Reading Notes from the Book: Ramesses, Egypt’s Greatest Pharaoh（02）
Saturday, January 5, 2008 by Eva.Usermaatre
Today, I finally finished my wonderful book by Joyce. I have read many books by her and already familiar with her writting tyle.
This is the second part of my reading notes.
1,from the section of Ramsses the Hushand, I know that the role of queen in ancient Egypt was quite different from that in Hatti. In Hatti there can be only one queen who held the power. So that means that one queen must wait for the death of her mother-queen-in-law. Until that moment came, she can not practice her full power. But the situation was totally different in ancient Egypt, during New Kingdom. The power of queen seemed to be divided, so put it this way, the role of queen mother was ore political, she helped her son to govern the country if in need. However the queen of the Pharaoh was more ceremonial and religious. She played more in ritual ceremonies than in political cases. But there was no absolute rule for the queens to share power.
2, during the life time of Ramsses the Great, he had many queens, principle queens I meant. One was Nefetari who is until now staying the shadow. No scholar can tell who actually she was, she never claimed to be the daughter of King, so that means she can not be direct royal birth. Some people suspected that she was a small daughter of Ay. Maybe... Another queen was called Iset-Neferet who was also remained mysterious to us. But one interesting thing was that those children given birth by these two queens were equal. Usually, the children from Nefertari should be the first ranking then maybe those from Iset-Neferet. Author also expressed in this book the doubt of whether or not Ramsses did love Nefertari. Legend Held that Ramsses loved her consort Nefertari very much and he built her the most breathtaking temple and tomb. Yes, I believe so, Ramsses did love his wife! Author argued that the reason of building such beautiful temple to his wife was to promot his own image, which I am not agreed with! But after reading this book I have now in mind one doubt that maybe Ramsses loved two women at the same time, Nefertari and Iset-Neferet.
3,last point is about those princesses. In ancient Egypt those royal princesses were not allowed to marry low-ranking people or outside their royal family,even into foreign lands, so the only choices left for their husband were their father, brother and half-brother...
