It seems like Ramses II was an admired pharaoh, both during and after his lifetime. His popularity may have been due to a combination of the prosperity that Egypt enjoyed under his reign as well as his skill as a propagandist. Regardless of the reason, his appeal outlasted him by quite a while: nine different pharaohs of the 20th dynasty took his name as their own. Ramses II has received a bad rap on some fronts, however, often being conflated with the tyrannical pharaoh from the Book of Exodus, but historical and archaeological evidence does not support this.
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