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Medinet Habu: Ramesses III and the Sea Peoples in his own words

19 October 2026

Medinet Habu, on Luxor's West Bank, is the memorial temple of Ramesses III, who ruled from about 1184 to 1153 BC. His wars cover its walls in pictures and long texts, among them one of the earliest pictures of a naval battle and his own account of the invaders historians now call the Sea Peoples. The signs are cut in sunk relief, unusually deep, so they throw hard shadows and stay readable where the paint has gone.

Start with his two cartouches, carved on almost every wall. The throne name, Usermaatre Meryamun, wsr-mꜣꜥt-rꜥ mry-imn, means "The justice of Ra is strong, beloved of Amun". The birth name, Ramesses Heqaiunu, rꜥ-ms-sw ḥqꜣ-iwnw, means "Ra is the one who bore him, ruler of Heliopolis".

The sea battle fills the outer north wall

Start outside, on the temple's north side. A long run of war scenes covers it. The sea battle among them is told again in two long inscriptions inside. Five enemy ships are hard pressed by four Egyptian ones with lion-headed prows. Archers and slingers shoot from the Egyptian decks. Grappling irons drag survivors aboard as captives, and one capsized ship spills its crew into the water. The king stands on the shore with his bowmen, his feet on bound captives.

Look for the enemy warriors' feathered headdresses and the birds' heads on their ships' prows. The text behind the king says the northern countries "penetrated the channels of the Nile mouths", in the translation William Edgerton and John Wilson published for the Oriental Institute in 1936.

The year 8 inscription lists the invaders

Inside the first court, on the north tower of the second pylon, a long text dated to year 8, about 1177 BC, tells the war in the king's voice. In Edgerton and Wilson's translation it opens: "As for the foreign countries, they made a conspiracy in their isles." It lists lands that fell before them, Hatti (the Hittite kingdom) and Carchemish among them. Then it names them: "Their confederation was the Peleset, Theker, Shekelesh, Denye(n), and Weshesh, lands united."

The Peleset are widely taken to be the Philistines of the Bible. The Shekelesh have been linked with the Sicels of Sicily and the Denyen with Homer's Danaoi, both with question marks.

Where the fighting happened is argued too. The king says he organised his frontier in Djahy, on the Levant coast, and made the Nile mouths "like a strong wall with warships, galleys, and coasters". Edgerton and Wilson placed the sea battle in the Nile mouths and noted that the march to Djahy points the other way. The inscription dated to year 5 also tells of the northern war, and Edgerton and Wilson call year 8 the date Egyptologists traditionally give it.

Conquered lands stand in fortress rings on the first pylon

Each tower of the first pylon carries a giant scene of Ramesses III smiting captives, before Amun-Ra on the south tower and Amun-Ra-Horakhty on the north. Behind the gods run rows of small bound figures, human only to the waist. Below the waist each body is an oval, the ground plan of a fortress, with the name of a country or people written inside.

The names in the rings belong to an older empire. The Nubian and Asiatic sequences were copied from earlier lists of Thutmose III and Ramesses II, so many of the places had long been out of Egypt's reach when Ramesses III's sculptors cut them.

Coptic whitewash kept the second court's colours

In Christian times the town of Djeme filled the enclosure, and its Holy Church stood in the second court. The Copts destroyed most of the Osiris pillars here but only covered the reliefs with whitewash, which protected them. Today the paint on many signs is close to intact.

The upper registers show two festivals. On the south half, the Feast of Sokar, a ten-day festival of death and renewal, was one of the best endowed of the temple's year. On the north side, the procession of the Feast of Min marks a festival of a single day.

Thutmose III recut Hatshepsut's names in the small temple

Inside the enclosure, near the entrance, stands a small temple about three centuries older than Ramesses III's. Hatshepsut began it, but only the sanctuary was finished at her death, and Thutmose III completed it. In the sanctuary he suppressed her name, mostly putting in those of his father, Thutmose II, and his grandfather, Thutmose I, and in a few places his own.

The carving is shallower and finer than Ramesses III's. Thutmose III's throne name, Menkheperre, mn-ḫpr-rꜥ, "Lasting is the form of Ra", is the sun disc (N5), the game board (Y5), the water ripple (N35) and the scarab (L1). Hatshepsut's own throne name, Maatkare, mꜣꜥt-kꜣ-rꜥ, uses the sun disc and seated Maat of Ramesses III's name with the raised arms (D28) for kꜣ.

Sun Game board Ripple of water Scarab beetle Goddess Maat Raised arms

The crook sets his names apart from Ramesses II's

In Usermaatre the sun disc stands at the top, written first out of respect for Ra and read last. In Meryamun, Amun's name, imn, is the reed (M17), the game board (Y5) and the water ripple (N35). His birth name opens with a seated falcon-headed Ra (C2), then the fox skins (F31) and folded cloth (S29) of ms-sw, "who bore him". Ramesses II also used Usermaatre, and his birth name was Ramesses Meryamun. The crook (S38) of Heqaiunu tells the two kings apart.

Seven signs to know before you go:

Name	Sound	Say it
Sun disc N5	rꜥ	Ra, at the top of the throne name
Canine head F12	wsr	"strong", the user of Usermaatre
Seated Maat C10	mꜣꜥt	"justice", with her feather (H6)
Canal N36	mr	"beloved", in Meryamun
Crook S38	ḥqꜣ	"ruler", in the birth name
Column O28	iwnw	Heliopolis, after the crook
Cartouche V10		the deep ring around both names

Feather Flowering reed Ra, falcon-headed god Three fox skins Folded cloth

See Ramesses III's names sign by sign

Deep relief reads well in hard sun

Ramesses III's deep signs cast shadows even at midday, and low morning or late light across the outer walls brings out the worn battle scenes. Walk right round the temple. The calendar of feasts covers most of the outer south wall, copied largely from one at the Ramesseum. It lists over sixty festival days with the offerings due on each, and when the Oriental Institute published it in 1934 it was the longest known hieroglyphic inscription by number of lines.

For one cartouche, fill the frame and let the live camera box the signs. On the worn north wall, take a still photo and trace a sign over it afterwards.

Read a cartouche with the camera

Questions

Who were the Sea Peoples?

Groups from the eastern Mediterranean who fell on Egypt and its neighbours around 1200 BC, when the Late Bronze Age world broke up. Where they came from is still argued. Aren Maeir sees the Philistines as a mixed group with roots in Greece and Cyprus, while Daniel Master favours Crete.

Is Medinet Habu the same as the Ramesseum?

They are two temples. The Ramesseum, further north on the West Bank, is the memorial temple of Ramesses II. Ramesses III modelled his temple on it and copied some of its scenes and texts.

What does the name Medinet Habu mean?

The Arabic name is of uncertain origin. One suggestion is "City of Hapu", after Amenhotep son of Hapu, a sage of the 14th century BC who was later worshipped as a god and had a temple nearby. The name is recorded only in modern times, so the link is hard to prove.

Glossary

birth name: The name a king was given at birth, written in the second cartouche after the title "son of Ra". Egyptologists also call it the nomen.
cartouche: An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
Coptic: The last stage of the Egyptian language, written in Greek letters with a few extra letters taken from demotic. The Coptic Church still uses it, and it showed scholars how Egyptian words sounded.
hieroglyphs: The picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BC to AD 394. A sign can stand for sounds, for a whole word, or for the kind of thing a word means.
Maat: Truth, justice and the right order of the world, shown as a goddess with an ostrich feather on her head. Kings claimed to uphold it.
pylon: The huge gateway of a temple: two sloping towers with a door between them, carved with scenes of the king.
relief: A carving on a flat surface. In raised relief the background is cut away. In sunk relief the figures are cut into the stone.
scarab: The dung beetle, sign of the rising sun and of the word ḫpr, "to come into being". Carved scarabs were used as seals and amulets.
temple: The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
throne name: The name a king took when he came to the throne, written in the first cartouche after the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt". Egyptologists also call it the prenomen.

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Where to see it

Medinet Habu site
Ramesseum site