Seti I

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Menmaatre Seti I was a Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt (Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt), the son of Ramesses I and Queen Sitre, and the father of Ramesses II. According to some historians, he reigned between either 1294 BC or 1290 BC to 1279 BC or 1305/1302 BC to 1290 BC, depending on the chronological system used. The Ancient Egyptians counted time from a king's accession day as Year One of a Pharaoh's reign. When a Pharaoh died or fell from power, the following day immediatedly became Year number 1 of his successor's reign. To identify Seti I's Year 1 with a specific BC year, a chronologist must not only take into account the existing evidence from various sources, but which set of interpretations that he/she finds valid, so different chronologists and historians can have different views on the subject.

The name Seti means "of Set", which indicates that he was consecrated to the god Set. As with most Pharaohs, Seti had a number of names. Upon his ascension, he took the prenomen mn-m3‘t-r‘, which translates as Menmaatre in Egyptian, meaning "Eternal is the Justice of Re." His better known nomen, or birth name is technically transliterated as sty mry-n-ptḥ, which is usually realised as Sety Merenptah, meaning "Man of Set, beloved of Ptah". The Greeks called him Sethosis. Manetho incorrectly considered him the founder of the 19th dynasty.

1 Reign
2 Burial
3 References
4 External links

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Reign

In Year 7 of his reign, Seti appointed his son Ramesses II as the Crown Prince and his chosen successor but the evidence for a coregency between the two kings is likely illusory. Peter Brand stresses in Chapter 4 of his "The Monuments of Seti I and their Historical Significance" thesis that relief decorations at various temple sites at Karnak, Qurnah and Abydos which associate Ramesses II with Seti I, were actually carved after Seti's death by his son, Ramesses II. In addition, the late William Murnane, who wrote a seminal book titled "Ancient Egyptian Coregencies" in 1977 on the Egyptian coregency system, later discounted the idea of a coregency between Seti I and his son prior to his death in 2000 due to the weakness of the evidence. Seti I's Highest Date is Year 11, IV Shemu day 12 or 13 on a sandstone stela from Gebel Barkal but he would have briefly lived for 2 to 3 days into his Year 12 before dying based on the date of Ramesses II's rise to power. Seti I's accession date has been determined by Wolfgang Helck to be III Shemu day 24, which is very close to Ramesses II's known accession date of III Shemu day 27.

Seti I's reign length was either 11 or 15 Full Years, according to Manetho. While the English Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen believes that it was 15 years, circumstantial evidence currently suggests that the shorter figure is the right one. There are no dates known for Seti I after his 11th Year which is significant if he enjoyed a reign of 15 Years because he is quite well documented in the historical records. A continuous break in the record for his Year 12, 13, 14 or 15 appears somewhat unlikely. More importantly, Peter Brand in a JARCE 34(1997) pp.101-114 paper titled "The 'Lost' Obelisks and Colossi of Seti I," noted that the king personally opened new rock quarries at Aswan to build obelisks and colossal statues in his Year 9. This event is commemorated on two rock stelas. However, most of Seti's obelisks and statues — such as the Flaminian and Luxor obelisks were only partly finished or decorated by the time of his death since they were completed early under his son's reign. Brand aptly observes that this evidence calls into question the idea of a long 15 Year reign for Seti I and suggests that "Seti died after a ten to eleven year reign" because only two Years would have then passed between the opening of the Rock Quarries and the partial completion and decoration of these monuments. (Brand., JARCE 34, p.114) This explanation conforms well with the evidence of the unfinished state of Seti II's monuments and the fact that Ramesses II had to complete the decorations on "many of his father's unfinished monuments, including the southern half of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak and portions of his father's temples at Gurnah and Abydos" during the very first Year of his own reign. (Brand, JARCE 34, p.107)

After the enormous social upheavals generated by Akhenaten's religious reform, Horemheb's, Ramesses I's and Seti I's main purpose was to re-establish order in the kingdom and to reaffirm Egypt's sovereignty over Canaan and Syria, which had been compromised by the increasing external pressures from the Hittites state. Seti, with energy and determination, confronted the Hittites several times in battle. Without succeeding in destroying the Hittites as a potent danger to Egypt, he reconquered most of the disputed territories for Egypt and generally concluded his military campaigns with victories. The memory of such enterprises was perpetuated by some large pictures placed on the front of the temple of Amon, situated in Karnak. A funerary temple for Seti was constructed on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes. A further temple was also built at Abydos, which was started by Seti, and completed by his son. His capital was at Memphis. He was considered a great king, but his fame has been overshadowed since ancient times by that of his son Ramesses II.

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Burial

Seti's well preserved tomb (KV17) was found in 1817 by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, in the Valley of the Kings, but his mummy was not discovered until 1881, in the mummy cache (tomb DB320) at Deir el-Bahri, and has since been kept at the Cairo Museum. His sarcophagus is in the Sir John Soane's Museum, in London, England. From an examination of this extremely well preserved mummy, Seti I appears to have been less than forty years old when he died unexpectedly. This is in stark contrast to the situation with Horemheb, Ramesses I and Ramesses II who all lived to an advanced age. The reasons for his relatively early death are uncertain, but there is no evidence of violence on his mummy. It has been suggested that he died from a disease which had affected him for years, possibly related to his heart. The latter was found placed in the right part of the body, while the usual practice of the day was to place it in the left part during the mummification process. Opinions vary whether this was a mistake, an attempt to have Seti's heart work better in his afterlife than it did during his lifetime or even that Seti was born with his heart on the right side of his body, a rare occurrence Template:Fact.

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References

Jürgen von Beckerath, Chronologie des Pharaonischen Ägypten, Philip Von Zabern, Mainz(1997), p.201
Peter Brand, "The 'Lost' Obelisks and Colossi of Seti I," JARCE 34(1997), pp.101-114

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