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At Ramses’s III death the Egyptian people went toward a period of slow
decadence: the splendor reached during the XIX dynasty and the beginning of the
XX were only a memory that uselessly the new sovereigns tried to equal. The
corruption was damaging the base of the state and no new sovereign, once he
inherited the royal sceptre, demonstrated to have the strength necessary to
undertake a politic of improvement able to bring the country to the previous
equilibrium and well-being. This delicate condition is explained by the fact
that from the 1153 BC Egypt couldn’t count upon the presence of pharaohs with a
determinate and charismatic personality as Ramses’s II and Ramses’s III ones but
on the contrary, it was governed by second-class personages who tried to emulate
the famous predecessors with disappointing results. The eight pharaohs who
governed Egypt up to 1078 BC had in common with the two great Ramses only the
name. The summary of sovereign who continued the Ramses dynasty began in 1153 BC with Ramses IV and it ended with Ramses’s XI reign, at the down of the third middle period. Ramses’s IV ascent to the throne was marked by an event that tried to avoid the incoronation. It was a conspiracy against Ramses III, plotted inside the harem with the precise intention to kill the sovereign and bring on the throne an illegitimate heir. The traitors were discovered, tried and sentenced to death and at the king’s death it was possible to give the sceptre to the officially recognized heir, that prince who became the fourth pharaoh named Ramses. But this event marked deeply the new sovereign, who for all his reign tried various times to prove to the Egyptian people the legitimacy of his position. Regarding this, the king wanted to clear completely the events about the conspiracy against his father making the royal scribes write a report on the trial against those men and women who had betrayed his majesty. Ramses IV also ordered to write a list of undertakings and works done by his father for the well-being of the country, beginning from the beautiful and impressive temples. Ramses IV himself hoped to be able to surpass in his existence the number of buildings raised first by Ramses II and then by his famous father. The king’s desire was to give Egypt colossal and sumptuous temples, able to challenge the passing of time. To complete this project Ramses IV needed a lot of time. In a prayer the ambitious sovereign asked the goods for a great health to live for a long time and to stay on the throne for various years. But the gods didn’t listen to his prayers: the kings, in fact, died only seven years later without realizing his great projects. So the great funeral temple at the base of the ramp that led to Mentuhotep’s II temple in Deir El.Bahari, remained incomplete; the same was the fate, of a second temple of a smaller size ner Tuthmosi’s III one. The king wasn’t even able to erect a building (remained in the foundation phase) in Medinet Habu. But we know that he ordered to engrave his name on many constructions of previous ages. Some of these monuments report the pre-name of his majesty, Usermaatre, while others the epithet Hekamaatre. The sovereigns ordered to engrave his cartouch and make decorations in Amon’s great temple and in Khan’s temple in Karnak, and in Luxor, in Medinet Habu and in Abydo. The sculptors engraved the name Ramses IV even on monuments in Edfu, in Tlermonti and up to Aniba, in Nubia. Animated by the desire to leave in Egypt traces of his building activity, the king has the merit to have encouraged again the expeditions in the stone quarries in the desert. The pharaoh in fact didn’t hesitate to send over eight thousand men in Wadi Hammamat, in those mines where the bekhen stone was extracted, which was basanite or grovacca, a hard stone very demanded for its very fine granule and for its characteristics of exceptional hardness and compactness; it was the Romans’ niger Lapis or Lapis thebaicus. The mines opened again by the king were abandoned since Sethy’s I time. During Ramses’s IV reign the most important expedition of the New Reign was made, guided by Amon’s great priest, Ramessenakht. Later the pharaoh sent his man in Sinai and in Timna (Israel of today). Before he died the sovereign gave the royal sceptre to his son Ramses V. At his death, Ramses IV was buried in his tomb in the valley of the kings, many years later his body was put for safety in the cachette in Amenhotep’s II tomb. During his reign some high functionaries such as Neferenepet, great priest of Ptah and Ramessenakht assorted themselves for their position for a long time, even after Ramses’s IV death and the following sovereign death. |
