Ramesses XII

Usermaatre-heqawast Rameses-mereramun is an obscure pharaoh tentatively placed at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, in possibly c. 1075–1068 BC. The royal name is unquestionably attested as such in a single known inscription, Wadi Hammamat text 22, but although associated by several scholars with the well-known Ramesses II, it appears to designate a distinct king who might belong in the obscure period of transition between the Twentieth and Twenty-first Dynasties.

Ramesses XII
Also written Ramses and Rameses
Pharaoh
Reign	c. 1075–1068 BC
Predecessor	Ramesses XI?
Successor	Smendes?
Royal titulary Horus name unknown Nebty name unknown Golden Horus unknown Praenomen Usermaatre Heqawast Wsr-m3ˁt-Rˁ-ḥq3-W3st The strong one belonging to the justice of Ra, ruler of Thebes[1] Nomen Rameses Mereramun [2] Rˁ-msj-sw-mrr-Jmn Ra is the one who bore him, whom Amun continually loves [3]
Father	Ramesses XI?
Died	1068 BC ?
Dynasty	20th Dynasty

Evidence and interpretation

Wadi Hammamat text 22 consists of simple royal titles preceding two carefully carved cartouches, reading "Perfect God, Lord of the Two Lands: Usermaatre-heqawast, Son of Ra: Rameses-mereramun" (nṯr-nfr nb-tȝwj wsr-mȝʿt-rʿ ḥqȝ-wȝst sȝ-rʿ rʿ-ms-s mrr-jmn).^[4]

The royal name Usermaatre-heqawast Rameses-mereramun was known since the early days of Egyptology. Without specifically citing Wadi Hammamat text 22 as their source, Carl Richard Lepsius and Émile Brugsch and Urbain Bouriant included the royal name in their respective books of kings of Ancient Egypt in 1858 and 1887, assigning it tentatively to the Twentieth Dynasty without proposing an identification with any other known king.^[5] In his work on the Wadi Hammamat inscriptions, Pierre Montet identified the king of Wadi Hammamat text 22 as Ramesses II in the Nineteenth Dynasty, citing a personal communication from Henri Gauthier.^[6] Gauthier himself did likewise, albeit with some reservations, in his own book of kings.^[7] This identification was readily accepted by a number of scholars.^[8] The rationale for the identification was only indicated, briefly, by Kenneth Kitchen, who cited Ramesses II's "early usage of employing the simple prenomen Usimare … but with variable epithets," pointing to the Gebel Silsila stela of Year 1.^[9]

Subsequently, Ian Mladjov questioned this identification of Usemaatre-heqawast Rameses-mereramun with Ramesses II based on a more detailed analysis of the royal names in the Gebel Silsila stela and the Wadi Hammamat inscription. He noted that the throne name and epithet combination Usermaatre-heqawast occurs only once among the names of Ramesses II on the Gebel Silsila stela, among four other and better-represented variant forms, including the standard one (Usermaatre-setepenre), and that such variant forms are attested elsewhere, if at all, only alongside the standard throne name, which is not the case in Wadi Hammamat text 22.^[10] He also noted that the birth name's epithet mereramun "stands in minute but significant contrast to the well-attested epithet of Ramesses II-meryamun," that it was deliberately inscribed and not a likely error, also militating against identification with Ramesses II (who is never mereramun in the ample attestations of his names) and toward the Twentieth Dynasty and particularly its end, where it was the standard birth name epithet of Ramesses IX and Ramesses XI.^[11] On this evidence, Mladjov concluded that Usermaatre-heqawast Rameses-mereramun was a distinct king, probably belonging to the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, and possibly identifiable as the unnamed king (who cannot be plausibly identified with either Ramesses XI or Smendes) in whose regnal years 5 and 6 is attested the High Priest of Amun Herihor, making him Ramesses XII.^[12]

The existence of this unnamed king is deduced as a consequence of the now widely accepted reversal of the previously postulated order of the High Priests of Amūn Herihor–Piankh by Karl Jansen-Winkeln.^[13] Ad Thijs attempted to address the problem by splitting the High Priest and subsequently King Pinedjem I into two persons and identifying King Pinedjem with the unnamed monarch,^[14] while Rolf Krauss proposed that the reign intervening between those of Ramesses XI and Smendes belonged to Herihor himself.^[15] An alternative proposed by Aidan Dodson, that Herihor officiated as High Priest interrupting the tenure of Piankh, is based on the argument of ostensible damnatio memoriae perpetrated against Herihor on a single stela.^[16] The splitting up of the High Priest and later King Pinedjem into two distinct individuals is considered implausible,^[17] while Krauss' solution, otherwise plausible, allows the paradox of Herihor using his own regnal years without claiming a royal title,^[18] which leads Mladjov to propose placing Usermaatre-heqawast Rameses-mereramun as Ramesses XII at this point, where the name, chronology, and absence of contradictory evidence would allow it.^[19] On the other hand, the absence of other clear attestations of the king prevent further confirmation of the theory, and Mladjov admits a possible problem in the non-appearance of the postulated Ramesses XII in the decoration of the Temple of Khonsu, where Herihor appears both as High Priest of Amun under Ramesses XI and as king in his own right; nevertheless, the author allows for the possibility of Herihor interrupting work on the project, on the basis of parallels in Egyptian construction history.^[20] In terms of chronological placement (within the generally accepted Egyptian Low Chronology), Mladjov finds that there is ample time between the last explicitly attested (Ramesses XI Year 27, c. 1081 BC), last reasonably certain (Renaissance (wḥm-mswt) Year 10, c. 1080 BC, or Renaissance Year 12, c. 1078 BC), or last arguably assignable (Renaissance? Year 15, c. 1075 BC?) year of Ramesses XI's reign and the first year of Smendes' reign (1068 BC ^[21]) for fitting in the postulated Ramesses XII, whose highest assignable regnal year (Year 6) guarantees a reign of at least five years and a fraction.^[22] Mladjov also speculates that, for whatever reasons, the reign of Ramesses XII witnessed the gradual assumption of effective authority over Upper and Lower Egypt by Herihor and Smendes, respectively, prior to them succeeding him as kings.^[23]

Mladjov's study has been cited but rarely discussed,^[24] given the sparsity of evidence, although other Egyptian pharaohs (e.g., Shoshenq VI, Shoshenq VII) have been tentatively identified on the basis of similarly minimal attestation. David Aston noted the proposed identification and placement of Ramesses XII, with the reservation that his apparent absence from the Temple of Khonsu needs to be explained and that "the problem of the unknown king persists, and he might well be a(n unknown) King Rameses."^[25]

Other uses of "Ramesses XII"

Early listings of Egyptian kings used to insert additional names in the sequence, turning the well-attested king now known as Ramesses XI into Ramesses XIII or Ramesses XII. Thus, Lepsius inserted Rameses-Siptah as Ramesses XI and the Rameses-meryamun of the Bentresh Stela (then known as the "Bakhtan Stela") as Ramesses XII.^[26] Brugsch and Bouriant inserted Rameses-Siptah as Ramesses IX and the Rameses-meryamun of the Bentresh Stela as Ramesses XII.^[27] Budge correctly saw the Rameses-meryamun of the Bentresh Stela as a reflection of the historical Ramesses II, but inserted Rameses-Siptah as Ramesses IX.^[28] The earlier authors — apart from Budge, who ignores him — listed Usermaatre-heqawast Rameses-mereramun as a possible additional king in the Twentieth Dynasty, while Gauthier identified him as "probably" Ramesses II.^[29] Gauthier also identified the Rameses-meryamun of the Bentresh Stela as Ramesses II, and suggested identifying Rameses-Siptah as another name for Siptah-merneptah, the king we commonly call simply Siptah.^[30] In this manner, the indisputable kings named Ramesses were reduced to eleven (not counting Rameses-Siptah, referred to as Siptah), as common in Egyptology today. Usermaatre-heqawast Rameses-mereramun would be an additional king named Ramesses.

In historical fiction

Polish author Bolesław Prus (1847–1912) set his historical fiction Pharaoh (Faraon, 1895)^[31] at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, centering on the idealistic young protagonist he designated Ramesses XIII, undone by a corrupt system and succeeded as king by the High Priest Herihor. Prus' Ramesses XII and Ramesses XIII were named in accordance with the naming and numbering of Egyptian kings by the scholars of his time. Prus' Ramesses XIII is often seen as a fictitious character (which he certainly is in terms of the experiences and actions ascribed to him), which would imply that Prus' Ramesses XII corresponds to our modern Ramesses XI, but both Lepsius and Brugsch and Bouriant had our Ramesses XI as Ramesses XIII.^[32]