Ramesses II Trivia
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59 free Ramesses II trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Ramesses II trivia quiz covers the pharaoh who reigned for 66 years and covered Egypt with his own image. The easy questions cover the basics: the dynasty he belonged to, the great battle against the Hittites, the temples he cut into the cliffs of Nubia, the queen whose tomb is the finest in Egypt, the Greek name Shelley used for him and the actor who played him opposite Charlton Heston. From there it moves through his grandfather the vizier, his accession at 25, the Sherden pirates, the new capital in the Delta with its own zoo, the campaign chronology and the Sed festivals he celebrated more often than anyone. The harder end covers the two versions of the Treaty of Kadesh that each claim the other side sued for peace, the silver plaque, the tomb of his 52 sons, the Ramesseum's thousand-tonne statue, Burckhardt and Belzoni at Abu Simbel, the mummy's journey to Paris in 1976, the red hair and the abscess that may have killed him, the hair thief of 2006, the sarcophagus fragment identified in 2023 and why Egyptologists say he was not the pharaoh of the Exodus. Every answer was checked against Ramesses II's encyclopaedia entry before publishing and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Ancient Egypt and Tutankhamun quizzes are natural companions.
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Q 01Ramesses II was the third pharaoh of which Egyptian dynasty?
The Nineteenth
The Nineteenth. His name carried such weight that nine kings of the following dynasty, from Ramesses III to Ramesses XI, called themselves after him.
Q 02How long did Ramesses II reign?
66 years
66 years. He outlived his twelve eldest sons, so it was the thirteenth who finally inherited the throne.
Q 03By what name did ancient Greek sources refer to Ramesses II?
Ozymandias
Ozymandias. The Greek historian Diodorus used the name when he quoted a boast carved on a colossus at Thebes, daring anyone who doubted the king's greatness to surpass one of his works.
Q 04Which pharaoh, Ramesses II's father, took him to war as a teenager?
Seti I
Seti I. He named the boy his heir and brought him along on his wars, so Ramesses took the throne already practised at ruling and fighting.
Q 05Ramesses II's grandfather, Ramesses I, held which high office under Horemheb before being named his heir?
Vizier
Vizier. Ramesses II was not born a prince: his family were soldiers from the Delta, and Horemheb, who had no son, picked his own chief minister to follow him as king.
Q 06Which novelist's 1989 book The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned brings Ramesses II back to life in 1914?
Anne Rice
Anne Rice. Her Ramses has drunk an elixir of eternal life, so the mummy shipped back to an archaeologist's English mansion wakes up, and the dead man's daughter falls in love with him.
Q 07At Kadesh, Ramesses II led four army divisions, each named after what?
An Egyptian god
An Egyptian god. The four were strung out along the road, so when enemy chariots burst from hiding they scattered the division of Ra before the two behind it could come up.
Q 08Which sea raiders, sometimes linked to Sardinia, did Ramesses II defeat and then recruit into his bodyguard?
The Sherden
The Sherden. He let their ships attack and then sprang a trap off the Egyptian coast, and the captives, in their horned helmets, were soon serving in his own guard.
Q 09The Hittites, Ramesses II's great rivals at Kadesh, ruled their empire from a capital in which modern country?
Turkey
Turkey. Their capital, Hattusa, stood in central Anatolia, and tablets excavated from its archives gave historians the other side of Ramesses' boasts about the battle.
Q 10What lured Ramesses II into the Hittite ambush at Kadesh?
False reports from enemy agents
False reports from enemy agents. Two men posing as deserters told him the Hittite army was far to the north near Aleppo, when it was in fact hidden just behind the city he was approaching.
Q 11How did the surviving Hittite charioteers get away after the Egyptian counterattack at Kadesh?
By swimming the river
By swimming the river. They left their chariots behind and struggled across the Orontes to the city, while Ramesses bragged that he had tipped them into the water like crocodiles.
Q 12How is the Battle of Kadesh generally judged by historians?
A stalemate
A stalemate. Ramesses had a glorious triumph carved on temple walls across Egypt, yet he went home without taking the city he had marched north to capture.
Q 13How did Ramesses II seal his alliance with the Hittite king years after their treaty?
Q 21Ramesses II completed the Great Hypostyle Hall, a forest of giant columns begun by his father, at which temple complex?
Karnak
Karnak. His father had decorated the northern wing and died with the work half done, so Ramesses carved the southern wing himself and finished the hall.
Q 22The Ramesseum at Thebes was built to serve Ramesses II as what?
His mortuary temple
His mortuary temple. It served his cult rather than his burial, though the Greek historian Diodorus described the place as a king's tomb.
Q 23The colossal bust of Ramesses II called the Younger Memnon, hauled from the Ramesseum in 1816, stands in which museum?
The British Museum
He married the king's daughter
He married the king's daughter. The Hittite ruler's eldest girl travelled to Egypt, took the Egyptian name Maathorneferure and ranked as a Great Royal Wife beside the pharaoh's own queens.
Q 14Ramesses II claimed he fought one Syrian battle, around his tenth year, without first putting on what?
His corslet
His corslet. The show of nerve bought him little: the Syrian towns he stormed without his body armour soon slipped back under Hittite control.
Q 15A replica of Ramesses II's peace treaty with the Hittites hangs at the headquarters of which organisation?
The United Nations
The United Nations. The two rival empires swore never to attack each other again, and the pact held: their wars ended and the old enemies settled into friendly relations.
Q 16Besides peace, what did Ramesses II and the Hittite king pledge in their treaty?
To return each other's fugitives
To return each other's fugitives. Each king also promised to send troops and chariots if the other were attacked, which turned two old enemies into allies.
Q 17On what material was the Hittite peace treaty delivered to the Egyptians?
A silver plaque
A silver plaque. The original is long lost, and its wording survives because Ramesses had a copy cut in hieroglyphs into temple walls at Thebes.
Q 18At each of his Sed jubilees, Ramesses II was traditionally expected to do what?
Run a ritual course
Run a ritual course. The feast fell due only after 30 years on the throne and then every few years, so it took a reign as long as his to pile up more than a dozen.
Q 19Why was Pi-Ramesses, Ramesses II's great Delta capital, eventually abandoned?
Its branch of the Nile silted up
Its branch of the Nile silted up. With the harbour useless, the city was taken apart and its statues and temple blocks were shipped off to build a new royal seat.
Q 20For decades, archaeologists mistook which other Delta city for Pi-Ramesses, the lost capital of Ramesses II?
Tanis
Tanis. Later kings had carted the old capital's statues and stonework there for reuse, so excavators found his name everywhere; the real city lay buried under the village of Qantir.
The British Museum. A hole in the statue's chest is said to be the work of Napoleon's men, who tried to carry it off years earlier and had to give up.
Q 24How were Ramesses II's two temples at Abu Simbel originally made?
Carved out of a cliff
Carved out of a cliff. Along the top of the rock front the masons left a row of baboons, whose dawn cries were believed to welcome the rising sun the temple faces.
Q 25Which Swiss traveller, fresh from rediscovering Petra, found Abu Simbel in 1813?
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. He travelled under the Arab name Ibrahim ibn Abdallah, and at Abu Simbel he found the great temple so choked with sand that he could not get in.
Q 26The colossus of Ramesses II that stood in Cairo's Ramesses Square for 50 years greets visitors at which museum?
The Grand Egyptian Museum
The Grand Egyptian Museum. Pollution was eating at the granite, so in 2006 the 83-tonne giant crept across Cairo in one piece on two flatbed trucks, a journey of ten hours.
Q 27A colossal limestone statue of Ramesses II is the centrepiece of the open-air museum at Mit Rahina, site of which ancient capital?
Memphis
Memphis. The limestone giant once fronted the city's great temple, and a granite colossus dug up nearby was hauled to Cairo in 1955 to preside over the square by the main station.
Q 28Ramesses II gave the queenly title Great Royal Wife to several of his own what?
Daughters
Daughters. After Nefertari died, the queen's place at his side passed in time to the next generation: princesses such as Bintanath, his daughter by a second queen, became his consorts.
Q 29Which famous pharaoh died about two decades before Ramesses II was born?
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun. He left no heir, and within a generation the throne had passed to a family of soldiers from the Delta: Ramesses II's own.
Q 30What is one suggested cause of Ramesses II's death?
A ruptured abscess in his jaw
A ruptured abscess in his jaw. Examiners found a hole in the jawbone beside his teeth and judged the infection bad enough to have killed him, though they could not be certain it did.