New Kingdom
Ramesses V (Usermaatre Sekheperenre)
20th Dynasty · 1186-1069 BCE
Open full-size illustration →Source: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Background
Ramesses V's short reign is best documented not through his own achievements but through the Wilbour Papyrus, a tax survey that exposed how much economic power had already shifted from the crown to the priesthood of Amun, while his own mummy has become a famous, and now disputed, piece of evidence in the history of infectious disease. Research: UCL Digital Egypt; McMaster University Ancient DNA Centre.
Dates from: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Full profile
The Wilbour Papyrus and the priesthood
During his short reign, the central government rapidly lost economic power to the religious establishment. This shift is documented in the Wilbour Papyrus, a massive land and tax survey that reveals the priesthood of Amun controlled the vast majority of Egypt's agricultural revenue.
A delayed burial
Ramesses V died around his fourth year, likely from smallpox. His burial was highly unusual; he was not laid to rest within the customary 70 days. Historians believe his interment was severely delayed because escalating raids by Libyan marauders made the Theban necropolis too dangerous for royal construction to continue.
A smallpox diagnosis now in doubt
Since the early twentieth century, the raised, pustule-like lesions on Ramesses V's mummified skin have been cited as the oldest physical evidence of smallpox in the historical record. That identification rests on visual appearance alone, since no viral DNA has ever been recovered from the body. A 2020 genomic study of far younger, seventeenth-century smallpox samples found that all known strains of the virus share a common ancestor only a few hundred years old, casting doubt on whether the ancient Egyptian case, or any other reported case before that period, was really smallpox rather than a visually similar disease such as chickenpox or measles.
Sources for this profile
- Baker, D. D. (2008). The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume 1. Stacey International.
- Shaw, I. (Ed.). (2000). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press.
- University College London. Kings of the New Kingdom.
- Reeves, N., & Wilkinson, R. H. (1996). The Complete Valley of the Kings. Thames & Hudson.
- Dodson, A., & Hilton, D. (2004). The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson.
The complete, APA-formatted reference list is on the Academic Sources & Bibliography page.