Ramesses II and the Nourishing Tree

In the mortuary temple of Ramesses II known as the Ramesseum at Thebes, the walls are alive with scenes not merely of conquest, but of sustenance, renewal, and divine favour. Among these reliefs is a particularly charming composition in which the king appears not once, but twice, in the embrace of a sacred tree.

To the left, Ramesses sits upright in the tall Double Crown (Pshcent Crown), holding what looks very much like a scribe’s pen, poised towards an oval shape. To the right, the same king reappears, more serene, enthroned beneath the branches, holding crook and ankh as if already assured of eternal rule. The doubling is deliberate, Egyptian artists often showed the same individual more than once within a single panel, to represent different aspects of a ritual or myth. Here, Ramesses is both the supplicant inscribing his name and the divine king nourished by the gods.

Tree Goddess

From the sycamore fig tree emerges a goddess (most often associated with Hathor and Nut), offering food and drink. This is no ordinary refreshment, but the water and bread of eternal life, which the goddess dispensed to the blessed. Look closely, and you’ll see that the ovals hanging like fruit from her tree are not cartouches in the formal sense, but Ramesses’ royal names, rendered as though they grew naturally upon the fruit blooming from her branches. Just as fruit sustains mortals, so the king’s identity and reign are sustained by the divine.

The relief is carved in raised style, the figures standing proud of the stone surface with a crispness that belies their age. Here and there, faint traces of blue pigment can still be discerned upon the king’s throne, subtle reminders that these walls once shimmered with colour, not the pale sandstone we see today. The play of different shades of blue may have echoed the lapis and turquoise associated with divinity, the heavens, and eternal waters.

The Mummy of Ramesses II

Why such a scene in a temple? Because this was the Ramesseum, Ramesses’ “House of Millions of Years”, built to secure his cult and memory for eternity. Depicting the king receiving nourishment from a tree goddess was a way of guaranteeing his eternal sustenance and kingship in the afterlife. Visitors to the temple would have read the message at once: here was a ruler favoured by the gods, inscribed forever into the cosmic order, his names blossoming like fruit upon the tree of life.