the earlier reign of ramesses ii and his coregency with sety i

The Earlier Reign of Ramesses II and His Coregency with Sety IAuthor(s): William J. MurnaneReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jul., 1975), pp. 153-190Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/544647 .Accessed: 07/03/2012 10:09

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JOURNAL OF

Near Eastern Studies JULY 1975 VOLUME 34 . NUMBER3

NINETY-SECOND YEAR

THE EARLIER REIGN OF RAMESSES II AND HIS COREGENCY WITH SETY I*

WILLIAM J. MURNANE, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

AMONG the contributions of the late Keith C. Seele to the field of Egyptology, his monograph on the coregency of Ramesses II with Sety I and the date for the great hypostyle hall at Karnak is one of the most significant. Using mainly the epigraphic evidence derived from Ramesses II's earliest monuments, Seele established a chronological framework which is still basically the one used today. Much of his work, however, was done under less than ideal conditions: access to certain portions of the hypostyle hall was limited by repairs being effected in Karnak at that time, and teaching duties in Chicago really prevented Seele from checking his final observations in the field. Still, one must admire the accuracy and incisiveness of his observations at innumerable points, and any revisionist effort must acknowledge his pioneering work at every turn. This study is dedicated to his memory.

I

In his posthumously published book on the temples of Karnak, Georges Legrain devoted several pages to a discussion of a scene which is located on the north wall, just west of the doorway, in the hypostyle hall. The scene depicts the bark-shrine of Amun carried in procession by a group of priests which includes two royal figures, one at the prow of the bark, and the other beside it in the center of the scene. Legrain's translation of the accompanying text, by his own admission a tentative one, led him to suggest that the first of these figures was that of Ramesses II, while the second figure he identified as Sety I.1 His suggestions were adopted by Seele, who argued that the two kings were represented as coregents in a scene which was one of the last to be carved in the decoration

* Abbreviations in this article are those in Eric Hornung, Einfiihrung in die Agyptologie (Darmstadt, 1967), pp. 163-67, with the following additions: MH = Epigraphic Survey, Medinet Habu, 8 vols.: OIP 8, 9, 23, 51, 83, 84, 93 and 94 (Chicago, 1930-70); RIK = idem, Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak, 1-2, OIP 25 and 35 (Chicago, 1936); Nelson, Key Plans = H. H. Nelson, Key Plans Showing the Locations of

Theban Temple Decorations, 2d ed. rev., OIP 56 (Chicago, 1941); Kitchen, RI = K. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, Historical and Biographical, 7 vols. (Oxford, 1969-).

I would like to thank Charles F. Nims for reading the manuscript and correcting several errors.

x Georges Legrain, Les temples de Karnak (Brus- sels, 1929), pp. 200-209.

[JNES 34 no. 3 (1975)] ? 1975 by the University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

153

154 JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES

of the hall.2 The general acceptance of these views seems now to be sealed by the identification of the two royal figures as Ramesses II and Sety I in the recently revised edition of the Topographical Bibliography's volume on the Theban temples.3

Since these conclusions rest on an interpretation of the text accompanying the scene in question, it is particularly unfortunate that it has hitherto remained unpublished. To remedy this situation, I devoted some time, in the autumn of 1972, to making an accurate hand copy of this inscription. The results are presented here (see fig. 1), along with a translation.4

TRANSLATION

(1) The King's Son of the Starboard Side,a ... [the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lan]ds, [Menmacat]r?,b (2) the Son of RW, Lord of Diadems, Sety- Mer[en]amun .... (3) my limbs being pure and clean ... through being established (?)C ...d ....(4) to the secret chamber, RW (being) in heaven, [his] hearte joyful [with]' the instanceg of divine order which has occurred when he has seenh [his] soni (5) carrying him, the king lifting upi the one who begat him,k (being) one who [causes]' (things) to be done out of excellence,m (6) and one who is beneficial to those who are beneficial.n In- deed, (I)o am acting in accordance with ... his counselsP ... (7) fixed in my heart, for he has

given to me (8) his function, his place, his throne, his kingship (9) as ruler of the Two Lands. He has bequeathed to me (10) those things which are his in the presence of the entire land.q (11) The army and the entourage have beheldr me, the sovereign (12) carrying his father, I being very, very pure.s (13) I have given more than is customarily done,t for I know (14) that he is satisfied with purity, that he lives on truth. How

flourishing (15) is the king who does what (I) have done for him; for he shall attain to

everlastingness.

(a) s3-nswt n jmyt-wrt: for this title and its variants, see H. Kees, "Webpriester der 18. Dynastie im Trdigerdienst bei Prozessionen," ZAS 85 (1960): 45-46. Legrain's translation, "le fils royal est a tribord," seems impossible, since this rendering would require hr jmyt-wrt (Wb. I, 73, 7) where our text has the genitive n.

(b) The restoration of Sety's prenomen is certain, since his nomen follows, in proper sequence, at the top of the next column. The survival of the right bottom wedge of nb tswy supports the restoration of "lord of the Two Lands," and the existence of nswt-bjty is pre- supposed from the full writing of the titles s3 Rc, nb hcw before the nomen.

(c) The traces fit br mn. For the causative use of br + infinitive, see Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 3d ed. rev. (London, 1957), p. 128, sec. 166.3.

(d) The traces of jw visible here probably were followed by the subject and verb one wants: something like "one proceeded" would suit the context.

(e) The traces suit jb + stroke; for a similar shape, see the writing of wt-jb in a scene on the neighboring west wall (Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 4, 253). Restore -f below.

(f) The traces suit 3w: restore jb [f,] w [m] ... (g) The remains of the sp sign are clearly visible above the n; its position suggests the full

spelling restored here.

2 Keith C. Seele, The Coregency of Ramses II with Seti I and the Date of the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, SAOC 19 (Chicago, 1940), p. 23, sect. 40 and p. 24, fig. 8.

3 PM2 2, p. 44 (153), III.1. 4 I am indebted to E. F. Wente for several valuable

suggestions, but responsibility for what follows is mine alone.

15 10 5 1

•_-_ l cCrP n- I

I c ,.Oli

A'

<3r> -3

AMI L r- Ott,%c 'Cop

- IrYrot wo*

~n(Vol b~c "-- lo

FIG. 1.-Karnak, Hypostyle Hall, West Side of North Wall: Text above Bark of Amun

Ct2E

Ct Ct2

H

H;E


(h) Reading min. n f s~ .[f hr] rmnt -f (or rmn jt .f?). The proposed spelling of mi(3) as mln is well attested for the sdm f form (see Gardiner, Cr.3, p. 352, sec. 439; p. 364, sec. 448), but seems otherwise unattested for the sdm. n f. Other alternatives are mDn[ f] n .f s~. [f], "when (he) sees for himself his son," presupposing the omission of the subject (ibid., pp. 396-97, sees. 486-87); or, less probably, m. n n .f s3 . [f ... ?] rmn jt .f, "for his son has seen for himself (the virtue of?) carrying his father." Considering the aberrant writings of what is supposed to be Classical Egyptian in the temple inscriptions of the New Kingdom, it seems that either of the first two solutions is preferable to the third.

(i) The damaged section at the bottom of the column, once the s3-bird has been completed, allows room for one more tall sign or for two short groups. The proposed restoration fits it well.

(j) Restore f:[t]; the trace to the left of the aleph (carved with a spur projecting from the back of the rounded head, as commonly in the hypostyle hall) is probably the upraised arm of the determinative (see Gardiner, Gr.3, p. 443, A-9).

(k) Traces show ms s, for ms sw (Wb. IV, 59; thus, for example, frequently in the name "Ramesses," for Rc-ms-s(w)).

(1) Only the feet of the bird remain. It is hardly an m, since in relation to other examples in this text, the legs are too long, and there are no traces of the tail or "pants" on surviving surfaces where one would expect them. Restore, then, [dj]w.

(m) A not uncommon phrase in Ramesside temple inscriptions, but one which has apparently escaped the compilers of the Berlin dictionary (Wb. II, 86, 14 lists only r mnh). Usually the phrase occurs with direct object, i.e., jrt mnw hr mnh (RIK 1, 16, B-4; cf. E. Otto, "Eine Bauinschrift Ramses' III. in Luxor," ZAS 90 [1960]: 97, 1. 4; cf. trans., ibid., p. 94; and cf. several occurrences on the architraves in the forecourt of the temple of Khonsu at Karnak, at 706, 1. 2; 707, 1. 1 ; and 710, 1. 2).

(n) Cf. Otto, "Bauinschrift," p. 94, 1. 4, 3h n n .n f, "useful to those who are useful to him"; and note the curious 3h n sh sw (Khonsu temple: Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 17, 304).

(o) Mk (wy) hr jrt; for similar examples with the first person dependent pronoun omitted, see RIK 1, 37 f, 1. 4; MH 2, p. 114, 1. 12; also on the south wall of the hypostyle hall at Karnak, just west of the doorway, in the speech of Ramesses II before the bark of Amun, mk (wy) hr rdjt n. k rsy mj mhty, jmnntt, jobtt hr

st-hr, k, "Indeed, (I) am giving to you the south as

well as the north, the west and the east under your supervision." The clearest published photograph is in S. Giedion, The Eternal Present: The Beginnings of Architecture, Bollingen Series no. 35, 6. 11 (Washington, 1964), p. 363, fig. 229.

(p) Restore h of shrw.f. (q) For m hft-hr n, see Wb. III, 275, at C; it is the normal writing of this compound in the

hypostyle hall. At the bottom of the column, the trace suits the auxiliary r of dr, with apparently no room for .f (see Gardiner, Gr.3, p. 79, sec. 100.1).

(r) Reading min wy m~c (see above at h) or if the sdm.n .f form is preferred, render as a second tense, "it is while I am very, very pure that the army and the entourage have seen me...."

(s) Restore [sp] 2. (t) Probably, with the writing of auxiliary r, an imperfective passive participle (see

Gardiner, Gr.3, p. 275, sec. 358). Cf. below, jrr jr.n .j (1. 15), a king "who does what I did," speaking of any king, in a general sense.

Several conclusions may safely be drawn from the foregoing. First, the words "king's son" which appeared to be so significant to Legrain and Seele refer not to a royal prince but to the holder of one of the priestly titles associated with the term s:-nswt. Second, the holder of the title is not Ramesses II, but Sety I, who thus appears twice within the

RAMESSES II AND His COREGENCY WITH SETY I 157

scene.5 The figure at the prow of the bark acts, as we have seen, as the "king's son of the starboard side"; the figure walking beside the bark is identified as "[the majes]ty of the

King of Upper and Lower Egypt, MenmaCatr6, act[ing] as one favored before the king, on behalf of the second prophet of Amunm" (see fig. 2). The text behind the bark adds

2A-3 .rR oUPS

LOST

2gr Vorliklal

FIc. 2.-Karnak, Hypostyle Hall, West Side of North Wall: Text in front of King

0 n oa Co3 DrApoft*A 419=10. ^iOV

b3

Wr-H

1g4 Lye 1r; O

FIe. 3.-Karnak, Hypostyle Hall, West Side of North Wall: Text behind Bark of Amun

5 Thus also on the south wall, Ramesses II appears twice in a similar scene, accompanying the bark of

Amun as high priest, and censing it: PM2 2, p. 47 (158), 111.2; photo, Giedion, Eternal Present, p. 363.


very little, but, significantly, it mentions only Sety I: "the king himself (nswt ds f), his limbs being pure when he assumes the panther skin-the King of Upper and Lower

Egypt, Menmacatr?, given life, the Son of Re, Sety Merenamun-he says: 'my arms are

carrying my father, the august one, Amun-pa-Shu, just as the majesty of Shu did for his father RW who is in heaven' " (see fig. 3). Finally, since Ramesses II appears nowhere in this scene, it is impossible to prove that this part of the north wall was decorated during the coregency. This fact will be seen to have some importance in determining the true

sequence of decoration in the hypostyle hall and the extent of Ramesses II's participation in it.

II

The analysis of buildings decorated by Ramesses II in the earliest part of his reign depends on several epigraphic criteria which can be summarized as follows:

(A) Ramesses II's prenomen was originally a simple "Userma'atr?." Various optional elements can be found with this early form (such as tjt-Rc, jwc-Rc, and

hk.-? WDst) but they

do not invariably occur. The definitive form of the prenomen was only fixed when the

epithet stp.n. R' was added. Henceforward, Ramesses II was invariably "Usermacatr?

Setepenr?." (B) At the beginning of his reign, Ramesses II followed his father's example in

decorating interior surfaces in raised relief. Subsequently he began decorating interior surfaces with sunken relief, and even converted some of his original raised relief into the later sunken form.

(C) The form of the prenomen and the style of relief coincide. The earlier "simple" and

"compound" forms of the prenomen occur first in raised relief, and later in sunken relief. The final form of the prenomen, "Usermacatr? Setepenre," occurs overwhelmingly in sunken relief, and in raised relief only in a few, later and exceptional cases.6

These criteria, derived from and supported by the evident sequence of decoration in the temples built early in Ramesses II's reign, do not stand in a vacuum. There is a small corpus of statuary inscribed exclusively with the earlier form of the prenomen.7 These pieces are not dated, but they do support the proposition that, when the earlier

prenomen was in use, the later form was not. It is to be expected that the dated monuments from the earliest part of Ramesses II's reign, when they are arranged in the

proper chronological order, will show the same pattern. The accession of Ramesses II is now known to have fallen between I

.ht 16 and III Sht 11,8 and this approximate fix-

point makes a regrouping of the documents from his earliest years worthwhile. Redford's discussion already noted that several dates which are assigned to "regnal year one" are anachronistic and refer to past events.9 A closer examination, which also takes into account the form of Ramesses II's prenomen on each document, may be useful.

(1) Year 1, III ht 23. This is the second, and most specific, of three references to the affairs of year one, as related in the great dedicatory inscription which Ramesses II set

6 Seele, Coregency passim. 7 G. Legrain, Statues et statuettes de rois et de

particuliers, vol. 2 (Cairo, 1909), 4-8 (nos. 42140-43). 8 Accession on III ?mw 27 (proposed by W. Helck,

"Bemerkungen zu den Thronbesteigungsdaten im Neuen Reich," Analecta Biblica 12 [1959]: 118-20) or in the month II prt (most recently advocated by John

D. Schmidt, Ramesses II: A Chronological Structure for his Reign [Baltimore, 1973], pp. 159-60) are both impossible; the problem is studied in a forthcoming article by John Larson.

9 D. B. Redford, "The Earliest Years of Ramesses II and the Building of the Ramesside Court at Luxor," JEA 57 (1971): 110-11.


up in his father's temple at Abydos.1o This date must have fallen early in the regnal year, while the king was at Thebes, on his first journey (as king) to that city. Throughout the

dedicatory inscription, Ramesses is "Usermacatr? Setepenr?," but this form of his

prenomen was not necessarily that which was current during regnal year one. The

dedicatory inscription celebrates the completion of Sety I's monument by Ramesses II, a process which had not even begun during the king's first visit to Thebes. The references to year one are all set firmly in the past, and they cannot be used to argue that Ramesses had already adopted his long prenomen at this time."

(2) Year 1, III ht [sic]. In the text which records and commemorates his elevation to office by Ramesses II, the high priest of Amun, Nebwenenef, gives a date which, un-

accountably, leaves blank the space in which the exact day would have been inscribed.12 In any case, the reference to year one is almost certainly retrospective, since the tomb was surely begun much later in the owner's career. Thus, as in the Abydos inscription, the final form of the prenomen used here is not contemporary with Ramesses II's first

regnal year. (3) [Year 1, ... ] prt 20. This block from Giza is plausibly dated to regnal year one

because the simple form of the prenomen is used.13 (4) Year 1, III mw 10. This stela from Silsila is especially important in that it

employs four of the various compound names which can occur with the earlier form of the prenomen: tjt-Rc (1. 1), hk3- WDst (1. 8), jwc-Rc (1. 9), and mry-RI (1. 10).14 The stela is dated within the last third of the regnal year and shows that the change to the final long prenomen had not yet taken place.

(5) Year 1, II ht 25. This date is preserved on a battered inscription at Abu Simbel which is thought to belong to Ramesses II. The last two of the five incomplete lines are the most important:

(4) .ht-sp

1, II ht 25 mjp[ .... (5) Wsr-mDt-r' stp.n.r, p ntr 9 ... *15

The traces at the end of line 4 suggest the restoration, jp[t-swt], "Karnak," or perhaps simply jp[t] or jp[t rsyt], "Luxor." As it stands, we translate, "regnal year 1, II ht 25, in Kar[nak] (or Op[et]) .... Usemacatr? Setepenr?, the great god ... ." The qualification of Ramesses II as "the great god" is curious, and it is not certain that it was he who made this inscription.16 Another ambiguity lies in the placing of the date within the first regnal year: it could fall near the very beginning or the end. In any case, if Ramesses II was the king under whom this text was carved, the chances are that it was done while Abu Simbel was being decorated, after the fifth regnal year. In this case, the reference to year one and to events which occurred far downriver at Thebes would be retrospective.

10 Text: Kitchen, RI 2, fasc. 6, pp. 323-36, at 11. 26, 30, 76.

11 Redford, "Earliest Years," p. 112; cf. n. 105 below.

12 Theban Tomb No. 157 = PM2 1, pt. 1, p. 267 (8); the text was collated by me in the spring of 1972.

13 K. Sethe, "Die Jahresrechnung unter Ramses II. und der Namenwechsel dieses Konigs," ZAS 62 (1927): 112. Schmidt, Ramesses II, p. 157, doubts the exact chronological placement of this date (ibid., p. 66, at B).

14 P. Barguet, "Les stales du Nil au Gebel Silsileh," BIFAO 50 (1952): 49-63 (text, ibid., pp. 50-57). Schmidt, Ramesses II, p. 167, misreads the epithet

tjt-Rc in one of the king's cartouches as stp.n- RI, and this seriously affects his chronology, especially touching on the coregency (ibid., p. 157).

15 PM 7, pp. 108-9; LD 3, p. 189, a, cf. Text 5, p. 148. J. Cern' and E. Edel, Abou-Simbel, Salles interieures (Cairo, n.d.), G 14, give a copy of the text which confirms Lepsius's readings at crucial points.

16 Redford, "Earliest Years," p. 112, n. 2, is also dubious of Ramesses II's authorship here. For Ramesses II, "the great god," as deceased, see Kitchen, RI 6, fasc. 1, p. 19:12-13, 15. But cf. Labib Habachi, Features of the Deification of Ramesses II, ADAIK no. 5 (Gliickstadt, 1969), figs. 20-21 (pp. 32, 34), Ramesses II, "the great god," in his lifetime.


(6) Finally, a stela found at Giza (now in the British Museum) is dated simply to

"regnal year one." It was already fragmentary when it was discovered, and a recent collation has yielded no information as to the form of the prenomen, which is broken

away.17 These are all the documents which are dated to Ramesses II's first regnal years. Two

other documents, mistakenly attributed to him also, may be dealt with briefly: (A) A text purportedly dated to Ramesses II's first regnal year has been pointed out

on the eastern exterior wall of Ramesses II's triple shrine at the temple of Luxor. This text extends over onto the south wall of the pylon (west wing), where two out of the three fragmentary cartouches are identified as "undoubtedly those of Ramesses II."18 The writer has examined these cartouches and is able to say with certainty that they do not belong to Ramesses II. Rather, they consist of three distinct marginal inscriptions belonging (from top to bottom) to Sety II, Ramesses III, and another king who is

probably one of the later Ramessides (see fig. 4).19 They have nothing to do with Ramesses II, who tells us elsewhere that he finished work on the triple shrine in his third regnal year, not his first.20

j~/// / VLLI ADK ,L?D

OVk to T~oP~~~s~~ ~.*a-=~

FIG. 4.-Temple of Luxor, Marginal Inscriptions on Triple Shrine of Ramesses II

(B) Theban Graffito no. 298 is dated to II r'mw

16 in the first regnal year of a king whose prenomen Spiegelberg read as "Usermacatri Setepenri."21 Schmidt has accepted this reading, and has classified this document among those deriving from regnal year one of Ramesses II.22 The author of this graffito, however, is the well-known necropolis scribe, Amennakht, the son of Ipuy, who obligingly aids this identification by recording his name along with those of his sons, Amenhotep, HIori, and Pentaware, and whose lifetime fell in the Twentieth Dynasty, not in the Nineteenth.23 The king under whom

17 Kitchen, RI 2, fase. 6, p. 337 (sect. 104), has collated the original with the various copies, and his text supersedes earlier ones.

18 M. Abd el-Razik, "Some Remarks on the Great Pylon of the Luxor Temple," MDAIK 22 (1967): 68, followed by Redford, "Earliest Years," p. 110. Location: PM2 2, p. 310 (46).

19 The third cartouche, preceded by nb. to.wy, nb hp', should be a prenomen, and the seated god facing right, into the cartouche, would be "-rB." The prenomens of Ramesses IV (H. Gauthier, Le livre des rois d'1Igypte, vol. 3, MIFAO no. 19 [Cairo, 1914], pp. 183 [xxi.A, xxii.D], 184 [xxiv.B], 185 [xxix]), Ramesses VIII (ibid., p. 205 [i.A]), and Ramesses X (ibid., p. 218 [ix, x, xiii]) can begin in this way. This writing is also

found once for Ramesses II, in a combined (prenomen/ nomen) cartouche at Abu Simbel (ibid., p. 50 [lii]), but this occurrence is unique, and one would hardly expect the name of a king of the early Nineteenth Dynasty to appear in a marginal inscription beneath those of two successors.

20 Redford, "Earliest Years," p. 114, with pls. 31-31 A.

21 W. Spiegelberg, Agyptische und andere Graffiti (Inschriften und Zeichnungen) aus der thebanische Nekropolis (Heidelberg, 1921), no. 298 (p. 26, pl. 34).

22 Schmidt, Ramesses II, p. 24. 23 Spiegelberg, Graffiti, pp. 99-101 (sect. 44), and

p. 171.


he inscribed this text is probably "Usermacatr? Setepen[amun]" (the -Re of Spiegel- berg's transcription is quite uncertain), or Ramesses IV, certainly not Ramesses II.

This survey has yielded only six documents which bear dates within Ramesses II's first regnal year. Of these, only two seem to have been inscribed then, and not later. These two (nos. 3 and 4) all bear, insofar as they can be read, the earlier form of the

prenomen, and one of them (no. 4) is dated within the last third of the first regnal year. I believe we are justified in supposing that, at the end of his first year of reign, Ramesses II had not yet become "Usermacatr? Setepenr?." We do know that, by the end of his second year, Ramesses had assumed the final form of his prenomen, since he used it on the stela found between Aswan and Philae, dated III

grow 26 in regnal year two.24 How

early in the regnal year this change occurred, however, is a question which cannot be answered at this time. The stela of year two at Sinai25 gives a bare year date, and the stela found by Breasted at Sai is so badly damaged that one cannot be sure that it

belongs to Ramesses II at all.26 We can be tolerably sure, though, that for at least his first regnal year, Ramesses II employed the simple prenomen and its variants. This fact

provides a chronological context for the buildings in which the early prenomen appears.

III

Early work by Ramesses II occurs in five buildings. Three of them-temples at Abydos and Qurnah, and the hypostyle hall at Karnak-were monuments begun by Sety I. The other two-the temples at Abydos and Beit el-Wali-are in Ramesses' name alone.

A. THE TEMPLE AT BEIT EL-WALI

This temple is the smallest of the buildings listed above, and it appears to have been finished before any of the others, for the early prenomen is used throughout, and the final prenomen was only added later, in a few places.27 An early date for this temple is further suggested by the presence in the reliefs of Ramesses II's firstborn son, Amunhi- wenemef, who appears nowhere else in the various processions of princes at Abu Simbel, Luxor and the Ramesseum,28 and of the earlier of the two viceroys of Kush who suc- ceeded one another during the coregency, Amenemope.29 The unique occurrence of the epithet, "possessor of Jubilees (like Re)" among the king's Horus and Golden Horus names in one scene at Beit el-Wali 30 is not proof that material using the early prenomen can postdate the celebration of Ramesses II's first Jubilee in regnal year thirty.31 This

24 Kitchen, RI 2, fasc. 6, 344-45 (sect. 121). 25 A. H. Gardiner, T. E. Peet, and J. Cern?, The

Inscriptions of Sinai, 2d ed. rev. (London, 1955), vol. 1, pl. 70, no. 252; vol. 2, pp. 177-78.

26 J. H. Breasted, "Second Preliminary Report of the Egyptian Expedition," AJSL 25 (1908): 98.

27 H. Ricke, G. R. Hughes, and E. F. Wente, The Beit-el- Wali Temple of Ramesses II, Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition Memoirs, no. 1 (Chicago, 1967), p. 5 (Ricke); cf. ibid., p. 9, n. 6 (Hughes).

28 Ibid., pls. 8-9, 11; Seele, Coregency, p. 34 (sect. 54) maintains that Amunhiwenemef was dead when certain scenes in which he appears, described as

m:"-hrw, were carved. But, as Seele himself (ibid., p. 61) points out, "the addition of this epithet to the name of an Egyptian man or woman does not in itself prove that person to have been dead when the inscription was completed." On this, see William J. Murnane, "Ancient Egyptian Coregencies," (Ph.D. Diss., University of Chicago, 1973), pp. 274-80.

29 G. A. Reisner, "The Viceroys of Ethiopia," JEA 6 (1920): 39-40; Seele, Coregency, p. 36. (sect., 57).

o30 Ricke et al., Beit-el-Wali, pl. 9. 31 Schmidt, Ramesses II, pp. 157-58, cf. p. 160,

suggesting a late date for such material in the Beit el-Wali temple.


epithet is associated also with kings who never celebrated any Jubilees,32 and any king

might well be said to be, potentially, a "possessor of Jubilees" by divine fiat even before he had celebrated any.33 An optative, anticipatory usage of the epithet at Beit el-Wali seems more probable than any proposed dating of the temple later than the earliest

period of Ramesses II's reign.

B. ABYDOS, TEMPLE OF RAMESSES II

The temple of Ramesses II at Abydos must have been begun at roughly the same time as the Nubian temple, but its building history was longer. The rooms at the back of the

temple, surrounding the second octostyle hall, were decorated mostly in raised relief,

using the earlier prenomen. Work in sunken relief, still with the early prenomen, dominates the first octostyle hall and its adjoining chambers. Rooms I and II giving onto the

portico, as well as the portico itself and the front part of the temple, were finished off in sunken relief, but only after the final prenomen, "Usermacatr? Setepenr?," had been

adopted.34 The progression of these different styles from the rear to the front of the

temple strongly supports Seele's observations on this sequence of decoration in the early part of Ramesses II's reign, as summarized at the beginning of our section II. A terminus a quo for the completion of the sections decorated with the earlier prenomen must be, at

least, the very end of regnal year one, and we may be certain they do not postdate the end of Ramesses' second regnal year.

C. ABYDOS, TEMPLE OF SETY I

In his father's temple, Ramesses is represented by work of two distinct periods. In the south wing of the temple, he is shown as crown prince in the Hall of Lists (Room X, see

fig. 5, a-b), and as king on the walls of Stairway Y' (see fig. 6, a-c). In the Hall of Lists, the sash of one of the princely figures is inscribed (in sunken relief) with the early prenomen of Ramesses II. Since the sash, as an element of the figure's dress, is apparently an integral part of the original decoration, it seems evident that the scene was carved when Ramesses was already king.35 The scenes in Stairway Y' were probably carved at the same time, for they depict Ramesses II (early prenomen, raised relief) offering to Sety I and Isis.36 These seem to be the only places in the temple of Sety I

32 Ramesses IV, see H. Gauthier, LdR, 3, pp. 179 (iv), 180 (ix, x), 181 (xiv), 185 (xxx), 188 (lii), 189 (liii); Ramesses VI see ibid., 199 (xxix, A).

33 Thus Ramesses III is presented Jubilees by the gods throughout the Medinet Habu temple (see JITH, 4, pp. 207, 220, 245 F; cf. 246 C), even though he had celebrated no Jubilees when the temple was finished (Keith C. Seele, "Some Remarks on the Family of Ramesses III," in Otto Firchow, ed., Agyptologische Sudien, VIO no. 29 (Berlin, 1955), p. 308; Uvo H61scher, The Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III, The Excavation of Medinet Habu, vol. 4, OIP no. 55 [Chicago, 1951], pt. 2, pp. 26-28; cf. MH 3, pl. 162).

34 For plan, see PM 6, p. 32. Since the temple is unpublished, the observations rest on comments by Seele, Coregency, pp. 45-46 (sects. 71-74), checked against photographs supplied to me by E. F. Wente. The only significant disagreement between these two

sources is that the photographs do not show any raised relief in Room XII.

3- Seele, Coregency, sect. 75; Auguste Mariette, Abydos: Description desfouilles executees sur Iemplace- ment de cette ville, vol. 1 (Paris, 1869), pl. 46. The handling of small decorative details in sunken relief, in a context in raised relief, is not uncommon: see A. Calverley, N. Broome, and A. H. Gardiner, The Temple of King Sethos I at Abydos, vol. 1 (London, 1933), p1s. 7 and 11.

36 Seele Coregency, sect. 76, identifies this scene as carved in sunken relief, but he was perhaps misled by the very simplified drawing in Mariette, Abydos, 1, pl. 50. The scenes in question are carved in raised relief. I am indebted to Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Williams for taking these and other photographs at Abydos for me.


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off ..... ..... .......... b FIG. 5.-Abydos, Temple of Sety I: (a) Ramesses II as Crown Prince in the Hall of Lists: (b) Detail

of Cartouche on Prince's Garment. Photos by Bruce Williams

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FIG. 6.-Abydos, Temple of Sety I: Early Reliefs of Ramesses II in Stairway Y'. Photos by Bruce Williams

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where Ramesses appears with the early prenomen; perhaps more than this token

participation was ruled out by the young king's current involvement with his own temple nearby. When Ramesses did resume work at this temple, he was already "Usermacatr?

Setepenr?." The south wing shows a little decoration in the later style (sunken relief, final prenomen),37 but the bulk of Ramesses' efforts were concentrated on the front of the building, as he himself describes in the great dedicatory inscription :38

Now (regarding) the Mansion of Menmacatr6, its front and its back were in the process of construction when he entered heaven. Its architectural elements39 had not been completed; the pillars had not been erected on its terrace, and its cult image was (still) on the ground:40 it had not been fashioned as a divine image (?)41 of the goldsmith's workshop.42 Its offerings (i.e., offerings for it) had come to an end and the staff of the temple likewise.

These remarks fit very well the condition of the temple when Ramesses resumed his work in it. As we have seen, Ramesses added a few texts to the south wing, but certain rooms were left for his successors to decorate.43 The pillars which had not been erected at

Sety's death can only be those of the portico, which were decorated entirely by Ramesses

II;44 those in the first hypostyle hall already bore decoration by Sety I when his son (as "Usermacatr? Setepenr&") usurped them.45 It seems that Ramesses II both built and decorated the portico, the two courts and the pylon, thus completing his father's temple. It is quite significant that all this independent work on Sety's monument, as well as all

usurpations in it, were done only after Ramesses had become "Usermacatr? Setepenr?."

D. QURNAH, TEMPLE OF SETY I

The participation of Ramesses II in the decoration of his father's mortuary temple at Qurnah shows the same progression of styles which is found in the temples at Abydos. It is also more extensive, and the material may best be presented in tabular form, followed by comments.46

(1) Sety I associated with Ramesses II, first stage: raised relief, early prenomen (R1S1). Hypostyle with porch, walls: entire (see fig. 7). Columns 11-16, with abaci. Architraves,

151-55. Ceiling (156). Room XXVIII, south wall: entire (307-11; see fig. 8a); north wall: 297-99, 301;

lintel above door (300): see fig. 8c; west wall: frieze above 304 (see fig. 8b); east wall: frieze above 294 (see fig. 8d). Columns 17-18, with abaci. Architraves, faces 318, 320.

37 PVM 6, pp. 25-26, at Y and Z; 26 (238), e-f. 38 Kitchen, RI 2, fasc. 6, p. 326: 3-5. 39 J. Vandier, Moaclla, IFAO-BdE no. 18 (Cairo,

1950), p. 211. 40 Perhaps in the sense, "neglected" or "aban-

doned"? T. G. H. James, The Hekanakhte Papers and Other Early Middle Kingdom Documents, Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedi- tion, no. 19 (New York, 1962), p. 26 (52).

41 rht.n.f = rh.n.f (Wb. II, 445.11); see J. Nerny', Hieratic Inscriptions from the Tomb of Tutankhamiin, Tutankhamfin Tomb Series, no. 2 (Oxford, 1965), p. 14.

42 J. J. Janssen, Two Ancient Egyptian Ships' Logs (Leiden, 1961), p. 32.

43 PM 6, p. 27 (250)-(252): Merneptah and Sety II are mentioned.

44 Ibid., p. 5, top. 45 Ibid., p. 6, bottom. Against the impression

obtained from Mariette, Abydos, vol. 1, p. 14, and E. Zippert, Das Geddichtnistempel Sethos' I. zu Abydos (Berlin, 1931), pp. 20-21 (followed by Seele, Core- gency, p. 49). Only the columns were usurped from Sety I, and the rest of the hall (i.e., the wall decoration) is the original work of Ramesses II, under the late prenomen.

46 This temple is also unpublished, and the observations depend on notes taken in the course of many visits in 1972 and 1973. For plan and numbering, refer to Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 37, figs. 1-2.


FRIEZE S' I FRIEZE S' 15 GODS WITH s JUXTAPOSED

R' I S' ? S' ? S' NAMES OF R' S'

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FIG. 7.-Qurnah, Temple of Sety I: Wall Decoration in Hypostyle Hall, (a) South, and (b) North

Sides. Key to figures showing decoration: R1, Ramesses II, raised relief, early prenomen. R2, Ramesses II, sunken relief, early prenomen. R3, Ramesses II, sunken relief, final prenomen. S1, Sety I,

raised relief. S2, Sety I, sunken relief. b, Raised relief

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FIG. 8.-Qurnah, Temple of Sety I: Wall Decoration in Chapel of Ramesses I, (a) South, (b) West, (c) North, and (d) East Walls

The initiative in the hypostyle evidently rested with Sety I, as the frieze of cartouches which runs along the tops of the walls bears his name only. Otherwise, participation by Ramesses II (under the various forms of his early prenomen) is generous and widely distributed. The names of the two kings are infrequently intermingled within one scene or context: this occurs only in one scene on the south wall, over the porch,47 and on the

ceiling, where the bands of text alternately name Sety I and Ramesses II.48 More

47 P.MJ2 2, p. 413 (55), cf. Seele, Coregency, p. 45. 48 PM2 2, p. 410, bottom. For similar designs, see

Calverley et al., Temple of King Sethos I, vol. 1, pl. 34; ibid., vol. 4 (London, 1958), p1s. 56, 58.


commonly, the figures and/or names of the two kings are shown in alternating sequence in separate scenes or surfaces: this arrangement on the walls of the hypostyle is illus- trated in figure 7; on columns, abaci and architraves, the names of the two kings are arranged over the various surfaces in such a way that they appear to alternate when seen from virtually any point in the hall.

In the vestibule of the chapel for Ramesses I (Room XXVIII), participation by Ramesses II is more complete. Notably, the frieze of cartouches along the tops of the walls is, for the most part, in the name of both kings, although not all of it is in raised relief (see fig. 8). Work evidently began on the south wall, which was entirely carved in raised relief, using the various forms of Ramesses' early prenomen.49 The two columns and their abaci were executed and divided between the two kings in the same way as their counterparts in the hypostyle hall, and the central faces of the two architraves are also done in raised relief (albeit with texts of Sety I alone). The north wall is, with the exception of two elements, laid out identically to the south wall.

(2) Sety I associated with Ramesses II, second stage: sunken relief, early prenomen (R2S2). Room XXVIII, north wall: doorjambs (300: see fig. 8c); west wall: 302-04 (see fig.

8b); east wall: 295, with frieze above (see fig. 8d). Architraves, faces 316, 322. Ceiling (319).

Room XXXIV, east wall: entire (391-94; see fig. 9b); south wall: entire (390; see fig. 9c); west wall: frieze (see fig. 9d).

In Room XXVIII most of the north wall was carved in the first stage, using raised relief, including the lintel of the doorway. With the jambs, however, the second stage was begun, and these were carved in sunken relief, although the division of the doorway between Sety and Ramesses (still using the earlier prenomen) was maintained. This second stage (corresponding to the second stages at Beit el-Wali and in Ramesses II's temple at Abydos) extends to the outer faces of the architraves, and also to the ceiling, which is otherwise similar to the ceiling in the hypostyle. In Room XXVIII, however, the central motif is flanked by two vertical bands of text, recording Ramesses II's involvement in the decoration of the chapel to Ramesses I.

On the walls of Room XXVIII the work of this period is represented chiefly on the west, and more sparingly on the east walls. Its extent and distribution can be quickly assessed (see fig. 8, b, d), but several details bear mentioning. First, an interesting feature of the portal leading into the central chapel (304, top) is the depiction of this king ("given life") as an actor in one of the scenes on the lintel, although he was certainly dead by this time.50 Second, the frieze of cartouches above 295, on the east wall, is in the name of Ramesses II alone. Third, and most ambiguous, is a scene located on the west wall, above the doorway of the northern chapel (302, see fig. 8b). It is carved in sunken relief, and probably depicted Ramesses II (the names are broken away) offering to Amun (?) and Khonsu, behind whom is Sety I, "the Triumphant" (mi'-hrw). A clue to the form of the king's prenomen in this scene may be supplied by the doorway below it, which is inscribed with Ramesses II's early prenomen, in sunken relief. Since later work never appears above earlier carvings in the chapel, it is quite likely that the king who offers

49 P_•12, p. 417 (103); cf. Seele, Coregency, p. 31, fig. 10.

50o Cf. the ceiling of the doorway into the Ramesses I Chapel proper (PJM2 2, p. 418 [105]), on which the

cartouches of Sety I and Ramesses I are juxtaposed among the stars of the decorative motif, even though the two kings were not associated in the building of the chapel.


to the "triumphant" Sety I is Ramesses II (early prenomen). This scene is similar to several other scenes in the hypostyle hall at Karnak, and it will be further discussed with them.

Room XXXIV, which lies behind the Chapel of Ramesses I, was begun during this period. The north wall is destroyed, but the names of both kings alternate in the frieze of cartouches which surmounts the remaining three walls. Ramesses II (early prenomen) and Sety I appear in alternate scenes, or as balancing elements, on the east and south walls (see fig. 9).

(3) Sety I associated with Ramesses II, third stage: sunken relief, final prenomen (R3S2). Room XXVIII, east wall: 312-13, with frieze; 294, 296 (see fig. 8d); west wall: 305-6,

with frieze (see fig. 8b). Room XXXIV, west wall: (395-400, minus frieze; see fig. 9d). Portico: kheker-frieze (22); cornices of doors at 13, 24 and 35; Nile gods (30, 38);

Columns, 1-10. The third stage is marked by Ramesses' assumption of the final prenomen, "User-

macatr6 Setepenr6." In this form, his name is associated with that of Sety I only in the frieze of cartouches at the south sides of the east and west walls of Room XXVIII (see above 305, 312 and figs. 8b, 8d). Otherwise, scenes carved during this period in the Chapel of Ramesses I depict only Ramesses II, and in virtually every one of them (east wall: 294, 296, 312-13; west wall: 305) either Ramesses I or Sety I, invariably described as "triumphant," appears among the gods worshipped by Ramesses II. In Room XXXIV the west wall (below the frieze) bears scenes of Ramesses II as "Usermacatr6 Setepenre," and on the south half of the wall (398-400) these are mingled with others naming Sety I. Can this mean that Sety I was alive when his son became "Usermacatr6 Setepenri"? The possibility cannot be ruled out.

The names of the two kings are also associated on a number of elements in the portico of the temple (see list above), but here Sety I's participation is more sporadic and the responsibility of Ramesses II most clear. The inscription on the great architrave which runs the length of the portico tells us that Ramesses "made (it) as his monument for his father, Amun-RW, King of the Gods, when he renewed (var., "erected," schc) the mansion of his father, King Menmacatr•" (see fig. 10).51 Nevertheless, elements of the doorway into the Chapel of Ramesses I are divided between the two rulers, the several building inscriptions unanimously claim that it was Ramesses II alone who made the chapel for Ramesses I (or Sety I).52 The other scenes in which Sety I occurs (aside from elements which are formally divided between him and his son) commonly portray him in a subsidi- ary position vis-a-vis Ramesses II ;53 and in one of the two surviving scenes on the portico where he appears as the main actor, his name is qualified with the epithet "triumphant" (m~c-hrw).s4 This drastic reduction of his visible involvement in the

e' Ibid., 409, bottom. The texts, which I copied in the winter of 1972, are not completely published.

52 Ibid., p. 417 (98), a-f; photo in Seele, Coregency, p. 43, fig. 13. The texts are on the outer reveals of the doorway (north side: renewed for Ramesses I; south side: destroyed), and on the outer wall, flanking the doorway (north side: destroyed; south side: renewed for Sety I). Cf. the reveals to the chapel of Ramesses I, inscribed by Ramesses II as "Usermacatr, Setep-

enrV" (PM2 2, p. 418 [1051, c-d): north side, "(Ramesses II); he made it as his monument for his father, the good god,

Menpeh.tetr (= Ramesses I)":

south side: "[he made it as his] monument [for] King Menmacatri (= Sety I), the Triumphant."

63 Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 37, figs. 2, 17, 26, 28, and 37.

54 Ibid., p. 14, d ("triumphant"), 46; the bark of Sety I is shown at 7.

S2 RR

S2 2 R

,5 R3 R3

R2 S2 R2 S2 S

A B C D

FIG. 9.-Qurnah, Temple of Sety I: Room XXXIV, (a) North, (b) East, (c) South, and (d) West Walls

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FIG. 10.-Qurnah, Temple of Sety I: Southern Variant of Architrave Text, Portico

b

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(?) (b) (c) (d) (M)f) 1 ( 0) (e) (d) (c) (b) (a)

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FIG. 11.--Karnak, Hypostyle Hall, Vestibule to the Third Pylon: (a) North Side; (b) South Side

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project is even more significant when it is considered along with the numerous instances in which Ramesses claims sole responsibility for the continuation or "renewal" of the monument. This element is new in this period: in neither of the two previous periods had Ramesses presumed to "renew" a monument for Sety I, although we have seen him

performing this office in one place, unaided, for Ramesses 1.5 In consideration of these

facts, it is very tempting to draw the inference that Ramesses II was acting as sole ruler

during this period, and that the appearance of Sety I in the decoration was in the nature of an obligatory gesture: it was, after all, Sety's temple! The distribution and substance of the decoration throughout the Qurnah temple suggests that both kings were jointly involved during the first and second periods-this much appears certain. On the basis of evidence from the Abydos and Qurnah temples of Sety I, a close connection between the latter's death and his son's assumption of the final prenomen can be maintained. But the evidence is ambiguous enough to keep open the possibility that Sety died toward the close of the second period or shortly after the beginning of the third.

E. KARNAK, THE GREAT HYPOSTYLE HALL

In his monograph on the coregency of Sety I with Ramesses II, Seele argued that the

great hypostyle hall at Karnak was built at least partially under Ramesses I. Subse-

quently, he believed, the project was taken over by Sety I and Ramesses II, and the task of decoration was farmed out between them during the coregency. Sety is supposed to have decorated the northern half, Ramesses the southern portion. Ramesses, after Sety's death, reinscribed a number of surfaces to convert the monument into one predominantly decorated by himself.56 Seele's examination of the reliefs is still the most detailed account of the decoration of the hypostyle hall, and for that reason it is widely followed. A different view, however, is advanced by Paul Barguet in the course of his essay on the Karnak temple as a whole. Barguet maintains that Sety I built the hypostyle hall in its

entirety and decorated all but the southeast corner, which was uninscribed at his death. This portion was decorated in sunken relief by Ramesses II, who also usurped the scenes in raised relief which his father had executed in the southwest quarter of the hall.57 The difference between these points of view is fundamental, and consequently the decoration of the hypostyle hall will be considered here in some detail.

Seele's contention that Ramesses I was responsible for the building and earliest decoration of the hypostyle hall rests, I believe, on very tenuous grounds. The reliefs in which this king appears are located at the top of the northern half of the west wall, and in some of them Ramesses I is described as mc-hrw, "triumphant."''58 These scenes Seele would regard as having been executed after Ramesses' death, but the others he considers to be the king's own work and thus part of his contribution to the decoration of the

hypostyle hall. This distinction may well be illusory, however, for we have already noted a scene at the Qurnah temple, very probably carved long after Ramesses I's death, in which he appears with the epithet, "given life." When one considers, furthermore, that scenes belonging to Sety I occur at irregular intervals in the series mentioning Ramesses

55 On the ceiling of the vestibule to the Chapel of Ramesses I: "Usermacatr5 Titrj, he made it as his monument for his father, the good god Menpehltetr6, making for him a mansion of millions of years on the western side of Thebes ... "

56 Seele, Coregency, passim. 7 P. Barguet, Le temple d'Amon-lR & Karnak

RIFAO no. 21 (Cairo, 1962), pp. 59-63. 58 Seele, Coregency, sect. 23 = Pa2 2, pp. 43-44

(152) I 1, 3, 4, 5, 6.


I, it seems reasonable to suppose that Sety I executed the latter as a memorial to his deceased father.59 If Ramesses I was indeed actively involved in the building of the

hypostyle hall, his claims must rest on better evidence than this. The hypostyle hall, as it exists today, presents us with a welter of contributions by

many hands, second thoughts and usurpations. During the Chicago House season of 1972-73, I was able to spend many mornings and afternoons there, and the resulting observations (aided by binoculars and, when possible, a ladder) are in some cases different from those of both Seele and Barquet. Points of difference, as well as the desired overall view of the sequence of decoration, may best be apprehended by a chronological survey covering, in turn, the original contributions of Sety I, Ramesses II (early prenomen), Ramesses II (final prenomen), and the usurpations by Ramesses II.60

(1) Work of Sety I North wall, entire (266-97). East wall, north half: entire (301-44); vestibule, north half: entire (352 -90); south

half: two northernmost walls (Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 4, fig. 8, f-e; cf. our fig. 11, a-b). West wall, north half: entire (201-56; see our fig. 12b); passage: entire (1-20); south

half: 32-37, with cobra frieze, top: 65-67 (see our fig. 12a). Columns 74-134, with architraves; also architrave faces 430, 432, 433, 435, 436 (see

our fig. 13c). The elimination of Ramesses II from scene 278 on the north wall (see above, sect. I)

leaves Sety I as the only king originally involved in the decoration of the northern half of the hypostyle hall. The boundary between his work and that of Ramesses II is uneven. Thus, Sety decorated all the columns in the northern half, but his work on the architraves extends across the central passage and into the southern half, surmounting columns which were first decorated by Ramesses II. More work by Sety in the south half of the building is found on the walls below. On the east side, my examination revealed that he decorated all of the northern half of the vestibule, and the two northernmost walls of the south half as well (see figs. 11 a-b, 19).61 On the west side, the

passage through the second pylon was originally decorated by Sety, and his work spills over onto the southern half of the wall for a short distance (see figs. 12 a, 20).62 Most of the work in this area was later usurped by Ramesses II, under whose cartouches it is often possible to discern the erased name of his predecessor.

(2) Work of Ramesses II, first stage: raised relief, early prenomen (R1). West wall, south half: 38, 40?-41?, 47-49/50?, 56-59, 68-72; see our fig. 12 a. South wall, west half: (86-100) and doorway (101); see our fig. 12d. Columns 1-12, 67-73; also columns running under architraves 457, 445: 16-17, 25-26,

34-35, 44-43, 53-52, 61-62. Architraves, faces 456, 444 (see fig. 13 f-g).

59 Ibid., pp. 43-44 (152), 2, 7. 60 E. F. Wente and Charles C. Van Siclen contrib-

uted several useful suggestions and checked a number of points, but the responsibility for the observations given here remains my own. For plans and locations of reliefs in the following discussion, see Nelson, Key Plans, pls. 3-4, and our figs. 11-13.

61 This conclusion differs from that of Seele, Core- gency, p. 59, fig. 17, at D-E, who sometimes failed to notice the usurpation of Sety's names by Ramesses II.

62 65 probably belonged to Sety I originally, but the worn state of the cartouches made this impossible to prove. On Scene 67, see Seele, Coregency, pp. 56-57.


At the beginning of this period, Ramesses apparently picked up where Sety had left off. His original work on the west wall and also his decoration of the columns in the south half continues work in areas which Sety had begun to make his own.63 A doubtless

unwitting betrayal of the close association of the two kings at this time is found on the southernmost columns in the row east of the south doorway (no. 17): here, in the frieze of cartouches and marsh elements near the base, the cartouches of Sety I and Ramesses II alternate with each other. This feature is unique in the hypostyle hall (though not, as we have seen, elsewhere), and it occurs nowhere else on this column nor on its western

counterpart (no. 16). Most of the architraves connected with the columns decorated by Ramesses in this first period had already received decoration by Sety I (see above, at 1), and it is probably because of this that Ramesses chose to begin decoration on two "new"

architraves, facing into the southern central aisle.64 The extent of this early decoration on the south wall is clearly defined, but less so on the west wall, where destruction of the reliefs yields only an approximate boundary between the earlier and later stages.

(3) Work of Ramesses II, second stage: sunken relief, early prenomen (R2). West wall, south half: 42?/43?/44-46, 50?/51-55, 60-64, 73-74; (see our fig. 12a). South wall, eastern half: (102-21); reveals and exterior of door (see our fig. 12d). East wall, south corner to southernmost mast-niche: (133-36, 140-44, 151-54; see our

fig. 12c); vestibule, two surfaces: (Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 4, fig. 8d, all except 170, 174-

75; c, 182, 189, 196, half of 173; see our fig. 11b). Architraves, faces: (439-40, 441 see our fig. 13d-e). In this period, Ramesses completed the west and south walls, and also covered about

a third of the east wall, south half. Now, too, work was resumed on the vestibule: the

top of the wall immediately adjoining Sety's last reliefs had, it seems, already received some decoration in raised relief,65 but the cartouches in the scenes below appear to

belong to Ramesses II in his second period, with no certain trace of alteration. The next

adjoining wall, facing south, bears in its three lower registers apparently original decoration of Ramesses II during this period; the scene in the register above, however, was executed (very crudely) in the third period, when Ramesses was "Usermacatr? Setepenr6," and the frieze above this relief contains two cartouches, both in sunken relief, belonging to the second and third stages respectively (the latter, again, is very crudely done). Since the adjoining surfaces for the rest of the vestibule and the east wall belong to the third

period, the different styles on the south face may stem from some confusion at the point of transition between stages. The use of the early prenomen in the original decoration of the reveals and exterior of the south doorway assigns it to this stage or to the last-since the use of sunken relief on exterior surfaces was the convention at all stages. The figure of Sety I alternates with that of his son in the offering scenes here, and the base of the

doorway is still inscribed, in one place, with Sety's name for the temple.

63 Traces of Ramesses II's original decoration on the great papyriform columns can be made out in the bands of cartouches at the bases, at the tops of the columns, and on the capitals, wherever the layers of later paint and plaster have worn away. The scenes inscribed on the columns seem also to have borne Ramesses' early cartouches.

64 Of these two, only 456 is still substantially in place. I have seen a fragment of 444 in the open air magazine south of the hypostyle hall, still showing its

original decoration in lightly raised relief. 65 See our fig. 11 b, at d. The figure of Amun in the

top register (Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 4, 170), is certainly raised, and that of Ptah, below (ibid., 175) may have been, although it now appears to be done in sunken relief. The modeling of the figures in the scenes on this wall is quite generous, but this is characteristic of the earliest sunken relief of Ramesses II in the hypostyle hall and at the Qurnah temple, in contrast to the flatness of his later work.


In his monograph on the coregency, Seele argued that the older king was still alive during the second stage of Ramesses' work in the hypostyle hall. His case relied heavily on the manner and extent of Sety's participation in several scenes on the south wall, and these must be examined now in some detail. The most significant pinions of Seele's case are the two scenes located to the west and east of the doorway, respectively, on the south wall (bottom register: see fig. 12d, at x and y).66 In the western scene, originally in raised relief, Ramesses II is shown accompanying and offering to the sacred bark of Amun in procession. The scene on the east side (sunken relief) depicts the king offering to the bark-shrines of the Theban Triad. Particularly significant is the decoration on the canopies of these barks: this element characteristically bears an ornamental rebus- writing of the prenomen of the king under whom it was decorated,67 and Seele maintained that the canopies on both sides of the doorway were decorated in such a manner as to fuse the prenomens of Sety I and Ramesses II, "Menmacatr•"

and "Usermacatr?." His observation is correct as far as the canopy in the western scene is concerned, but my repeated examination of the eastern scene convinces me that the name of only one king is represented on the canopy decorated in the later, second period, and that king, surprisingly, is not Ramesses II, but Sety I! 68 This discovery does not undermine Seele's interpretation-rather, in showing a resurgence of Sety's influence in his son's reliefs during the second period, it might even strengthen it-but it does not clear up another source of ambiguity, which lies in the several appearances of Sety I's figure in the reliefs on the south wall.

Sety's figure appears at the back of both scenes discussed above. On the west side, his cartouches are followed by the words, "triumphant before the great god, lord of the sacred land (i.e., the necropolis)." Behind the figure runs a vertical band of text stating that "the king, the lord of the Two Lands, the master of the ritual, Menmacatr?, shall follow his father Amun-Ri in his beautiful Feast of the Valley, and he (Amun) shall endow his limbs with swe[et] breath ... " (see fig. 14, at a). The scene on the east side shows Sety behind the shrines of the three sacred barks, and in front of him is another vertical band of hieroglyphs which proclaims that "the king, the lord of the Two Lands, Menmacatri, will follow his father Amun in the temple, 'Glorious is Sety-Merneptah in the House of Amun' . . . " (see fig. 14, at b). This temple's name should probably be regarded as that of the mortuary temple at Qurnah rather than as the similarly-named hypostyle hall. At Karnak, Sety is ubiquitously called "Sety Merenamun," whereas at Qurnah he reverts to the more usual "Sety Merneptah."69 Sety's figures also occur on the doorway in the south wall, among the gods worshiped by Ramesses II, with epithets variously describing him as "the good god," "the good god who makes monuments for his father Amun-RW," and "triumphant before the great god."70

66 Seele, Coregency, 96-107, and figs. 21-22. 67 Thus, the bark procession on the north wall

(discussed above, sect. I) shows only Sety I's name on the canopy (ibid., p. 24, fig. 8); cf. MH 4, pls. 229, 231 (inscribed with names of Ramesses III).

68 Examined with the aid of binoculars and a ladder, and discussed in situ with E. F. Wente and Charles C. Van Siclen. Seele based his observations on a photograph, but what seemed to him to be the ears of the wsr is, in fact, part of an cnh. None of the other characteristics of Ramesses II's names, as expressed

on the curtain of the western scene, occur here. Note too that on the west wall, south half (Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 4, 72), Ramesses II (originally early prenomen, raised relief) offers to Amun in a bark shrine whose canopy is also inscribed for Sety I alone (photo, Seele, Coregency, p. 55, fig. 16).

69 There is some inconsistency (see Harold H. Nelson, "The Identity of Amon-Re of United-with- Eternity," JNES 1 [1942]: 136, fig. 6), but this example was carved under Ramesses II.

70 Seele, Coregency, figs. 19-20 (p. 65), cf. sect. 94.


R3R2

R'>R3 SI

S'>R3 S'> R3

A B

R3 R2 R2 RI> R3

C D FIG. 12.-Karnak, Hypostyle Hall: (a) West Wall, South Side; (b) West Wall, North Side; (c) East

Wall, South Side; (d) South Wall

THIRD PYLON

I lb cl le N II II I

I Ib cI Iei

SECOND F PYLON

FIG. 13.-Karnak, Hypostyle Hall, Partial Overview


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Ssrest lost

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a b

FIG. 14.-Karnak, Hypostyle Hall: Texts of Sety I at (a) 100-99, and (b) 117


These are by no means the only appearances of Sety I on the south wall, for in the

upper registers on either side of the doorway Ramesses II is shown making an offering to his father alone. To the east, in the top registers, Sety I "the triumphant" appears within the kiosk of a bark, while his son offers extensive gifts to him, as tabulated in an offering list between them.7 In the register below, Sety I appears on a pedestal within a small kiosk. His name is followed by the epithet, "triumphant," and the words, "appearance of the king in the house of his father Amun"; Ramesses II, dressed as the Yunmutef priest, presents a mortuary offering to "the Osiris, King Menmacatr?, the triumphant" (see fig. 15).72 On the west side of the doorway, in the second register, Ramesses II is shown pouring water over his father's figure, which is described as "(Sety I), triumphant before the great god, Osiris Chief of the Westerners." The text spoken by Ramesses is "(0) Osiris, King Menmacatr?, may you live, may you be renewed, may you be made

== 6*** 406-

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FIG. 15.-Karnak, Hypostyle Hall, Texts at B 113: (a) above Sety I; (b) above Ramesses II

71 Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 4, 105. I have seen the top portion of this scene, including the fragment showing the name of Sety I, m:e-hrw, in the open air magazine south of the first court at Karnak.

72 Ibid., 113; on the various uses of eh-nswt, see D. B. Redford, History and Chronology of the Eigh- teenth Dynasty of Egypt: Seven Studies (Toronto, 1967), pp. 3-27.


young!" (see fig. 16).v3 Finally, in the top register, at the southwest corner, Ramesses offers incense and libations before his father, "(Sety I), the triumphant before the great god." (see fig. 17).74

In his discussion, Seele argued strongly that Sety I, thus represented, was not yet dead, but was still his son's coregent. The figures so consistently referred to as m:'-hrw would then represent either the deified person of the king (much as Ramesses II would be deified in his own lifetime), or they would be statues of the king. In either case, Sety I

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FIG. 16.-Karnak, Hypostyle Hall, Texts at B 92: (a) above Ramesses II; (b) above Sety I; (c) between the figures

need not have been dead when the scenes were carved.75 In support for this contention, Seele notes that the name of the hypostyle hall in the vertical band of the eastern bark scene on the south wall is permitted to remain in its original form, whereas it is elsewhere usurped by Ramesses II. The implication is that Sety I was still in a position to press his claims during the second period, but, as we have seen, the usurpation of the name of the hypostyle hall by Ramesses II is not consistent (see above, p. 172). Further- more, what Seele takes to be the hypostyle hall may well be the Qurnah temple, the name

73 Nelson, Key Plans, p. 4, 92. 74 Ibid., 86; Seele, Coregency, sect. 93, cf. fig. 18.

I must thank my colleague, James P. Allen, for valuable advice in the copying and understanding of this text.

75 Ibid., pp. 61-62 (sect. 91-92); but cf. Seele's usual interpretation of m3c-hrw (ibid., sects. 23-24 and 54-60).


of which would not be changed in Ramesses II's favor. Better evidence is the decoration of the canopies of the various sacred barks, since it would surely be odd for Ramesses to retain an anachronistic form of this element (especially in the second period, see above, p. 173) if his father were already dead. The best evidence, however, is the comparative material from other temples. A similar scene, in which Ramesses II offers to Sety I, "the

I1 _ till

b c

mrrr

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bY ?

FIG. 17.-Karnak, Hypostyle Hall, Texts at B 92: (a) above Ramesses II; (b) above Sety I; (c) behind Ramesses II

triumphant," has been noted at the Qurnah temple, inscribed during the second period (see above, sect. 3, pp. 167-68). The cases in the hypostyle hall, on the western side of the south wall, bring this phenomenon back into the first period when Ramesses was decorating in raised relief and using the early form of his prenomen. This is precisely the period of the earliest work in all of Ramesses II's early monuments, particularly the period during which he was sharing the decoration of the Qurnah temple with Sety I. Unless we are to


believe that this extensive juxtaposition of materials postdates the coregency period- which, owing to the absence of independent renewal texts by Ramesses II during this

time, seems quite unlikely --we must come up with a less rigid equation than m:'-hrw =

"deceased." The use of this epithet in anticipation with a living ruler is well known from the Middle Kingdom ;76 and although this usage occurs less frequently during the New

Kingdom, it is by no means absent,: thus, for example, the statue of the living Ramesses

II, qualified as m'c-hrw, is found among the cult statues of the deified royal ancestors at the Min Feast, in the Ramesseum.77 Since the epigraphic evidence suggests that Sety I was still alive during the periods when he is also shown, on the south wall, receiving worship, his qualification as Dmc-hrw could correspond to the usage at the Ramesseum. His appearances on the south wall could reflect his role as Ramesses' deified predecessor par excellence, or as the god of his mortuary temple.78 Seen in this light, he could be either alive or dead, and, from all the evidence at Karnak and other places, it seems reasonable to assume that he was alive during the first two periods and dead a short time thereafter.

(4) Work of Ramesses II, third stage: sunken relief, final prenomen (R3). West wall, south end: extension between second pylon and south wall (75, see our

fig. 12a). East wall, south half: north of south mast niche (130-31, 137-39, 145-50, 155-60; see

our fig. 12c); vestibule, south half: Nelson, Key Plans, fig. 8, c, 177, 173 (half); b-a

(complete). Columns and architraves in south half, remainder (13-15, 18-21; 22-24, 27-30; 31-33,

36-39; 40-42, 45-48; 49-51, 54-57; 58-60, 63-66). The extent of surface left to inscribe in the third period was small, and the spaces left

uncovered during the first two stages were filled now. The most characteristic of Rames- ses' achievements in this style, however, was his revision of his father's and his own earlier work in the hypostyle hall. It was this which gave the building its final form and secured it predominantly as a monument belonging to Ramesses II.

(5) Revision of Ramesses II's own work by himself (as R3). In recarving large sections of the hypostyle hall, Ramesses seems to have had two

purposes: first, to usurp enough of his father's reliefs at important points so that his

"ownership" of the hall would appear more obvious; and, second, to homogenize the various styles which had been employed in the decoration of the hall by reducing the most striking of these, his own raised work, into sunken relief. Seele has shown that the recarving of the raised reliefs and the alteration of the earlier prenomen into the final form was dictated primarily by stylistic reasons and not by any desire to bring his earlier reliefs "up to date" by inserting his later prenomen wholesale; indeed, most of the original sunken reliefs with the early prenomen (R2) were allowed to remain as they were.79 At the

76 R. Anthes, "The Legal Aspect of the Instruction of Amenemmes I," JNES 16 (1957): 182-83, nn. 28- 31; Labib Habachi "King Nebhepetre Mentuhotp: His Monuments, Place in History, Deification and Unusual Representations in the Form of Gods," MIDAIK 19 (1963): 22, fig. 6.

77 MH 4, pls. 213-14; see further, Murnane, "Ancient Egyptian Coregencies," pp. 274-80.

78 On this aspect of the king's mortuary cult, see

Nelson, "Identity," pp. 127-55; L.-A. Christophe, "La salle V du temple de Sethi Ier h Gournah," BIFAO 49 (1950): 117-80.

79 Seele, Coregency, pp. 90-91; among the excep- tions to this general rule is the south exterior doorway, in which both Ramesses' early names and those of his father were recarved when the doorway was taken over for Ramesses II.


same time, while revising his own work, he was transforming the appearance of the hypostyle hall by usurping many of his father's original reliefs.

(6) Usurpations from Sety I by Ramesses II (R3). Columns 74-80, with architrave, south face (475; see our fig. 13b). Architrave, faces: 430, 432; 433, 435; 436. North wall, doorway, exterior: (see our fig. 13a). East wall, vestibule: north side (Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 4, fig. 12 d-e [f]); south side

(ibid., fig. 8 a-b). West wall, passage: entire (1-20); north side: 201-12 (see our fig. 12b); south side:

32-37, 65-67 (see our fig. 12a). In practical terms, most of the usurping activity noted above is devoted to extending

Ramesses' apparent "ownership" of the hall into the north half, so that anyone walking through the east-west axis (or the south half) would imagine that the building was Ramesses II's alone. Sety's reliefs in the north section proper were respected, but the reasons for this (beyond those of expediency) are unclear. Barguet8so suggests that the north half (raised relief) served as a kind of sanctuary, while the central and southern portions (sunken relief) were viewed as an exterior hypostyle court. That masses of people did occasionally penetrate into the hall is perhaps implied in the text of architrave 456 (central aisle, southeast side), which speaks of the building as "a place of glorification for the people" (st sw' n rhyt). If Barguet's hypothesis is correct, the people would be confined to the southern half, that is, precisely to those sections where Ramesses' influence was paramount. Unfortunately, the supposition, attractive though it is, is no more than that, since we cannot know that the retention of raised relief in the north half was motivated by ritual, as distinct from practical considerations.

We are on somewhat firmer ground in dating these usurpations, at least in terms of the decorative stages in the hypostyle hall. On the southern half of the west wall, Sety's original reliefs give way to those of Ramesses' first period, and both were subsequently altered from raised to sunken relief. That the revision of Ramesses' work and the usurpation were done at the same time is suggested by some confusion which occurs at the break between the two sets of reliefs. In the lowest register, the cartouches of Sety's figure (in 67) have been usurped, but (in the speech of the god) Sety's nomen was simply recarved in sunken relief. In the next scene over, which begins Ramesses' series (68), an early prenomen of Ramesses II was similarly recarved, without alteration, in sunken relief. This last mistake was corrected, but Sety's unaltered cartouche was missed altogether.81 The fact that the same kind of mistake was made precisely at the break between the two sets of reliefs is interesting: one can easily imagine that two separate tasks, simple recarving of the mass of raised into sunken relief, and the alteration of some cartouches into the final form of Ramesses' prenomen, became momentarily confused by the artisan in charge of this section. If this is indeed what happened, we have good evidence that both revision and usurpation took place at the same stage in the decoration of the hypostyle hall. Whether or not they also coincided with Ramesses' original work in this style (see above, p. 179, sect. 4) is less certain, although it seems probable that all work in

80 Barguet, Karnak, p. 61. 81 Seele, Coregency, pp. 56-57; cf. fig. 15.


sunken relief by "Usermacatr? SetepenrW" represents only one stage, since it imposes a unified decorative conception on the south half.

One apparent anomaly remains to be considered. Seele, in his monograph, credited Sety with only a scattering of scenes on the southern half of the west wall. He maintained that in the passage, Sety had decorated only a part of the northern side, and that these scenes had been usurped by his son, along with those on the west wall. Later, Seele believed, when Ramesses had become sole ruler, he completed the upper portion of the north side in his own name, but using raised relief characteristic of his father's style. These reliefs, which were executed with the late form of the prenomen, Seele regards as a "striking revelation of the extent to which he respected the taste and plans of his father for the decoration of the north side of the Hypostyle Hall." 82 The psychology of this remark seems improbable, since we must suppose that Ramesses performed this pious duty after indulging in an orgy of usurpation (in sunken relief) covering both sides of the west wall and the central, east-west passage through the hypostyle hall itself. The schematic aspect of Seele's theory is further weakened by the fact that the south side of the passage is stylistically identical to the northern side: the work of "UsermacatrI

SetepenrB" in raised relief dominates the top of the wall, and apparently usurped cartouches, in sunken relief, appear below.

The truth in this case is actually quite simple: the reliefs now in the passage are not the Nineteenth Dynasty originals but copies (and in some cases, adaptations) of these, executed under the Ptolemies. On both sides of the passage, the frieze of cartouches at the top of the wall displays raised relief versions of Ramesses II's final names. The same is true in the top register of the north wall and sporadically in the top and bottom registers of the south wall in the passage. The other cartouches of Ramesses II appear today in sunken relief, although the scenes in which they occur are in raised relief, and it is possible that these names were cut back from original raised versions." The alteration of the cartouches is paralleled by the other Nineteenth Dynasty usurpations on the west wall, but we should note that the frieze atop the west wall displays the same

phenomenon: original raised cartouches, usurped in sunken relief. This fact suggests that the frieze cartouches in the passage were also, originally, cut back and that the raised cartouches do not represent the appearance of the wall in Ramesses II's time. Rather, this seems to be an example of Ptolemaic artisans' penchant for making direct copies of older scenes in raised relief, regardless of their original style. Thus, a similar "renewal" of the bark shrine in the Eighteenth Dynasty temple at Medinet Habu blends the original raised scenes of Tuthmosis III with what must have been sunken usurpations of Sety I all in one smooth raised version.84 In the hypostyle hall, one suspects, somebody was seized with an attack of historical conscience, and consequently tried to simulate the appearance of the wall after Ramesses' usurpation of it by carving his cartouches, very roughly, in sunken relief. The workmanship on both sides of the passage, however, is patently Ptolemaic in style, and as we have seen, it should not be used uncritically as a guide to what Ramesses II's revisions in the passage looked like. It seems most likely

82 Ibid., pp. 50-52 (sect. 79). 83 For the north side, see ibid., fig. 14, south wall

(Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 3, 1-9), and Oriental Institute photographs (neg. nos. 8789-90 and 5183). Dr. Nims informs me that these scenes were not easily accessible

in Seele's day, and that it is his opinion that the sunken cartouches of Raritesses II were cut back from raised versions.

84 PM2 2, pp. 469-70.


that Sety I decorated both the north and south sides, and this section was taken over by his son when the material on both sides of the west wall was usurped.

The anomaly of the final names of Ramesses II in raised relief is not, however, totally absent from his own time. At Karnak, on the south wall of the court between the fifth and sixth pylons, the final prenomen was so inserted in the refurbishing of a scene which had been executed in the Eighteenth Dynasty and destroyed by the Atenists (see fig. 21).85 Similarly, in Sety's Qurnah temple, the doorway to the Chapel of Khonsu (giving onto the porch, west of the hypostyle hall, north side),86 also features the final prenomen in decoration employing raised relief. This unusual feature is accounted for by the text inscribed on the left jamb, although it is unfortunately much damaged: "The good god who performs benefactions for his father . . , [Ramesses II, he made] this in improving the monument for his father, the good god Menmacatr?, after wid[ening the por]tal (swsh sbD) ... for his father Khonsu Neferhotep, inasmuch as he has given him all life,

stability, and dominion" (see fig. 18a). The doorway as an architectural feature, then, is not an original part of the Qurnah temple, but was widened from a smaller version. Here,

evidently, Ramesses was unwilling to disturb the prevailing decoration in raised relief

(with the early prenomen) and carved his revised building text in the uncharacteristic raised relief. Later on in his career, he was less preoccupied by such stylistic niceties,

judging from the crude recarving, in sunken relief, of the doorway to the Mut Chapel in the same temple: "his Majesty commanded that the image of his mother Mut be fashioned

(so as to be) upon four carrying poles, when she used to be upon (only) three carrying poles" (see fig. 18b).87 These examples show that Ramesses II could occasionally inscribe his late prenomen in raised relief for cosmetic reasons; but this, apparently, is not what he did in the passage, or anywhere else in the Karnak hypostyle.

The hypostyle hall at Karnak, it now appears, was begun by Sety I as his own monument. This king's work extends from the north side of the building, across the central

passage, and into the south side. It is only here that original work of Ramesses II begins, and the fact that it starts so evenly along a line just south of the passage suggests that

Sety relinquished the project to his son at this point. There is no indication that Ramesses collaborated with his father on the north side of the hall, and the layout of the decoration makes it unlikely that the building was conceived as being schematically divided between the coregents, even though much of the south half was decorated during the coregency period. Rather, the decoration of the hall before the usurpations would have suggested that Sety I was the "owner" of the monument, which had been completed by his son-a formula which Ramesses II neatly reversed after his father's death. We have seen that the usurpations are linked to Ramesses' decision to rework large portions of his earlier reliefs into a homogenized final version using both the late prenomen and sunken relief. This stage is most probably related to the adoption of the final prenomen itself and Ramesses' original work in the hypostyle hall with it, but the precise connection between the accession of Ramesses to sole rule and his advent as "Usermacatr? Setepenri"

85 Ibid., p. 86 (225), but the original Eighteenth Dynasty provenience of the scene is not noticed. Examination of the cartouche with E. F. Wente and C. C. Van Siclen revealed a few traces which would be consistent with either Amenophis II (-c-hprw-rc) or Tuthmosis IV (Mln-hprw-rc).

86 Ibid., p. 413 (65), not taken into account by Seele in his discussion.

87 Ibid., p. 413 (62). Another contemporary com- bination of raised relief with the later prenomen is the decoration of a doorway in the Ramesseum (ibid., p. 441 [26]). This seems to be the only place in the Ramesseum carved in this way, and the reason is unclear; but its very location surely pre- cludes its having been executed very early in the reign.


0~q L

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a b

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FIG. 18.-Qurnah, Temple of Sety I: (a) Text of South Jamb of the Khonsu Chapel; (b) Text of Jambs to Chapel of Mut

remains cloudy. The hypostyle hall at Karnak confirms what the other monuments tell us: that Sety I was probably alive during the first two stages, when Ramesses was using the early prenomen, and that the first clear indication of Ramesses' sole rule comes when he is already "Usermacatr? Setepenr?." The change from the earlier to the later prenomen occurs no later than the end of Ramesses' second regnal year, so we have a rough terminus a quo for the death of Sety I and the end of the coregency. Only the discovery of pertinent dated material can be expected to overcome this impasse.

IV When the Pharaoh took a coregent in ancient Egypt, the junior partner seems to have

immediately acquired all the trappings of kingly status. Among these was the privilege of dating his monuments by his own system of regnal years, and thus the independent


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FIG. 19.-Karnak, Hypostyle Hall, Cartouches of Ramesses II usurped from Sety I on the Vestibule

(at Nelson, Key Plans, pl. 4, fig. 12e, at 384)

systems of the two coregents ran concurrently. Seele believed it was otherwise with Ramesses II. On the strength of Ramesses' vast building program while coregent, Seele became convinced that Ramesses only began numbering by his own regnal years after his accession to sole rule. This conclusion was affected by Seele's inclusion in the list of monuments from regnal year one materials inscribed with all three "stages" of the prenomen, including "Usermacatri Setepenr?," as well as by his placing of Ramesses' accession in the month II prt. When the dated materials were arranged from this date, the interval between the accession and the advent of the final prenomen seemed too short to accommodate the great amount of building and decoration which occurred during the coregency. Seele solved this problem by postulating a long interval between Ramesses' accession (as coregent) and his coronation (as sole ruler), during which time he did not date independently of his father. Only on the death of Sety I, perhaps a decade after the start of the coregency, did Ramesses begin his own regnal dating. At his father's death, Seele believed, Ramesses was still using the simple and compound versions of his early prenomen, but by the end of his first regnal year (as sole ruler) he had changed his name irrevocably to "Usermacatr? Setepenr?."88 This solution seemed plausible, and it was accepted by many scholars.89

Support for the proposed long coregency and delayed system of dating can be found elsewhere in the monuments of Ramesses II. One of the inscriptions from the Beit-el-Wali

88 Seele, Coregency, pp. 29-30, 78-79. 89 A. H. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (Oxford,

1961), p. 445; R. O. Faulkner, "Egypt: From the Inception of the Nineteenth Dynasty to the Death of

Ramesses III," CAH2 2, ch. 23 (fase. 52), p. 11; Wilfgang Helck, Geschichte des alten Agyptens, HO no. 3 (Leiden, 1968), p. 184.


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pl. 4, fig. 5, above 32)

temple records a claim by the king (as "Usermacatr?") that he had refurbished the temples of the gods "four times" (4 sp).90 If the phrase is understood as "on four occasions," it

might indeed be construed as evidence for a coregency of at least as many years. It is

slightly more probable, however, that the sense is "fourfold,"91 and the document then loses its effectiveness in the case for a long coregency.

Of more importance is the dedicatory inscription in Sety I's temple at Abydos, since Ramesses relates therein part of his itinerary during his first regnal year. We are told that "the Lord of the Two Lands arose as king to act as protector-of-his-father during regnal year one, in his first expedition to Thebes."92 The king was apparently in Thebes on III

&ht 23 in his first regnal year, when "Amun sailed south to Opet."93 After the festival,

9o Ricke et al., Beit-el-Wali, p. 22, pl. 20. 91 Wb. III, 436.18, 437.6; cf. Gardiner, Late

Egyptian Stories, Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca no. 1 (Brussels, 1932), p. 37, 8.

92 Kitchen, RI 2, fasc. 6, p. 325:25-26 (old numbering, 11. 21-22).

93 Ibid., p. 325:30 (26).


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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................... . .. . .....

My rig

................. ........ FIO. 21.-Karnak, Court between Fifth and Sixth Pylons, South Wall, Eighteenth Dynasty Relief

restored by Ramesses II

"his Majesty departed from the Southern City ... setting off (and) making the journey by boat (jrt skdyt), the royal barges illuminating the waters of the canal, and setting the prow northwards towards the seat of valor, 'The House of Ramesses, Great of Victories.'94 His Majesty entered, in order to see his father, into a navigation of the waters (hnw nt) of the canal of the Thinite Nome." 95 The date of Ramesses' arrival at Abydos can be dated no later than the end of the month III Dht, since his appointment of the high priest of Amun Nebwennenef to office is ascribed to an unspecified day of that month.96 It is in connection with this visit that Ramesses speaks of his completion of Sety I's temple at Abydos (see above, p. 165), and if Sety I was indeed dead at this time, Seele's chronology would receive strong support. The interval between Ramesses' accession and the end of III 'ht would scarcely exceed two months, surely not enough time to accommodate all the building projects which fell during the coregency. On this basis, Seele's contention that the coregency took place before the beginning of year one seems all the more convincing.

Some ambiguities exist, however. We have seen that Ramesses II was still using his earlier prenomen near the end of regnal year one and that the final prenomen is not

94 Redford, "Earliest Years," p. 112, n. 3, believes that the mention of Piramesse in regnal year one is also anachronistic; but see Eric Uphill, "Pithom and Raamses: Their Location and Significance," JNES 27 (1968): 308-10; JNES 28 (1969): 22.

95 Kitchen, RI 2, fasc. 6, p. 325:32-33 (28-29). 96 K. Sethe, "Die Berufung eines Hohenpriesters

des Amon unter Ramesses II.," ZAS 44 (1907), pl. 1, 11. 1-3.

RAMESSES II AND HIS COREGENCY WITH SETY I 187

securely attested until the end of the second regnal year. We have also seen that Ramesses

completed the Abydos temple (as described in the passage from the dedicatory inscription) as "Usermacatri Setepenri," and that this is also true of other monuments left unfinished by Sety I. If Sety I was dead when Ramesses visited Abydos in his first year, one must postulate a long hiatus between that visit (when Ramesses says he decided to finish the temple) and the actual resumption of the work. One must also explain why there is no sign of independent activity by Ramesses in his father's erstwhile projects during the first year, when Ramesses was still using the early prenomen, if Sety was indeed not alive-unless we assume that there was a nearly total cessation of building activity at this time!

These considerations make it desirable to ask if the dedicatory inscription does claim that Sety I was dead in Ramesses II's first year. The passage dealing with the completion of the Abydos temple (translated above, p. 165) is set off from what precedes it by the

introductory particle, jst, the function of which "is to describe situations or concommitant facts."97 When used at the head of an independent sentence, as it is in our passage, it serves to advance new ideas or facts which are relevant to what has been discussed

previously. The sense of these passages can be and is often contemporaneous ("Now, at the same time . . . "), but some looseness does enter into the usage. The two other cases in the dedicatory inscription"9 where jst introduces a sentence are not specifically related

by time to what precedes, but only introduce new material which is relevant to it. Another example, from the Late Egyptian "Story of Horus and Seth," seems to have the sense, "because ...." 99 On this basis, one could argue that the account of Ramesses' visit to Abydos and the succeeding sentence introduced by jst-which is also qualified temporally, "when he entered heaven"- similarly have a loose connection. The problem is not easily resolved, however, for later in the text, when still discussing Sety's temple at Abydos, Ramesses says that "he (Ramesses) began to fashion his (Sety's) image in

regnal year one."100 If this sentence is interpreted literally, in connection with the

previous passage's information that the cult image of the temple was "on the ground," a case for Seele's chronology can be maintained.

It seems, however, that the claims of Egyptian kings can often be taken at much less than face value. It was one of the mythological attributes of the Pharaoh to reconstitute the order of Macat at his accession and to save Egypt from the chaos to which it was

exposed at the death of his predecessor. It is to be expected, then, that some exaggeration pervades the accounts of his activities during the first crucial period of his reign. At Wadi Halfa, an inscription of Sety I's first year records an endowment which is virtually identical with one made by Ramesses I a short time earlier: "this temple was filled with prophets, ritual priests, priests (wcb); his storehouse was filled with male and female slaves of his Majesty's capturing."10' This endowment is treated as something new, yet it is surely but a continuation by the new king of Ramesses I's endowment. Similarly, the claims of a new king can present a blend of accuracy and exaggeration. On the great architrave above the portico of the Qurnah temple (see above, p. 168), Ramesses II states on one side, that he "renewed" his father's temple; on the other side, this claim has been expanded, and Ramesses now says that he "erected" (schC) the building, which is much more than the truth. This same process may well be at work in the dedicatory inscription.

97 Gardiner, Gr.3 sect. 231. 98 Kitchen, RI 2, fasc. 6, pp. 325:32 (28), 336:74-

75 (70-71). 99 Gardiner, Late Egyptian Stories, p. 38, 11. 7-9.

100 Kitchen, RI 2, fasc. 6, p. 336:75 (71). 101 J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt,

vol. 2, (Chicago, 1905), p. 78 (sect. 160); cf. ibid., p. 36 (sect. 78).


Sety I is not specifically described as deceased in Ramesses' first regnal year, although this can be implied from the text. The second passage, recounting the fashioning of

Sety's image "in regnal year one," is also more frankly exaggerated than the carefully worded first passage, dealing with the condition of the Abydos temple after Sety's death. More important than any critical exegesis of the text, however, is that what it implies is in conflict with what can be reasonably inferred from the monuments: that Sety I was

not dead before Ramesses II became "Usermacatr? Setepenr?." In the contest between the epigraphic evidence of the early monuments in toto and the implied claims of a

building inscription, I believe that the former is more reliable. The dedicatory inscription was composed when Ramesses' work on the unfinished portion of his dead father's

temple was well advanced. At this time, it would be natural to allude to the visit of Ramesses' first regnal years, at which time Nebwennenef was appointed to office, and which was perhaps celebrated at the time by the few reliefs from the first period which are found in the south wing. Here, moreover, would be an opportunity to conflate the earlier instance of Ramesses' involvement in the Abydos temple with his later completion of it. To see the completion as a later development, occurring (at the earliest) in Ramesses' second year, is to avoid the problems inherent in placing Sety I's death so early in Ramesses' first regnal year. Nor does it contradict even the letter of what is said by the

dedicatory inscription itself. The position towards which this argument has been heading is that Ramesses' sole

rule did not begin until some time in his second regnal year, at the earliest. It has been shown that the death of Sety I and the adoption of the final prenomen by his son are

closely connected. It was Seele's belief that material showing the final prenomen occurred within year one which led him to postulate a long coregency before Ramesses began to date his regnal years: "considering the fact that several hundred reliefs were carved on the walls of various temples and other monuments" during the coregency, Seele believed that this period lasted "several years, perhaps even a decade."102 But, with no disrespect to Ramesses' accomplishments in his first years, this is surely an overstatement. Ramesses

by himself built only two temples while he was coregent, the Beit-el-Wali temple and his own temple at Abydos. The other three buildings in which he participated-his father's Abydos temple, the Qurnah temple, and the hypostyle hall at Karnak-were all built in the first instance by Sety I, and Ramesses was only associated in their decoration

during the coregency. If we exclude the large amount of recarving and usurpation which Ramesses subsequently visited on these buildings, it seems plausible (to me, at least) that the actual amount of decoration done by Ramesses II during the coregency could fit into his first and second regnal years, with no prior, undated coregency period at all.

The exact point within Sety I's reign when Ramesses II became coregent is still difficult to establish. The highest known date for Sety is still IV (?) o'mw

13 in his eleventh

regnal year,103 and a recent attempt to fix a minimum of fifteen years to his reign is not

convincing.104 It is not proved that Rome-Roy became high priest under Ramesses II, and in his autobiographical text it is clear that the main actor responsible for advancing Rome-Roy's career is the god Amun:105 Ramesses II is mentioned in a broken passage, and after this Rome-Roy relates first his appointment as second prophet of Amun, and only then says that "he (Amun) installed me as chief in his temple, as first prophet [of

102 Seele, Coregency, p. 29. 103 G. A. and M. B. JReisner, "Inscribed Mlonu-

ments from Gebel Barkal, Part 3: The Stela of Sety I," ZAS 69 (1933): 73-78.

104 M. L. Bierbrier, "The Length of the Reign of

Sethos I," JEA 58 (1972): 303. 105 As against H. Kees, Priestertum im digyptischen

Staat, PrAeg 1 (Leiden, 1953), p. 25, and G. Lefebvre, Histoire des grands-pretres d'Amon de Karnak jusqu'd la XXIe dynastie (Paris, 1929), p. 257.


Amun]."106 The only sound interpretation, from a historical standpoint, is that Rome- Roy was honored before Ramesses II (?) and that he subsequently was promoted to second and then to first prophet, but we do not know who was king when this last advancement occurred. This being the case, the data derived from the Munich Glyptothek statue of the high priest Bekenkhons (Rome-Roy's predecessor) loses the significance it is presumed to have: the text here records that Bekenkhons served eleven years as "overseer of the training-stable of King Men[macatr?]." There follows a listing of his other offices, through his twenty-seventh year as high priest of Amun, totaling seventy years from the time of his promotion from stable-overseer.107 If it could be proved that Rome- Roy became high priest in one of Ramesses II's sixty-six full years of reign, Bekenkhons's account of his career would require a full fifteen years for Sety I at the very least. But, as we have seen, Rome-Roy's accession to the top-ranking post in the Amun hierarchy seems not to have occurred in Ramesses II's reign-and, in any case, Bekenkhons probably rounded off his fractional years of service into whole years (i.e., three years and a few months to four years, etc.). Thus, the totals on the Munich statue would represent, at best, a rather inflated total. We are still dependent on the Gebel Barkal stela for Sety I's highest contemporary date.

Some scholars believe that there is evidence showing Ramesses II as coregent as early as Sety I's eighth regnal year.108 This opinion is grounded on a large, round-topped stela from Serabit-el-Khidim, which is inscribed (front and back) with a date in Sety I's eighth year, probably I prt 2. On the west edge of the stela appears the figure of a man, shown in the posture of adoration, behind whom is a text mentioning an Overseer of the Bowmen of the Well of Ramesses-Meryamun.109 Schmidt, in particular, believes that this text was carved at the same time as those on both sides of the plinth and that Ramesses II was therefore ruling at this time in his father's reign. In support of his conclusion, he notes that the official Ashahebsed, who was responsible for the main texts on the plinth, and Amenemope, who appears on the side, flourished during the same period at Sinai, and the two men appear on a stela from Ramesses II's second year there.110 Another argument advanced by Schmidt is the allegedly "close relationship" between the month I prt on the Sinai stela and the celebration of Ramesses II's Jubilees. The date on the stela inclines Schmidt to view it as a memorial of the decree which established Ramesses II on the throne as coregent. In other words, the function of the stela was that "it was intended to proclaim the coregency" of Sety I and his son.

A memorial to the coregency from Sinai does exist, in the form of a fragmentary stela from Serabit-el-Khidim. The scene at the top originally depicted two kings (distin- guished by the bull's tails attached to their kilts) facing each other across a vase on a tall stand. Below, the official Ashahebsed stands to the right of a damaged text which

mentions "the Son of R?, Sety-Merneptah, and his royal son ( . ), Usermacatr [. . .]111

... like (?) Hathor, Lady of the Turquoise; Lord of Diadems, Ramesses-Meryamun, endowed with life like RW ...."112 The contrast between this monument, in which the

106 G. Lefebvre, Inscriptions concernant les grands- pr6tres d'Amon Rom^-Roy et Amenhotep (Paris, 1929), p. 23, no. 3 d.

107 M. Plantikow-Miinster, "Der Inschrift des BZ3k- n-hnsw in Miinchen," ZAS 95 (1969): 117-35.

10o Schmidt, Ramesses II, pp. 158-60; E. Drioton and J. Vandier, L'flgypte, 4th ed. rev. (Paris, 1962), p. 388.

109 Sinai2 1, pl. 68 (no. 247); 2, pp. 175-76.

110 Ibid, 1, pl. 70 (no. 252); 2, pp. 177-78.

111 More of the cartouche survives below "User- macatr6," but it is impossible to say whether "Setep- enre" or another epithet occurred there. The drawing strongly suggests that it was a compound prenomen.

112Sinai2, 1, p. 71 (no. 250); 2, pp. 176-77; Schmidt, Ramesses II, p. 158.


persons and names of the kings are depicted together, and Sinai stela no. 247, could not be more striking. The main texts inscribed on both sides of that monument pertain

exclusively to Sety I, with no reference to his son. Ramesses II is not, in his person, mentioned at all here, and the crudely executed text scratched on the side refers not to this king but to an installation named after him. This monument is hardly to be viewed as being formally divided between the two kings-such juxtaposition, when deliberate, is much more specific than this.113 Nor does the date on the stela have quite the significance which Schmidt believes. A "close relationship" does indeed exist between the month I prt and Ramesses II's Jubilee, but this had nothing directly to do with the date of Ramesses' accession (which Schmidt, in relating it to the "proclamation" of the

coregency, presupposes). Rather, it concerned the announcement (sr) of Ramesses II's Jubilees.114 Since, as we have seen, Ramesses' accession fell in the first half of the season of 'ht, and since the anniversary of the king's accession also fell roughly in the middle of the two-month-long Jubilee celebrations,115 the proclamation of the Jubilee in I prt would allow eight months to prepare for this event. The dating of the Sinai stela to I prt is, however, coincidental, since a text inscribed by Sety I, with his independent dating system, would have little to do with Ramesses II's Jubilees.

The Sinai stela, then, does not support the argument that Ramesses' coregency with

Sety had begun by the latter's eighth regnal year. A recently published monument, however, strongly suggests that it began even later in Sety's reign. On a stela in the Aswan quarries dated to his ninth regnal year, Sety speaks of the difficulties posed by the

transporting of obelisks and large statues. These difficulties were overcome "while the officials (sr.w) and the meshkeb-officers made haste (?), and while his eldest son, (who was) leading them, performed benefactions for his Majesty."''16 This last allusion, coming as it does so late in the reign, must refer to the future Ramesses II, who is seen here as the leader of the expedition. Since the reference is to a king's son,117 and since we have reason to believe that Ramesses underwent an intensive "apprenticeship" in public works before coming to the throne,118 this document may be taken as proof that the

coregency had not yet begun at this point in Sety's ninth regnal year. It thus provides welcome documentary support for the position suggested by the monumental evidence, namely, that the coregency lasted only one or two years. If the information presently available is representative of the true historic situation, it would seem that Ramesses

formally ascended the throne either in his father's tenth or near the end of his ninth

regnal years (hardly earlier), and that the coregency ended when Sety died in his own eleventh year. This determination could be modified by two factors: (1) a lengthening of Sety I's reign, and (2) a clarification of the relationship between Ramesses II's final

change of name and his accession to sole rule.

113 Cf., for example, P. Lacau, Stales du nouvel empire (Cairo, 1909-25), pp. 70-72, pl. 24 (CCG no. 34.037).

114 Sir Robert Mond and Oliver H. Myers, The Temples of Armant (London, 1940), pp. 163-64.

115 C. C. Van Siclen III, "The Accession Date of Amenhotep III and the Jubilee," JNES 32 (1973): 294.

116 Labib Habachi, "The Two Rock-Stelae of Sethos I in the Cataract Area Speaking of Huge Statues and Obelisks," BIFAO 73 (1973): 113-25.

117 The references to Sesostris I as "king's son" in

Sinuhe (A. M. Blackman, Middle-Egyptian Stories, pt. 1 Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca no. 2 [Brussels, 1932], pp. 4-5, 6, 18) are not really germane here, since this work ignores the coregency which was, at the time, ten years old, and emphasizes the vulnerability of the younger king to plots after his father's demise. It seems unlikely that such a literary device, used delib- erately in a propagandistic work, should be similarly employed in such a dry recital as the Aswan stela.

118 Kubban Stela, 11. 15-17. See J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. 3 (Chicago, 1906), pp. 120-21 (sect. 288).

the earlier reign of ramesses ii and his coregency with sety i

Documents

ancient egyptian

ninth regnal

workof ramesses

eighth regnal

great dedicatory

great hypostyle

coregency

month ii prt