Ramesses I

In an amazing story, the mummy of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses I spent over a century in a museum just north of the Canadian end of the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls, but without anyone knowing who he was.

On a number of occasions, I visited this museum. It used to be called simply the Niagara Falls Museum, but is no longer there:

http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=97912&b=1

One of the first exhibits that one saw in the museum was a mummy from Egypt, but no identification as to who it was. It was later determined who the mummy was, and it turns out that we were in the presence of royalty. The mummy has since been given back to Egypt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_I#/media/File:StatueHeadOfParamessu-TitledFrontalView-RamessesI_MuseumOfFineArtsBoston.png

Ramesses I was not born into royalty. Pharaoh Horemheb was childless and so chose Ramesses I as his successor. This began the Nineteenth Dynasty, in which Egypt would become increasingly powerful. A new rival was emerging, the Hittites, and after some battles the two would undertake what is believed to be the world's first peace treaty. Ramesses I ruled around 1290 BC. He was old when he took power, and his reign is believed to have been less then two years. He probably died suddenly because his tomb shows signs of having been unfinished.

Ramesses I ruled in what is called the New Kingdom. The history of Ancient Egypt is divided into the Old, Middle and, New Kingdoms, with Intermediate Periods in between. The kingdoms were long periods of stability, the Intermediate Periods in between were times of less stability. The New Kingdom began with the removal of invaders, known as Hyksos, from Egypt.

Ramesses I was followed as pharaoh by his son, Seti, and then his very famous grandson, Ramesses II, who was one of the greatest of pharaohs. None of these pharaohs was buried in a pyramid. By the time of Ramesses I, the heyday of the pyramids was over a thousand years in the past. It was the Old Kingdom which produced the three pyramids of Giza.

Pharaohs at the time of Ramesses I were buried in much simpler, and less-expensive, tombs in what is known as the Valley of the Kings. King Tut, who seems to have died as a teenager and who is well-known only because ancient grave robbers never found his tomb, was also buried in the Valley of the Kings.

By the way, the Bible story of the Hebrews being at first welcomed, but later made into slaves in Egypt, fits well with what we now know of it's history. The unnamed pharaoh who welcomed and promoted Joseph could have been one of the Hyksos rulers, who had, like the Hebrews, originated from Canaan. But then a pharaoh arose who knew nothing about Joseph, and made the Hebrew settlers, who had been favored by the Hyksos rulers, into slaves. This took place after the Egyptians had rebelled against Hyksos rule, and drove them out, and were naturally wary of these other settlers from the east, who the Hyksos had allowed in.

Ramesses I, like other pharaohs around this time, contributed to building of the temple complex of Karnak, located in the modern city of Luxor. This is in the south of Egypt, far from the Pyramids of Giza.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move onto the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

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The following scenes are of the Valley of the Kings, across the Nile River from the temple complex at Karnak, where so many pharaohs were buried after the expensive pyramid tombs of the Old Kingdom went out of style. The temple with all of the columns is that of Hatshepsut, a queen who ruled nearly two hundred years before the time of Ramesses I.

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