Although red hair is found in prehistory, in many places, one of the earliest famous figures to have been described as a redhead was Ramesses II, the second Pharoah of Egypt, who became known as Ramesses the Great, or just "The Great Pharoah". In fact during his lifetime he was worshipped as a god. And he was so renowned that even the Greeks had a name for him, Ozymandias.
He gained his fame through not only the length of his reign, sixty-six years, (longer than all but Pepi II, who reigned for ninety years), but also through his building works, and his military successes, fifteen wars, all of which he took part in himself and all of which he won - save one, the thirteenth century B.C, Battle of Kadesh, which it is regarded neither the Egyptians nor the Hittite won, in fact it ended in peace, and more than that in the signing of a peace treaty, the first one ever to have been arranged and signed.
Ramesses II became Pharoah in May 1279 B.C., and died in 1213 B.C.
He lived into his early nineties, we are not really sure of a firm age, then he was buried, with great ceremony, in the Valley of the Kings, but it was later moved, to safeguard it, and only unearthed in 1881. This was when it was first discovered that the mummy still retained hair on his head, and noted that it had been dyed to a reddish colour with the henna and other materials used in embalming. However in 1976 a further investigation was performed on the mummy and it was discovered that the redness of the hair was the true and natural colour. That fact was interesting in many ways, not least that at the time our man was alive the god Set was connected with red-haired peoples. Indeed Ramesses` grandfather had been the High Priest of Set in the reign of Amenhotep II, and his father had been given the Pharoah name of Seti I, which means follower, of Set.
This is an interesting set and very well drawn. The list of cards is :
- - I - Cheops
- - II - Ramses der Grosse
- - III - Psammetich
- - IV - Semiramis
- - V - Salmanassar
- - VI - Nebukadnezar