page_title: Seti I
section_title: Burial
hierarchical_section_title: Seti I / Burial
caption_attribution_description: English: Pharaoh Seti I, detail of a wall painting of a pillar at the Tomb of Seti I (KV17; Hall J, Pillar B, side a), Valley of the Kings, Western Thebes, Egypt. New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, 1290-1279 BCE. Neues Museum, Berlin, Germany. Plaster, painted. ÄM 2058.
context_page_description: Menmaatre Seti I was a pharaoh of the New Kingdom Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, the son of Ramesses I and Sitre, and the father of Ramesses II. As with all dates in Ancient Egypt, the actual dates of his reign are unclear, and various historians claim different dates, with 1294 BC to 1279 BC and 1290 BC to 1279 BC being the most commonly used by scholars today.
  The name 'Seti' means "of Set", which indicates that he was consecrated to the god Set. As with most pharaohs, Seti had several names. Upon his ascension, he took the prenomen "mn-m3‘t-r‘ ", usually vocalized as Menmaatre, in Egyptian, which means "Established is the Justice of Re." His better known nomen, or birth name, is transliterated as "sty mry-n-ptḥ" or Sety Merenptah, meaning "Man of Set, beloved of Ptah". Manetho incorrectly considered him to be the founder of the 19th dynasty, and gave him a reign length of 55 years, though no evidence has ever been found for so long a reign.
context_section_description: Seti's well preserved tomb (KV17) was found in 1817 by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, in the Valley of the Kings; it proved to be the longest at 446 feet (136 meters) and deepest of all the New Kingdom royal tombs. It was also the first tomb to feature decorations (including The Legend of the destruction of mankind) on every passageway and chamber with highly refined bas-reliefs and colorful paintings – fragments of which, including a large column depicting Seti I with the goddess Hathor, can be seen in the Museo Archeologico, Florence. This decorative style set a precedent which was followed in full or in part in the tombs of later New Kingdom kings. Seti's mummy itself was discovered by Émil Brugsch on June 6, 1881 in the mummy cache (tomb DB320) at Deir el-Bahri, and has since been kept at the Cairo Museum.
  His huge sarcophagus, carved in one piece and intricately decorated on every surface (including the goddess Nut on the interior base), is in Sir John Soane's Museum, Soane bought it for exhibition in his open collection in 1824, when the British Museum refused to pay the £2,000 demanded. On its arrival at the museum, the alabaster was pure white and inlaid with blue copper sulphate. Years of the London climate and pollution have darkened the alabaster to a buff colour and absorbed moisture has caused the hygroscopic inlay material to fall out and disappear completely. A small watercolour nearby records the appearance, as it was.
  The tomb also had an entrance to a secret tunnel hidden behind the sarcophagus, which Belzoni's team estimated to be 100 meters (328 feet) long. However, the tunnel was not truly excavated until 1961, when a team led by Sheikh Ali Abdel-Rasoul began digging in hopes of discovering a secret burial chamber containing hidden treasures. The team failed to follow the original passage in their excavations, and had to call a halt due to instabilities in the tunnel; further issues with permits and finances eventually ended Sheikh Ali's dreams of treasure, though they were at least able to establish that the passage was over 30 meters (98 feet) longer than the original estimate. In June 2010, a team from Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities led by Dr. Zahi Hawass completed excavation of the tunnel, which had begun again after the discovery in 2007 of a downward-sloping passage beginning approximately 136 meters (446 feet) into the previously excavated tunnel. After uncovering two separate staircases, they found that the tunnel ran for 174 meters (571 feet) in total; unfortunately, the last step seemed to have been abandoned prior to completion and no secret burial chamber was found.
  From an examination of Seti's extremely well-preserved mummy, Seti I appears to have been less than forty years old when he died unexpectedly. This is in stark contrast to the situation with Horemheb, Ramesses I and Ramesses II who all lived to an advanced age. The reasons for his relatively early death are uncertain, but there is no evidence of violence on his mummy.  His mummy was found decapitated, but this was likely caused after his death by tomb robbers. The Amun priest carefully reattached his head to his body with the use of linen cloths. It has been suggested that he died from a disease which had affected him for years, possibly related to his heart. The latter was found placed in the right part of the body, while the usual practice of the day was to place it in the left part during the mummification process. Opinions vary whether this was a mistake or an attempt to have Seti's heart work better in his afterlife. Seti I's mummy is about 1.7 metres (5 ft 7 in) tall.
caption: Pharaoh Seti I, detail of a wall painting from the Tomb of Seti I, KV17, at the Valley of the Kings. Neues Museum
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D750", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.13", "Image DateTime": "2020:07:29 01:25:26", "Image Artist": "Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Osama SM Amin FRCP(Glasg)", "Image ExifOffset": "314", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4380", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7367", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1800", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:07:22 16:36:25", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:07:22 16:36:25", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "78", "EXIF SubSecTime": "81", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "81", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "81", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "6016", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4016", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "6016", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "4016", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "4232", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "78", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "5613cd62c99c9f5a8aeecf161b5f5b4f"}