A conspiracy inside the royal household ended with the murder of Pharaoh Ramesses III. This episode follows the struggle over Egypt’s throne, the trials that followed, and the modern forensic evidence that revealed how the king died more than three thousand years later.

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Source Materials

A. de Buck, “The Judicial Papyrus of Turin,” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1937, pp. 152–164.

Susan Redford, The Harem Conspiracy: The Murder of Ramesses III, Northern Illinois University Press, 2002.

Eric H. Cline and David O’Connor, editors, Ramesses III: The Life and Times of Egypt’s Last Hero, University of Michigan Press, 2012.

Zahi Hawass, Somaia Ismail, Ashraf Selim, Sahar N. Saleem, Dina Fathalla, Sally Wasef, Ahmed Z. Gad, Rama Saad, Suzan Fares, Hany Amer, Paul Gostner, Yehia Z. Gad, Carsten M. Pusch and Albert R. Zink, “Revisiting the Harem Conspiracy and Death of Ramesses III: Anthropological, Forensic, Radiological, and Genetic Study,” British Medical Journal, Vol. 345, 2012.

Alexandre Loktionov, “Convicting ‘Great Criminals’: A New Look at Punishment in the Turin Judicial Papyrus.”

Hans Goedicke, “Was Magic Used in the Harem Conspiracy Against Ramesses III? (P. Rollin and P. Lee),” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 49, 1963, pp. 71–92.

Mark Collier, Aidan Dodson and Gottfried Hamernik, “P. BM EA 10052, Anthony Harris, and Queen Tyti,” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 96, 2010, pp. 242–247.

Erin Blakemore, “Who Killed Ramesses III? How Science Solved an Ancient Egyptian Murder Mystery,” National Geographic, August 2, 2024.