by
Damien F. Mackey
What interests me with this is a thought of mine that Seti I may actually be Horemheb.
See my suggested comparisons between Horemheb and Seti I further on.
I do not accept at all the conventional dates given in the following article, which dates I believe are approximately half a millennium too high.
Ashley Cowie writes (2018):
HTTPS://WWW.ANCIENT-ORIGINS.NET/NEWS-HISTORY-ARCHAEOLOGY/KOM-OMBO-TEMPLE-0010793
Engraved Tablets Found at Kom Ombo Temple Reveal New Historic Trail to Horemheb
….
About 1289 BC Pharaoh Seti I became consecrated to the god Set and having founded the 19th dynasty he reigned for an estimated 55 years. Now, ancient carvings including ‘stone engravings and paintings’ have been found at Kom Ombo, a twin temple in southern Egypt, which are yielding new information about his relentless and highly-successful military campaigns in North Africa, and a lot more.
The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced last week that their archaeologists had discovered the inscriptions while “conducting a groundwater-lowering project in Aswan” at the ‘twin’ or double temple at Kom Ombo. Situated about 30 miles (48 km) north of Aswan, Kom Ombo was built during the Graeco-Roman period between 332 BC and AD 395 and was dedicated to both the falcon-headed god Horus and a crocodile-headed god named Sobek, according to a report in Live Science .
An earlier temple at Kom Ombo
With its twin entrances, gateways and chapels, Kom Ombo was known to date back 2,300 years to the Ptolemaic Dynasty. But archaeologists believe that the recently found inscriptions may have originally been executed in “an earlier temple, now lost, at Kom Ombo” that was located on the same spot. Egyptologist Peter Brand, a professor of ancient history at the University of Memphis in Tennessee, told Live Science that one inscription depicts, “Seti I worshiping the gods Horus and a crocodile-headed god called Sobek and this is an exciting discovery and may be historically important.”
Image of Seti I, Sobek and Horus has been found at Kom Ombo. (Ministry of Antiquities)
….
“proves that the double cult of these two gods [Horus and Sobek] was already established at Kom Ombo in the 19th Dynasty of the New Kingdom period, more than 1,000 years [before] the later temple was built.”
Brand believes this was “a major royal inscription” containing data about the king's activities in the region, and “perhaps a dedication to the temple of Horus and Sobek [at] Kom Ombo.”
A second, larger inscription and image was discovered which belongs either to Seti I or to Ptolemy IV (expert opinions are not currently in agreement on which), while part of a third smaller inscription was found to have “yellow paint” despite the ravages of 3,300 years of passing time.
Large inscription could also be of Seti from the 19 th Dynasty. (Ministry of Antiquities)
….
Bringing 1000 years more history to the site
These inscriptions begin to make sense when we consider other images of Seti discovered at a site to the north of Kom Ombo called Gebel es-Silsilah. Brand suggests Seti was possibly “traveling through his realm in Year One [of his reign]” making stops at temples on his way south from Thebes (modern Luxor) and he added that "Seti came from a family of military generals, and after he became pharaoh, he launched military campaigns to conquer Libya, Canaan, Syria and Nubia."
….
Inscription and image of Seti or Ptolemy with Horus. (Ministry of Antiquities).
….
Horemheb, the General King
According to an article about the discovery in Egypt Today, the inscriptions, including “drawings and hieroglyphs,” not only tell of Seti I and Ptolemy IV but most interestingly to archaeologists, one of the inscriptions mentions “a powerful general in King Tut's army.” Aidan Dodson, an Egyptology professor at the University of Bristol noticed that the larger inscription at Kom Ombo mentioned Pharaoh “Horemheb,” who ruled up to around 1293 BC (the last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty) and Dodson told Live Science that Horemheb “was in fact the highest general in King Tut's army during Tut's reign.”
Inscription under the Seti image mentions Horemheb. (Ministry of Antiquities)
….
With unknown parentage Horemheb is believed to have been a commoner who originated from Herakleopolis Magna (ancient Hnes, modern Ihnasya el-Medina ) on the west bank of the Nile near the entrance to the Fayum, evident in that his coronation text formally credits the God Horus of Hnes for establishing him on the throne. As commander in chief of the army under the reign of Tutankhamun and Ay, after his accession to the throne , Horemheb reformed the Egyptian state and took action against the preceding, troublesome and divisive, Amarna rulers. He not only demolished monuments of Akhenaten, reusing them in his own building projects, but he also toppled monuments of Tutankhamun and Ay .
With his tongue fixed firmly in his cheek, Ronald Leprohon, professor of Egyptology at the University of Toronto, told Live Science that Horemheb “became king by marrying into the royal family, and being head of the army probably also didn't hurt his chances of becoming pharaoh, either.” ….
[End of Ashley Cowie article]
Comparing Horemheb and Seti I
The following is taken largely from N. Grimal’s A History of Ancient Egypt (Blackwell 1994).
P. 242:
“[After Amarna]. A new man was needed if a new start was to be made. As is often the case in such circumstances, it was a military man … the commander-in-chief of the army … who took charge. The general Horemheb … began his career under Tutankhamun …. At that stage he was royal spokesman for foreign affairs”.
P. 246:
“When Sethos [Seti] I succeeded to the throne he had already been closely linked with the kingship … he held an office similar to vizier and also acted as the general in charge of foreign policy”.
Some similar buzz words (concepts) here: close to king; general (military); foreign affairs.
We can also add to this the word, vizier, considering that: “Horemheb was a diplomat and administrator who even held the exalted post of Vizier before becoming pharaoh”:
That the reign of Seti I constituted, like Horemheb’s, “a new start”, is attested by the fact that Seti I inaugurated a wehem meswet: “That Sethos I did occasionally use an whm ms•wt dating we know from one of his inscriptions at Karnak…”:
The wehem meswet signified a “Renaissance”, or restoration.
It is not surprising, then, to find that: “Tutankhamun declared a wehem mesut, and it seems Horemheb may have as well”:
P. 243:
“Horemheb was above all the restorer of established order, as his royal titulature indicates”.
P. 246:
“[Seti I] also pursued a policy of restoration in home affairs and thus effectively rewrote history so as to legitimize his own dynasty”.
P. 243:
[Horemheb’s] Horus name is ‘Powerful bull with wise decisions’. The verb employed here is seped, a technical term describing the process of putting things in order …. Horemheb’s Golden Horus name was along the same lines, ‘He who is satisfied with Truth and who causes the Two Lands to increase’. Here again the verb herw, translated here as ‘satisfy’, has a precise judicial sense linked to the enforcement of law. The restoration of order was closely connected with the process of physical reconstruction, which was evoked in his Two Ladies name: ‘With countless miracles in Karnak”.
Pp. 246-247:
“The desire to uphold the power of Thebes was apparent in [Seti I’s] titulature: his Horus name was ‘Powerful bull who gives life to the Two Lands after having been crowned in Thebes”. He chose as his two ladies name. ‘The strong-armed one who renews birth and captures the Nine Bows’; but the legacy of the Amarna period still represented a heavy burden. Activities in Asia had been resumed under Horemheb. …. But the whole of Palestine was still hostile to Egypt”.
P. 246:
“[Seti I] depicted himself and his son and successor (Ramesses II) adoring the cartouches of previous pharaohs …. All of the Amarna kings had been removed from the record”.
P. 243:
“Horemheb was certainly a prolific builder: at Medinet Habu he enlarged a mortuary temple from Ay for his own use and at Gebel el-Silsila he dedicated a rock temple to Amun and Thoth. He also confirmed the importance of Memphis by setting up buildings in the precinct of the temple of Ptah and the sun temple at Heliopolis. But it was to Karnak that he devoted most of his energies, as his choice of Two Ladies name suggests. He began on the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak”.
P. 244:
“Horemheb’s tomb (KV57) preserved the memory of the Amarna period in the depiction of clothing and in its unusual artistic style, but it was innovative on a technical level in the use of sunk relief instead of painting on plaster or a coat of gypsum. He also introduced new subject matter into his tomb, including the first example of the Book of Gates, which was to become one of the great royal funerary texts of the Ramessid period”.
Seti I also used sunk relief: “Combination of sunk/raised relief in the murals of façades: A - Sunk relief and combination of sunk/raised relief in the temple of Seti I …”:
P. 249:
“Apart from the unusually high aesthetic standard of its reliefs, the temple of [Seti I] at Abydos provides the basic nature of the royal mortuary temple …”.
P. 250:
“… the western walls are decorated with extracts from the Book of Gates”.
No comments:
Post a Comment