Know Your Mummies: The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization First Edition
The physical body (khet) is one of the five aspects of the ancient Egyptian identity. This body had to preserve its form as the only tangible vessel to the intangible entirety of a human being. Coupled with the ancient Egyptian belief in the afterlife, mummification became of paramount importance. When it comes to ancient Egyptian kings and queens, the situation becomes more and more complex. For it was the ancient Egyptian rulers who shall lead their people in the land of the dead, naturally marking their mummies as the most important in the land. In this article we aim to follow the brief stories of some of the kings and queens recently featured in the Pharaoh's Golden Parade transporting them from the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. They now find their resting place at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in a show-stopping display aimed to simulate their original resting place at the Valley of Kings and Queens.
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| Entrance to the Royal Mummies Hall, National Museum of Egyptian Civilization |
1. King Seqenenre Tao
This King belonged to Second Intermediate Period, 17th Dynasty. He was contemporary with Hyksos and their king Apep. He
is the father of Kamose and Ahomse, who expulsed the Hyksos from the Delta .
According
to a literary text, The king of the Hyksos, Apep claimed that the hippopotamuses
at Thebes bothered his sleep at his capital in Delta (Avaris), the text ends
with Seqenenre and his court thinking about what should they do!? We know the conclusion: the beginning of a struggle to reclaim the Egyptian lands.
The death of Seqenenre Tao
His
mummy has a lot of injuries, his head shows evidence of being thwacked with an ax, his nose and cheeks
smashed with a mace. Whatever killed him was a very violent death indeed.
There
are different theories about his death, some believe that he was killed in the
battle against Hyksos. Others believe that he was violently killed while he was sleeping in the palace.
Recent Egyptian studies reveals that the deformation of the arms indicates to
that he was captured during battle with his hands tied with a rope behind his back preventing him from defending himself.
2. King Amenhotep I
This king belongs to the New Kingdom. He is the second
king of the 18th dynasty, son of Ahmose I and the formal founder of the 18th
dynasty of Egypt.
A graffiti from his reign showed that he reached to the 2nd cataract
of the Nile and attacked Libya and Syria. He also reopened the mines at Sinai. In
ancient Egypt king Amenhotep I was worshipped alongside his mother after their death for their prominence. This mummy's original tomb remains the mystery as it was found as part of the Royal Cache alongside Seqenenre Tao, Ramesses II, Ramesses III and many others.
3. Queen Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut was the female king of the New Kingdom. She was a powerful woman who adopted the largely masculine royal insignia (false
beard, nemes headdress, etc...). As well as the titles of the king. Even in ancient Egypt, it was strange
for a woman to take the throne, so kings' lists omitted her name.
Hatshepsut
was the elder daughter of king Thutmose I from a royal wife who is though to be part of the 18th (Ahmosid) dynasty. She married her
half-brother Thutmose II (who did not have a royal mother). Hatshepsut begotten one
daughter called Neferure, so when Thutmose II died, the throne passed to his son
Thutmose III from his mistress Isis.
Ascension to the throne
Thutmose
III was a child making Hatshepsut a regent for the young king
Thutmose III. Ancient Egyptian rules may prevent a queen from ruling but they also prevented kings from ruling solo since this would disrupt the male-female duality. Hatshepsut had to perform a ton of scheming to become crowned as a king including devising a myth of her alleged divine birth. She delivered Thutmose
III to the priests who would later grow up to take the rule, become a great warrior and tread a path of vengeance. He tried to remove all the traces of Hatshepsut's reign, had her statues demolished and her name removed from the kings' lists.
Despite everything, Hatshepsut was a peaceful, benevolent queen leaving Egypt with a strong groundwork for Thutmose III's subsequent empire. Her crowning achievement was her trade expeditions to Punt.
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| Queen Hatshepsut depicted wearing the Nemes Headdress while preserving her female features Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons |
4. King Ramesses II
He
was the 3rd king in 19th dynasty of Egypt, he is the construction projects' king: known
for his many statues and monuments all over Egypt. His
family's origin was non-royal. He came to the power after the reign of Akhenaten and
his successor Tutankhamen. He married many queens and fathered too many children. His very extended family started to restore the Egyptian power over Asia which had declined during the reign of Akhenaten and his successor Tutankhamen.
The
most important event in his reign was The Kadesh Battle with Muwatalli II the king
of the Hittites, which concluded with signing the first peace
treaty recorded in the history.
Ramesses II is the only ancient Egyptian King with a passport and a French Visa!
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| Ramesses II depicted as a child protected by Horus. This rare statue's elements spell out the king's name: Ra (throne) -Mes(child) -Su(insignia), the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities |
5. King Ramesses III
Last of the great Warrior Pharaohs and Son of Setnakht, the founder of the 20th dynasty. He fought the Sea Peoples and defeated them. These battles were a huge challenge as these enemies posed a real threat that destroyed the power of the Hittite empire and Syria. Evidence of a costly economic toll of such expensive battles are also numerous. King Ramesses III definitely had a lot on his plate between internal and external conflicts.
Harem conspiracy
One of his wives wanted to kill him seeking to place her son on the throne. This was a very intricate scheme involving several members of his harem, court and high ranking officials in the country. The sources show that the coup failed and the conspirators were punished but the mummy's CT analysis revealed a deep knife incision in the the mummy's throat, which means that he was indeed killed by the conspirators. Alas, the great king fell to this minor scheme.
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