The 20th Dynasty

After the death of Merneptah, some weak kings ruled Egypt until a powerful king named Ramses III ruled. In his reign, he expanded in the Mediterranean and controlled all the islands of the Mediterranean and called its people the “Sea Peoples” and depicted them in his famous temple called the Temple of “Habu”. For this reason, many statues of the goddess “Sekhmet”, the lioness goddess and goddess of war, were found in his temple. There is also a very distinctive scene of him cutting off the hands of his enemies, this scene is depicted because he ordered his soldiers to bring him the hands of his enemies and said his famous phrase: “Cut off the hands of anyone who touches the land of Egypt with evil.” The king also has a scene in the temple, the most important of which is him playing sports with his wives in one of the chambers above the temple gate and wearing home clothes. There are also sports scenes in the temple of games that the Egyptians play even today (such as “Tahtib” term referring to traditional stick-fighting sport). A famous papyrus was found from his era called the “women’s Conspiracy”, which is about one of his wives who wanted to kill him so that her son could rule in his place, but he discovered the conspiracy and killed her and pardoned his son.

A picture of King Ramesses III and his son, Prince ‘Amun Hur Khopshef’, from the prince’s tomb in the Valley of the Queens