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Volume 9 issue 4 February 2009

ANCIENT EGYPT explores the WORLD WIDE WEB ...

MERENPTAH AND THE END OF THE NINETEENTH DYNASTY

This month’s NETFISHING continues its look at the history of Egypt by seeing what the World Wide Web has to say about Merenptah and the Royal Succession at the end of the Nineteenth Dynasty.

 King Merenptah, thirteenth son of Rameses the Great, had proved that he was a force to be reckoned with by his defeat of the ‘Sea Peoples’ and the Libyan and Nubian tribes that had tried to attack Egypt. Refer:

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/merenptah.htm

www.crystalinks.com/dynasty19a.html

He was not a young man, however, and so work on both his tomb and mortuary temple was paramount in his mind. Indeed he even removed blocks from the now ruined Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III to speed the construction of his own mortuary monument. This has worked to our benefit, in modern times, for many reliefs from the magnificent Temple of Amenhotep III have been inadvertently preserved by the actions of Merenptah. The Mortuary Temple of Merenptah is now an open-air museum – which is worthy of a visit; refer:

Mortuary Temple www.touregypt.net/featurestories/merenptaht.htm

www.osirisnet.net/monument/temple_merenptah/e_temple_merenptah.htm

Tomb KV8 www.thebanmappingproject.com/sites/browse_tomb_822.html

Merenptah, for at least part of his reign, lived in Memphis rather than the city of Pi-Ramesse, which had been built by his father. At Memphis he constructed a royal palace; by a freak of history many fine reliefs and columns from this palace have survived and are now exhibited, a truly awe-inspiring sight, in the vaulted undercroft of the Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania. Refer:

www.museum.upenn.edu/new/exhibits/galleries/loweregypt.shtml

www.museum.upenn.edu/new/exhibits/online_exhibits/egypt/palace.shtml

Merenptah’s wife, Isetnofret II (a possible daughter of Prince Khaemwaset?), bore the Crown Prince, Sety-Merenptah(A), but it is here that the royal succession becomes confused, as it appears that Sety-Merenptah was pushed aside after a brief reign and that the throne was usurped, in Upper Egypt, by another claimant, Amenmesse. The origins of Amenmesse are unclear, but it is possible he was the ‘King’s Son’ Messuy, who served as Viceroy of Nubia during the reign of Merenptah. In any event, he only reigned for some four years before a King Sety II (Sety-Merenptah?) regained the throne and undertook an obliteration of KV10 (Amenmesse’s tomb). Refer:

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amenmesses.htm

Tomb KV10 www.thebanmappingproject.com/sites/browse_tomb_824.html

King Sety II himself had only a short reign of some six years, but in that time he destroyed many of the inscriptions of Amenmesse, referring to him as “the enemy”, and built an impressive tomb for himself (KV15) in the Valley of the Kings. Refer:

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/seti2.htm

www.thebanmappingproject.com/sites/browse_tomb_829.html

It was Sety II’s third wife, a Syrian concubine called Sutailja, who was the mother of ‘Rameses-Siptah’, a younger son, who unexpectedly became the next king, due to the death of the royal heir Sety-Merenptah(B). Siptah was, however, too young to rule on his own, and so the Great Royal Wife of Sety II, Tausret, was duly appointed as Regent

by the powerful courtier and chancellor Bay. Thus the young king’s rule was ‘guided’ by Tausret and Chancellor (‘Kingmaker’) Bay. Siptah ruled for only six years, but he built for himself a magnificent (if unfinished) tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV47). His mummy shows that he had a pronounced clubbed left foot – a result of either polio or possibly cerebral palsy. Refer:

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/siptah.htm

www.crystalinks.com/dynasty19b.html

Tomb KV47 www.thebanmappingproject.com/sites/browse_tomb_861.html

Siptah died in Year 6 of his reign – probably aged about twenty – whereupon Queen Tausret took full pharaonic titles and ruled herself as ‘Pharaoh of the Two Lands’ until her death some two years later. She constructed a mortuary temple to the south of the Ramesseum and restarted construction of Tomb KV14 in the Valley of the Kings. This stunning tomb is unusual in that it has two impressive burial chambers and so appears to have been intended as a double tomb at some stage of its construction. It was later usurped for the burial of the pharaoh Sethnakhte in the Twentieth Dynasty. Refer:

www.touregypt.net/featurestories/tausert.htm

Tomb KV14 www.thebanmappingproject.com/sites/browse_tomb_828.html

 Victor Blunden

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