This deeply carved relief of Ramesses II shows the king wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt and seated within a shrine, the roof of which is decorated with uraei. It was part of a scene showing the king celebrating one of the sed festivals, or jubilees, of his long reign. Ramesses II, known as Ramesses the Great, ruled for sixty-six years and had an enormous impact both in Egypt and abroad. In his military campaigns, he confronted the expanding empire of the Hittites and eventually secured a treaty with them and married two Hittite princesses. He extended his rule far into Nubia, as the building of his huge rock-cut temple at Abu Simbel testifies. He built monuments as far north as Byblos in modern-day Lebanon and as far south as Jebel Barkal in the Sudan. He established a new capital at Piramesse in the eastern Delta.This relief was found by Flinders Petrie in a temple that Ramesses II built at Heracleopolis, in the northern part of Egypt near the Faiyum and dedicated to the local god Harsaphes.
