one could have survived." The December 2012 issue of the British Medical Journal quotes the conclusion of the study of the team of researchers, led by Dr Zahi Hawass, the former head of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquity, and his Egyptian team, as well as Dr Albert Zink from the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman of the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen in Italy, which stated that conspirators murdered pharaoh Ramesses III by cutting his throat.See also . Retrieved 2012-12-18.British Medical Journal, , Monday, December 17, 2012 Zink observes in an interview that:

"The cut [to Ramesses III’s throat] is…very deep and quite large, it really goes down almost down to the bone (spine) – it must have been a lethal injury."