On May 31, 1279 BC, the greatest, most powerful, most famous pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, Ramesses II, took the throne. He was also an expert in self-promotion and ran a marketing campaign for his personal brand that was, in many ways, like modern internet influencers.

He was 25 years old when he became pharaoh, but he had been serving as prince regent since the age of 14. He led several military expeditions into Syria, Nubia, and Libya, greatly increasing Egypt’s territory. He also commissioned monuments describing how he slew thousands of enemies single-handedly, defeating even entire armies without the aid of a single soldier on his side. In fact, one of his main pastimes seems to have been commemorating monuments to himself that claimed all kinds of preposterous things, making him seem like the single most powerful, wisest, most handsome person in all of history.

That isn’t to say that he didn’t have some impressive accomplishments in real life, though. He did lead his armies to many victories and built temples. He also founded the great city of Pi-Ramesses. Historians do regard him as one of the greatest pharaohs of the New Kingdom period of Ancient Egypt. However, much of what is known of him was discovered only recently.

Ramesses, or Ozymandias as he was also known, was unknown to modern historians before the nineteenth century. The first discovery of his reign was a fragment of a statue that bore a boast about his greatness and the size of his kingdom. For a long time, that was all that was known about him. 

The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley even wrote about it:

“And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

However, thanks to modern discoveries, more is now known about him than is known about most other pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.