Qwiz5 Quizbowl Essentials: Ramses the Great

Ramses II (Ramses the Great) was the most powerful pharaoh of Egypt’s New Kingdom. He was the son of Seti I, and he ruled for an unprecedented sixty-six years before his death His greatest accomplishment was the defeat of the Hittites at the 1274 BC Battle of Kadesh.

By analyzing questions, you can see patterns emerge - patterns that will help you answer more tossups. Qwiz5 is all about those patterns. In each installment of Qwiz5, we take an answer line and look at its five most common clues. Here we explore five clues that will help you answer a tossup on Ramses the Great.

BATTLE OF KADESH

Ramses defeated the Hittites (led by Muwatalli II) at the 1274 BC Battle of Kadesh. The battle was fought along the banks of the Orontes River and is considered to be the largest chariot battle in history.

NEFERTARI

Nefertari was the wife of Ramses. With her, he fathered his son and successor, Merneptah.

SHERDEN SEA PIRATES

Early in his reign, Ramses defeated the Sherden Sea Pirates (alternatively named the Shardana Sea Pirates or simply the “Sea People”). After this defeat the Sherden were forced to serve in the pharaoh’s personal body guard.

ABU SIMBEL

Ramses ordered the construction of the temple complex at Abu Simbel as a monument for his wife Nefertari.

OZYMANDIAS

Ramses was known as Ozymandias to the Greeks. The Percy Bysshe Shelley poem “Ozymandias” is about the discovery of a crumbling monument to Ramses on which is carved, “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

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Quizbowl is about learning, not rote memorization, so we encourage you to use this as a springboard for further reading rather than as an endpoint. Here are a few things to check out:

* Read more about the Battle of Kadesh here.

* Read more about the Shardana Sea Pirates here.

* In 1974, when the mummy of Ramses was flown to Paris, he was issued an Egyptian passport, complete with a disturbing photo of the 3000 year old corpse. Read about it here.

* Full text of Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias.

* A video explaining the Battle of Kadesh:

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