The Figure of a Person Who Sought Eternal Life: The Mummy of Ramesses II Seen on 'Hakase-chan'
On July 11, 2026, the TV Asahi program 'Sandwichman & Mana Ashida's Hakase-chan' aired a special titled 'Egypt's Strongest King: Ramesses II SP 2026 Special Edition'.
The focus of the program was Tamako Tanaka, known as the 'Ancient Egypt Hakase-chan.' She was reportedly a 14-year-old third-year junior high school student at the time of the location shoot in Egypt.
Tamako Tanaka has had a strong interest in ancient Egyptian civilization since she was a young child, reading papers by archaeologists and even attempting to make fish mummies at home. For her, Ramesses II is not just an ancient king from a textbook. He is a special figure she has studied and thought about for a long time.
On this trip, she visited ruins related to Ramesses II, such as the Abu Simbel temples, the Ramesseum, the Luxor Temple, and the Valley of the Kings. At the end of her journey, she came face-to-face with the actual mummy of Ramesses II at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo.
The program described this encounter as 'meeting a beloved person.'
The word 'beautiful' is not enough
The guests in the studio, upon seeing the mummy of Ramesses II, expressed their impressions, saying things like 'It's beautiful' and 'It's well-preserved.'
Certainly, there is an aspect of beauty to it.
Transcending over three thousand years, the face, hands, and body of a single human being remain to this day. One is amazed by the state of preservation, and there is perhaps a beauty created by the long passage of time itself.
However, my first thought was that it was grotesque.
The 'grotesque' I refer to here is not the artificial scariness of props made to startle customers in shops or amusement facilities.
The mummy of Ramesses II was not staged by anyone to look frightening. It is the reality of a human body that has died, dried out, shriveled, and endured over three thousand years of time.
That is precisely why its grotesqueness carries such weight.
At the same time, it is not simple disgust. There is a sense of pain, a sense of sadness, and yet a beauty that one cannot look away from.
I felt that if I were to wrap it up only with words like 'beautiful' or 'pretty,' I would be missing half of the reality that that body conveys.
Hands that seem to be seeking something
The arms of Ramesses II's mummy were likely arranged in a specific position during the burial process.
However, looking at its current state, the arms are bent unnaturally, and the hands looked as if they were reaching out, seeking something.
Are they asking for help?
Is it trying to grasp something?
Is it trying to reclaim something that was lost?
Of course, the hands were likely not positioned with such meaning in reality. It is not the posture the person took at the moment of death either. It is merely me, the viewer, reading meaning into it.
Even so, to me, that hand looked like a hand stretched out in search of 'eternity'.
A person who departed in search of eternal life
I do not know with what feelings Ramesses II himself faced death.
Did he truly believe in and seek eternal life from the bottom of his heart? Or did he simply undergo the funeral rites ordained for a king? We in the modern day cannot know his inner thoughts.
However, at least within the framework of ancient Egyptian religion and funeral practices, Ramesses II must have been treated as someone departing for the afterlife to live again there.
Mummification, tombs, grave goods, temples, and spells were all intended for the deceased to be reborn and attain eternal life.
In that sense, what lies before me is the figure of a person who is supposed to have departed in search of eternal life.
Yet, the physical body in reality has not attained the eternal life of the ideal.
He did not rise up powerfully in the form of a youthful king. He lies there dried, shrunken, with arms bent stiffly, in a state that even makes the viewer feel a sense of pathos.
Ramesses II, as depicted in massive temples and statues, is young, strong, and imposing.
On the other hand, the actual body that remains is small, fragile, and appears vulnerable.
That gap made me sad.
No matter how much one may seek eternity, humans cannot attain eternal life as they idealize it.
That mummy seemed to show both the magnitude of human desire and the limitations of the human body at the same time.
The 'Hakase-chan' who did not break into a full smile
And what moved me the most was not just the mummy of Ramesses II itself.
It was the reaction of Tamako Tanaka when she came face-to-face with the mummy.
In a typical television program, one might expect a performer who has finally come face-to-face with someone they have admired for years to show a beaming smile or hear cheers.
"I've finally met you."
"My dream has come true."
Such straightforward expressions of joy would likely be easy for a program to use.
However, Tamako Tanaka's initial expression was not a smile filled with joy.
It was bewilderment.
It was surprise.
To me, it looked like an expression that said, 'Huh?'
"Is this really Ramses II?"
"Is this the form of the person I have been thinking about for so long?"
It seemed as though such unspoken questions floated through her mind for a moment.
She could not immediately put on a big expression or show off her knowledge. For a long time, she could not speak, just staring at the mummy.
And then, she finally looked away.
She left the side of the mummy, said, "Please wait a moment," went to the corner of the room, and cried.
I thought this reaction was very genuine.
Of course, as it is a television program, there must be editing. Music may have been added, and the order and length of scenes may have been adjusted. It cannot be said that the footage is completely without direction.
Even so, I feel that her initial bewildered expression, the time she spent speechless, and her movement of looking away and physically leaving the spot contained something that could not be created by direction alone.
In that expression, there was a certain, true reaction.
She met a dead person, not the person she admired
Up until that moment, Tamako Tanaka possessed a vast amount of knowledge about Ramses II.
What kind of king was he?
What kind of temples did he build?
What kind of politics did he conduct, what kind of family did he have, and how did he try to leave himself to posterity?
However, when faced with the mummy, a reality that knowledge alone could not contain emerged.
Ramses II was not merely a hero of history.
He truly lived.
And he truly died.
Perhaps it was there, for the first time, that she met Ramses II not as the king she admired, but as a single deceased person.
I believe her tears were not just from the joy of her dream coming true.
The joy of meeting him.
The surprise that he actually existed.
The shock of his physical form.
The sadness that a person who sought eternity remains in such a form in reality.
Could it be that these were tears that came rushing all at once?
Among the people on the program, I felt that she was the most adult and, at the same time, the most child-like.
Her attitude toward archaeology and history was calmer and more respectful of the subject than anyone else's. In that sense, she was an adult.
However, the sight of her crying because she could not fully process being in front of the person she had thought about for so long was also the image of a very pure child.
And I think that was also the moment a child becomes an adult.
Eternity that is not as idealized
Ramses II could not obtain the eternal life he had idealized.
At the very least, the body that we in the modern day can see with our own eyes does not show the rebirth in a young and perfect form that the ancient Egyptians envisioned.
However, strangely enough, he has not completely disappeared.
His name remains.
His temples remain.
His statues remain.
His stories remain.
And above all, his physical body remains.
More than three thousand years later, a young girl in Japan continued to learn about him, traveled all the way to Egypt to meet him, and mourned his death.
It may be in a form completely different from the afterlife the ancient Egyptians hoped for.
Even so, Ramses II continues to exist in someone's heart.
It is not the eternal life he envisioned.
It is not an eternity where one never loses their youth, where the body is regenerated, and one continues to live in the world of the dead.
However, another form of permanence has been realized, where names and memories are passed from person to person, and people in the distant future think of that person.
There is a small amount of salvation in that.
Nevertheless, what I felt first when looking at that mummy was, after all, not victory, but sadness.
The human desire for eternity is far too great.
And the human body is far too weak.
I think the silence and tears shown by Tamako Tanaka on 'Sandwichman & Mana Ashida's Hakase-chan' conveyed both of those things more deeply than words ever could.
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