12 Facts About Ramesses XI

Menmaatre Ramesses XI reigned from 1107 BC to 1078 BC or 1077 BC and was the tenth and final pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt and as such, was the last king of the New Kingdom period.

Ramesses XI ruled Egypt for at least 29 years although some Egyptologists think he could have ruled for as long as 30.

Ramesses XI was once thought to be the son of Ramesses X by Queen Tyti who was a King's Mother, King's Wife and King's Daughter in her titles.

Hence, Ramesses XI's mother was not Tyti and although he could have been a son of his predecessor, this is not established either.

Ramesses XI is usually assigned an accession date of III shemu 20 However, a later 20th Dynasty papyrus fragment from Deir el-Medina published in 2023 by the Egyptologist Robert J Demaree refers to a partial date of Year 4, III month of Akhet together with a change to Year 1, IV month of Akhet.

Demaree stresses in his 2023 paper that the sources which support an accession date of III Shemu day 20 for Ramesses XI are hardly conclusive:.

Ramesses XI's reign is notable for a large number of important papyri that have been discovered, including the Adoption Papyrus, which mentions regnal years 1 and 18 of his reign; Pap.

Unfortunately, due to the very limited nature of the sources, the exact relationships between the three main protagonists, Piankh, Pinehesy and Ramesses XI remain far from clear.

The conventional Egyptian chronology view is that Ramesses XI had an independent reign of between 29 and 30 or 33 full years between Ramesses X and Smendes before dying.

Thijs' separate proposal that the first 17 years of Ramesses XI's reign were entirely contemporary with the reigns of Ramesses IX and Ramesses X is not currently accepted by most Egyptologists except Aidan Dodson in his 2012 book Afterglow of Empire.

Sometime during this troubled period, Ramesses XI died under unknown circumstances.

Since Ramesses XI had himself buried in Lower Egypt, Smendes rose to the kingship of Egypt, based on the well known custom that he who buried the king inherited the throne.