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Volume 9 issue 1 August 2008

ANCIENT EGYPT explores the WORLD WIDE WEB ...

SETY I

This month’s NETFISHING continues its look at the history of Egypt by seeing what the World Wide Web has to say about the irst great pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, King Sety I.

As Rameses I came to the throne at an advanced age, it is no surprise that his son Sety was appointed as co-regent to his father. With the death of Rameses I, Sety seems to have conducted a series of military campaigns in Palestine to confirm his royal authority in the area and show that Egypt now possessed a warrior king to be reckoned with. His military campaigns are recorded in detail on the outside, northern, wall of the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. Refer:

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/karnak3.htm

Sety I: www.touregypt.net/featurestories/seti1.htm

www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn19/02seti1.html

Sety clearly intended to restore ‘the Empire’ to the stature it had held before the Amarna Period and as such his first campaign was to provide him with the necessary routes north, up the Eastern Mediterranean. On this first campaign he encountered, however, Hittite forces who restricted his advance north. His second campaign was far more successful, where he pushed into the very heart of Syria itself, defeated the Hittites, and captured the city of Kadesh. Having established Egyptian trading rights in the Eastern Mediterranean, Sety then moved south and campaigned in Nubia. In later campaigns, he quickly defeated the Libyan tribes. Having established military supremacy for Egypt, Sety then turned to trade and diplomacy and concentrated the remainder of his reign on great building works, befitting a great pharaoh.

Egyptian art was to experience a revival in the reign of Sety I and the reliefs of his temples reveal a surprising calm and sophistication. The attention to detail is exquisite, and they remain some of the finest reliefs ever carved in Egyptian history. The sumptuous

artwork of his royal tomb, KV17 in the Valley of the Kings, is a perfect example of the care undertaken during his reign. Refer:

Tomb: www.guardians.net/egypt/cj98/pans/setipan.htm

www.guardians.net/hawass/Press%20Releases/secrets_of_the_valley_of_the_kings.htm

www.thebanmappingproject.com/atlas/index_kv.asp?tombID=undefined

Sety enlarged Karnak Temple by constructing the Great Hypostyle Hall. Although the central colonnade was most probably built by Amenhotep III, Seti constructed the hall itself and built the remainder of its 134 columns. The raised reliefs on the northern, inner, wall are quite exemplary and mock the later work of his son, Rameses II, who finished the southern part of the hall after his father’s death. The work of Rameses ‘the Great’ is crude and unsophisticated in comparison to that of his father. Refer:

Karnak: www.egyptsites.co.uk/upper/luxoreast/karnak.html

Perhaps the greatest architectural achievement of his reign is the Great Temple at Abydos, built at the sacred home of the god Osiris. This temple is totally unique, in that it has seven sanctuaries, devoted to the traditional gods of Egypt. Sanctuaries exist to Ra, Ptah and Amun (the main cult centres), to Sety himself, and to Osiris, Isis and Horus (the Osirian Triad). It is clear that Sety wanted to mark the restoration of the gods and show that they were welcomed in Egypt once more. In the offering scenes, Sety bows before the gods and offers a statue of Maat – a clear apology for the misrule of earlier kings (of the Amarna Period). The temple is famous for the quality of its carvings, but one of its most important scenes is in a corridor, where Sety I stands, with his son Rameses, before a ‘king list’ – showing his son his great heritage. The names of Hatshepsut and the Amarna kings are omitted from the list entirely. Refer:

Abydos and the Osireion: http://touregypt.net/featurestories/setiabydos.htm

www.osirisnet.net/monument/temple_sethy/e_temple_sethy.htm

www.egyptsites.co.uk/upper/abydos/seti.html

www.philae.nu/akhet/ASetiTempl.html

Behind this Great Temple at Abydos is a curious construction called the Osireion, set below ground and once roofed over. Built of cyclopean masonry it looks to be of great antiquity. It is now partially flooded, but it appears to have been intended to represent the final resting place of the god Osiris, on a mound surrounded by water. Refer:

www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/abydos/osireon-01.html

Sety’s Mortuary Temple was constructed on the West Bank at Luxor, but it has not survived the ravages of time well. Refer:

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/seti1temple.htm

www.egyptsites.co.uk/upper/luxorwest/temples/seti1.html

Despite all his great achievements, Sety I was to become overshadowed by his son Rameses II, the subject of the next Netfishing.

 Victor Blunden

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