Dr. Campbell Price

So he maybe gets...

undeservedly short shrift because he's overshadowed by his father and people often say Ramesses III is the last great king of ancient Egypt but Meron Ptah must have had a pretty involved training in his youth

So maybe he's in his 60s, not actively going out fighting, but he's able to, I guess, reflect on his experience of being the son of Ramses II and strategize to head off problems which become serious problems in the decades after his reign.

Yes, absolutely.

And I think there was always that looking for an opportunity when religiously, theologically, it's a very vulnerable time for the country between the change of monarch.

I mean, there is something, without forcing modern parallels on it, there was something about the death of Elizabeth II where people were really kind of shaken by it.

And you feel like it's a kind of a cosmic, whether you're a great monarchist or not, there is some kind of cosmic shift there.

And for the ancient Egyptians, that really was a cosmic shift.

So you would take the chance.

If you're going to make trouble for the Egyptian state, you will wait until

No, I think the parallel is justified, yeah.

Yes, I mean, we don't have many records from his own mansion of millions of years because it's not terribly well preserved, but there are other bits of historical accounts that really make it clear that the Sea Peoples and other non-Egyptian threats are serious.

And so maybe we know in the case of Zawai'at al-Malraqam, on the north coast, the Mediterranean coast, that's the fortress in the northwest, that things are happening.

There is a tangible threat from the people to the west.

And eventually, with time, a couple of hundred years later, there will be Libyan kings of Egypt.

So it will go so far as to be, you know, a Libyan pharaoh in the throne.

But Menapta...

is the accepted ruler.

But, of course, there are all these other princelings about.

And that creates rivals for the throne, for sure.