Pi-Ramesses

Pi-Ramesses

The feet of a Ramses II statue at Pi-Ramesses
Shown within Egypt
Location	Qantir, Al Sharqia Governorate, Egypt
Region	Lower Egypt
Coordinates	30°47′56″N 31°50′9″E / 30.79889°N 31.83583°E / 30.79889; 31.83583Coordinates: 30°47′56″N 31°50′9″E / 30.79889°N 31.83583°E / 30.79889; 31.83583
Type	Settlement
Area	18 km2 (6.9 sq mi)
History
Builder	Ramesses II
Founded	13th century BCE
Abandoned	Approximately 1060 BCE
Periods	New Kingdom to Third Intermediate Period

Pi-Ramesses (/pɪər.ɑːmɛs/); (Ancient Egyptian Per-Ra-mes(i)-su, meaning "House of Ramesses") was the new capital built by the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt Pharaoh Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great, reigned 1279–1213 BC) at Qantir, near the old site of Avaris. The city had served as a summer palace under Seti I (c. 1290–1279 BC), and may have been founded by Ramesses I (c. 1292–1290 BC) while he served under Horemheb.

In 1884, Flinders Petrie arrived in Egypt to begin his excavations there. His first dig was at Tanis, where he arrived with 170 workmen. Later in the 1930s, the ruins at Tanis were explored by Pierre Montet.

The masses of broken Ramesside stonework at Tanis led archaeologists to identify it as Pi-Ramesses. Yet it eventually came to be recognised that none of these monuments and inscriptions originated at the site.

In the 1960s Manfred Bietak, recognised that Pi-Ramesses was known to have been located on the then easternmost branch of the Nile. He painstakingly mapped all the branches of the ancient Delta and established that the Pelusiac branch was the easternmost during Ramesses' reign while the Tanitic branch (i.e. the branch on which Tanis was located) did not exist at all. Excavations were therefore begun at the site of the highest Ramesside pottery location, Tell el-Dab'a and Qantir.

Although there were no traces of any previous habitation visible on the surface, discoveries soon identified Tell el-Dab'a as the Hyksos capital Avaris. Qantir was recognized as the site of the Ramesside capital Pi-Ramesses.