Қытай Мысырының Жүздік Патшалығының үшінші фараоны Рамзес IV

Third pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty of the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt

Usermaatre Heqamaatre Setepenamun Ramesses IV (also written Ramses or Rameses) was the third pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty of the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. He was the second son of Ramesses III and became crown prince when his elder brother Amenherkhepshef died aged 15 in 1164 BC, when Ramesses was only 12 years old. His promotion to crown prince:
is suggested by his appearance (suitably entitled) in a scene of the festival of Min at the Ramesses III temple at Karnak, which may have been completed by Year 22 [of his father's reign]. (the date is mentioned in the poem inscribed there)
As his father's chosen successor, the prince employed three distinctive titles: "Hereditary Prince", "Royal scribe" and "Generalissimo." The latter two titles are mentioned in a text at the temple of Amenhotep III at Soleb and all three titles appear on a lintel now in Florence, Italy. As heir apparent he took on increasing responsibilities; for instance, in Year 27 of his father's reign, he is depicted appointing a certain Amenemope to the important position of Third Prophet of Amun in the latter's TT 148 tomb. Amenemope's Theban tomb also accords prince Ramesses all three of his aforementioned sets of royal titles. Despite the 31 year reign of his father Ramesses III, Ramesses IV was only 21 when he became pharaoh. His rule has been dated to 1155 to 1149 BC.

It is now believed that Ramesses IV's mother was most likely Queen Tyti from recently discovered notes published in the 2010 issue of the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. They reveal that Tyti—who was a king's daughter, a king's wife and a king's mother in her own right—was identified in Papyrus BM EA 10052 (i. e., the tomb robbery papyri) to be a queen of Ramesses III, Ramesses IV's father. The 2010 JEA article authors—including Aidan Dodson—write that since Ramesses VI's mother is known to be a certain lady named Iset Ta Hemdjert or Isis:
only Ramesses IV and Ramesses VIII remain as candidates [for the son of Tyti]. Given that Ramesses VIII only reigned briefly some 25 years after his father’s death, it is hardly likely that the decoration of QV52, with the mwt nsw (i. e., king's mother) title intimately mixed with Tyti’s other titles, could have been delayed this late to refer to him. This leaves Ramesses IV as the only credible primary 'subject' of the mwt nsw title in the tomb. As for which if any of the other sons of Ramesses III were borne to Tyti, no unequivocal data is available, other than the fact that Amenhirkhopeshef B, buried in QV55, was ms n Hmt nTr mwt nTr Hmt nsw wrt, paralleling Tyti's titles so closely that he may with some confidence be proposed as her son. Thus, the identity of Ramesses IV's mother has been resolved in favour of Queen Tyti who was once erroneously thought to be the mother of another king in the mid 1980s: Ramesses XI. Ramesses IV was succeeded to the throne by his 13 year old son Ramesses V.

Ramesses IV came to the throne in difficult circumstances. Ramesses III, his father, was assassinated by conspirators led by Tiye, one of his secondary wives, to establish Pentawer, her own son and Ramesses IV's half brother, on the throne. Ramesses IV, however, was able to secure himself on the throne, and had the conspirators arrested and executed. At the start of his reign, the pharaoh initiated a substantial building program on the scale of Ramesses II by doubling the size of the work gangs at Deir el Medina to a total of 120 men and dispatching numerous expeditions to the stone quarries of Wadi Hammamat and the turquoise mines of the Sinai. The Great Rock stela of Ramesses IV at Wadi Hammamat records that the largest expedition—dated to his Year 3, third month of Shemu day 27—consisted of 8,368 men alone including 5,000 soldiers, 2,000 personnel of the Amun temples, 800 Apiru and 130 stonemasons and quarrymen under the personal command of the High Priest of Amun, Ramessesnakht. The scribes who composed the text also noted that this figure included 900 men "who are dead and omitted from this list." Other Egyptian quarries including Aswan were located much closer to the Nile which enabled them to use barges to transport stones long distances. Part of the king's program included the extensive enlargement of his father's Temple of Khonsu at Karnak and the construction of a large mortuary temple near the Temple of Hatshepsut. Ramesses IV also sent several expeditions to the turquoise mines in the Sinai; a total of four expeditions are known prior to his fourth year. The Serabit el Khadim stela of the Royal Butler Sobekhotep states: "Year 3, third month of Shemu. His Majesty sent his favoured and beloved one, the confident of his lord, the Overseer of the Treasury of Silver and Gold, Chief of the Secrets of the august Palace, Sobekhotep, justified, to bring for him all that his heart desired of turquoise (on) his fourth expedition." This expedition dates to either Ramesses III or IV's reign since Sobekhotep is attested in office until at least the reign of Ramesses V. The stela reads:
Year 5, second month of Shomu [i. e., summer]. The sending by His Majesty <to> build the Mansion of Millions of Years of Ramesses IV in the temple of Hathor, Lady of Turquoise, by Panefer, the Scribe of the Commands of the Army, son of Pairy, justified. While little is known regarding the route that the mining missions took from Egypt to Serabit el Khadim, A. J. Peden, who wrote a biography of Ramesses IV in 1994, states that there were "two obvious routes" to reach this site:
<blockquote>The first was a straightforward march from a Delta base, such as Memphis, east south east and then south into Sinai. Surviving a march in this inhospitable land would have presented formidable logistical obstacles, perhaps forcing an alternative route to be adopted. This would involve a departure from the Delta to a site near the modern port of Suez. From here they could have proceeded by boat to the ports of Abu Zenima or El Markha on the west coast of the Sinai peninsula and from there it is a short journey inland of only a day or two to the actual site of Serabit el Khadim.

Despite Ramesses IV's many endeavours for the gods and his prayer to Osiris—preserved on a Year 4 stela at Abydos—that "thou shalt give me the great age with a long reign [as my predecessor]", the king did not live long enough to accomplish his ambitious goals. Ramesses IV's highest known date in the archaeological records is a Year 7, III Akhet day 23 ostracon which, under the Egyptian dating system, meant that this ruler had a reign of just more than 6 full years. After a short reign of about six and a half years, Ramesses IV died and was buried in tomb KV2 in the Valley of the Kings. His mummy was found in the royal cache of Amenhotep II's tomb KV35 in 1898. Originally, Ramesses IV had a tomb built for him in the Valley of the Queens, QV53. In April 2021 his mummy was moved from the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization along with those of 17 other kings and 4 queens in an event termed the Pharaohs' Golden Parade.