Dr. Campbell Price

The cult of the king through these statues, these cult colossi, as I term them,

only are really supercharged with the divine power during his lifetime.

They kind of fade into the background after his death.

So to be fair to the successors of Ramses II, they have to deal with other challenges, which Ramses II didn't have to deal with.

There's another practical thing, though.

The great city that he embellished, Paramses, suffers because the branch of the Nile it's on silts up.

Yes, I think that's fair.

To be fair to Rameses II, who must have been quite a dynamic guy to give him his fair due.

I think, yeah, his successors had to deal with things which, yeah, totally unforeseen on his part.

I mean, he's the greatest in the sense that he had most time to tell us he was great.

Yeah, he's the loudest ruler.

He's the loudest.

Yeah.

I mean, if Hatshepsut had been a man and had ruled for 60 years, we would have no doubt about her, his greatness.

I mean, it's true though we do have evidence of the cult of Ramses II persisting in places like Abydos.

There is evidence of the worship of Ramses II in certain places.

And then his body, of course, survives.

He's buried in the Valley of the Kings.

The body is moved to the royal mummy cache in Deir el-Bakri, DB 320.

And then when that's discovered officially in 1881, that starts a whole new weird afterlife for Ramesses II.