Meryatum

Meryatum
High Priest of Ra in Heliopolis
Meryatum next to his father Ramesses II at the small temple at Abu Simbel.
Dynasty	19th Dynasty
Pharaoh	Ramesses II
Father	Ramesses II
Mother	Nefertari
Burial	KV5

Meryatum in hieroglyphs
Era: New Kingdom (1550–1069 BC)

Meryatum (“Beloved of Atum”) was an ancient Egyptian prince and High Priest of Re, the son of Pharaoh Ramesses II and Queen Nefertari.

He is shown as 16th on the processions of princes, and is likely to have been the last child born to Ramesses and Nefertari (after Amun-her-khepeshef, Pareherwenemef, Meritamen, Henuttawy and Meryre).^[1] He is depicted in the Smaller Abu Simbel temple, dedicated to Nefertari. Inscriptions at Karnak and elsewhere show Nefertari was his mother.^[2]

He visited Sinai in the second decade of his father's reign, and later in that decade was appointed as High Priest of Ra in Heliopolis, a position he held for the next twenty years.

Two of his statues are now in Berlin and a stela belonging to him is in Hildesheim. An ostrakon mentions work on his tomb and that of Isetnofret; it implies he was buried in the area of the Valley of the Queens, though it is also possible he was buried in KV5, the tomb built for the sons of Ramesses, since a fragment of one of his canopic jars was found there.