Monday, May 07, 2007

Ramses II

Even though I find the era of pharoahs in Egypt very, very cool, and consider myself a Egypt freak, there are a few of their customs that are very gross. Take Ramses II, he had at least six chief wives, and dozens of lesser wives and concubines. Several of the girls he married were foreigners he married for alliances; he had at least two Hittite brides, one Syrian princess, and one Babylonian. He also married several Egyptian women of royal blood, at least his sister and three daughters. He had 90 children in his 67 year reign. Eesh! The two Hittite queens were sisters, their mother was the queen of the Hittites, her name was Queen Puduhepa. She actually kept up some sort of corrospondance with Queen Nefertari, Ramses’ Great Wife. The letter she sent to Queen Nefartari was never found, but Nefartare’s message back to Queen Puduhepa was this:

With me, your sister, all goes well; with my country all goes well. With you, my sister, may all go well; with your country may all go well. Behold now, I have noted that you, my sister, have written to me, to enquire after my well being. May the sun god and storm god bring you joy; and may the sun god cause the peace to be good and give good brotherhood to the great king, the king of Egypt, with his brother the great king, the king of Hatti, forever. And I am in friendship and sisterly relations with my sister the great queen of Hatti, now and forever.”

All that just to wish her well.Yikes! It’s kinda stiff and long, she should have just said:

“i’m good.thanx dude 4 the note,i hpe you hve peace,man.friends 4ever,The Great Queen of Egypt.”

That would have been much, much easier to understand!

1 comment:

Elisabeth said...

Okay - SICK!! Marrying his own sister and DAUGHTERS! What was up with those Pharoh dudes?Oh well. Intersting story, anyway.
And yeah, your note would have been like WAY easier to understand.