Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [123]
Egyptian mummies in general are not precisely beautiful, so to call Seti’s the best may seem a doubtful compliment. But it is more than the best of a bad lot; it is a positively good-looking mummy, the features being those of a man of truly kingly appearance and noble looks, with the relaxed aspect of a man asleep.
Seti’s elegant mummy was not found in his tomb; like so many other royal mummies it had to undergo repeated transfers for the sake of safety. But the tomb was worthy of its occupant. Its total length is about three hundred feet—not including a mysterious tunnel leading down from the floor of the burial chamber. It has not yet been completely explored. The walls of corridors and chambers are adorned with attractive painted reliefs of the king and the gods, many of which still retain their original color. These traces of paint have always given me a queer sense of the insubstantiality of time. Three thousand years have passed since the hands of the artist completed the laying on of orange and white, blue and gold; yet still the colors remain, frail shells of actuality.
Seti was responsible for another tourist attraction, this one at Abydos, which is well worth a visit (if you can get there; Abydos is in Middle Egypt, and security is very tight). The Abydos temple is a beauty, with reliefs of very fine quality. Being in Abydos, it could only be dedicated to Osiris, which suggests a pleasing irony: the sanctuary to the murdered god built and dedicated by the namesake of his murderer! Seti was named after Set the Enemy, and he paid his tutelary deity cautious honor. Whether he remembered the postulated Set movement of the remote Second Dynasty, or had any desire to imitate it is highly doubtful; it was as much ancient history for him as it is for us. But if he did know about the event, it would have warned him against any attempt to give Set more than his due. At Abydos where, of all places on earth, Set’s name would be de trop, the king substituted the hieroglyphic image of Osiris for the figure of Set that formed part of his own name. This was a solution which only a theologian or an Egyptian could regard as sensible.
RAMSES II
I used to wonder, when I listened to the tales of my acquaintances who had been fortunate enough to travel in Egypt, at the animosity they displayed toward Ramses II. I knew nothing particularly favorable about the gentleman then, but I was unaware of any deed of his which might have prompted the snarl of contempt with which his name was mentioned. Now that I have visited Egypt myself I can understand the reaction; I too snarl. One gets so tired of Ramses; his face, his figure, and/or his name are plastered over half the wall surfaces still standing in Egypt—at least it seems that way. Egyptian sculpture during his reign was beginning to decline from the high standards of his father, and the statues of Ramses which so weary the eye are often stubby and unattractive. But worst of all is the sheer number of them, which is surpassed only by the number of his cartouches. You can’t miss them; they are cut inches deep into walls and columns. One is entitled to suspect that Ramses, who had replaced the names of some of his predecessors with his own, was making sure nobody was going to scratch his off.
He was the son of Seti I and he was the pharaoh who made the name of Ramses practically a synonym for Egyptian kingship. He had some help in this from a later Ramses, the third in number, but the chief responsibility rests with him. Next to that of Tutankhamon, his name is better known to the public than that of any other Egyptian king, and Ramses II’s fame was created by the liberal use of a well-known principle of modern advertising—repetition. How well he deserved the reputation he built for himself may be seen by one striking incident of his career, and the expert use he made of it in order to build the desired image.
His father,