Buried Cities and Bible Countries

by George St. Clair

Rameses I., founder of the nineteenth dynasty, was found placed in a coffin of the fashion of the twenty-first dynasty, from which the name of the original owner had been carefully scraped off.

Seti I., his successor (coffin and mummy). The superb alabaster sarcophagus of this monarch was already in the Soane Museum, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. When Belzoni discovered it in 1817, in the original sepulchre in the valley of the kings at Thebes, he was astonished to find the mummy and coffin gone. When the mummy of this Pharaoh was unrolled it was found that the body was long, fleshless, of a yellow-black colour, and had the arms crossed upon the breast. The head was covered with a mask of fine linen, blackened with bitumen, which it was necessary to remove with scissors. This operation brought to view the most beautiful mummy-head ever seen in the museum. The sculptors of Thebes and Abydos did not flatter this Pharaoh when they gave him that delicate, sweet, smiling profile which is known to travellers. After a lapse of thirty-two centuries the mummy retains the same expression which characterised the features of the living man. Seti I. must have died at an advanced age. The head is shaven, the eyebrows are white, the condition of the body points to more than three-score years of life; thus confirming the opinion of the learned, who have attributed a long reign to this king. Seti I. built the Hall of Columns in the Great Temple of Ammon, at Karnac. There exist numerous remains also at Koorneh, Abydos, and elsewhere, of the extensive and magnificent buildings which he erected with the aid of the conquered Semites, among whom the Israelites must probably be included. During his reign a great canal, the first of its kind, was completed, connecting the Nile with the Red Sea.

SETI I.

RAMESES II.

Rameses II., the renowned soldier, son of Seti I., known to the Greeks as Sesostris. The oppression of the Israelites, probably begun by Seti I., was continued under Rameses II. In the sixth year of his reign, however, Moses was born. The mummy of Rameses II. was found deposited in a coffin of the twenty-first dynasty, like that of Rameses I. This gave rise to doubts as to which particular Rameses was enclosed, but on unwrapping the mummy an inscription was found, explaining that the original coffin had been accidentally broken, and leaving no doubt that this was Rameses II. Most striking, when compared with the mummy of Seti I., is the astonishing resemblance between father and son. The nose, mouth, chin, all the features are the same, but in the father they are more refined than in the son. Rameses II. was over six feet in height, and we see by the breadth of his chest and the squareness of his shoulders that he must have been a man of great bodily strength. Professor Maspero, in his official report, describes the body as that of a vigorous and robust old man, with white and well-preserved teeth, white hair and eyebrows, long and slender hands and feet, stained with henna, and ears pierced for the reception of ear-rings. Rameses II. reigned sixty-six years, and was nearly a hundred years old at the time of his death. He exhibited great zeal as a builder, and was a patron of science and art. It was he who built the Ramesseum at Thebes, and presented it with a library. He also built the Pylons and Hall of Columns of the Temple of Luxor, and a score of minor temples in Egypt and Nubia, and made the marvellous rock-cut temples at Abousimbel.

Rameses II. was succeeded by his thirteenth son, Meneptah II., who continued the oppression of the Israelites, and pursued them when they were escaping.

Besides all these monarchs, there were found in the strange repository at Deir el-Bahari, coffins and mummies of Rameses III. (of the twentieth dynasty), the last of the great warrior kings of Egypt, Pinotem I., and Pinotem II., priest-kings of the twenty-first dynasty, and several queens, princes, and notabilities of the same periods. An affecting story, which brings home to us very vividly the universal kinship of humanity, is revealed by the contents of the coffin of Makara, wife of King Pinotem, of the priest-king dynasty. A little coiled-up bundle lay at the feet of the Queen, her infant daughter, in giving birth to whom she gave likewise her life. Thus, and so touchingly, are we led to participate in the affliction of the sick chamber of three thousand years ago. Already had the still-born babe of a queen received a name, Mautemhat, the firstling of the goddess Maut, wife of Amen; and not a name alone, for she is born to a title strange to our ears, namely, “principal royal spouse.”