All of the remaining 20 th-Dynasty kings were called Rameses, a name they adopted at their accession, adding it to their birth-name. They were probably all related to Rameses III, although in some cases we do not know exactly how. During their reigns, Egypt lost control over its territories in Syria-Palestine and the importance of Nubia was rapidly declining as well. Apart from the temple of Khonsu in Karnak, no major temples were built even by those Ramessid rulers who reigned long enough to do so. Rameses IV was the fifth son of his father and had become crown prince around the latter’s regnal year 22, after four older brothers had died. The sons of Rameses III were not buried in a gallery tomb in the Valley of the Kings like those of Rameses II, but in separate tombs in the Valley of the Queens. Judging by the name of his mother, Rameses Ill’s Great Royal Consort Isis-Ta-Habadjilat, the new king must have had at least some foreign blood running through his veins. At the beginning of his reign he embarked on several building projects, especially his royal tomb and mortuary temple at Thebes, for which he doubled the workforce of Deir el-Medina to 120 men. Probably in connection with these projects he mounted several expeditions to the quarries of the Wadi Hammamat, where little activity had taken place since the days of Sety I, as well as to the turquoise and copper mines in Sinai and Timna. None of his building plans came to fruition, however, for he died after a reign of five (perhaps seven) years, before he could complete any of them, despite his prayers on a large stele in Abydos asking Osiris to grant him a reign twice as long as the sbcty-seven years of Rameses II.
During Rameses IV’s reign, further delays in the delivery of basic commodities at Deir el-Medina occurred; at the same time the influence of the high priest of Amun was growing. Ramesesnakht, holder of that high office, was soon accompanying the state officials when they went to pay the men their monthly rations, indicating that the temple of Amun, not the state, was now at least partly responsible for their wages. The highest state and temple offices were in fact in the hands of the members of two families. Thus Ramesesnakht’s son Usermaatranakht was ‘steward of the estate of Amun’ and as such administered the land owned by the temple, but he also controlled the vast majority of the state-owned land in Middle Egypt. The holders of the offices of ‘second and third priest’ and of ‘god’s father of Amun’ were all related to Ramesesnakht by marriage. This well illustrates the marked tendency of these high positions, including that of high priest itself, to become hereditary, and Ramesesnakht himself was to be succeeded by two of his sons. The office became more and more independent and the king had only nominal control over who was appointed high priest.
World History
