Ramesses I

Attribution: cardbush

1350 BC - 1294 BC

Menpehtyre Ramesses I was the founding Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's 19th dynasty.
The dates for his short reign vary from late 1292-1290 BC is and 1295-1294 BC.

Ramesses, who was known as Paramessu before he claimed the throne, worked closely with Horemheb, the king who preceded him, to restore law and order to a country that had been torn apart by ill-conceived religious reforms.

While Ramesses I is credited with estalishing the 19th Dynasty, his short reign of less than two years marked the transition between the reign of Horemheb and the rule of the powerful Pharaohs of the 19th dynasty, particularly Seti I and Ramesses II.

Ramesses I died and was buried in his unfinished tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Four hundred years after his burial he was moved from his sarcophagus to a replacement coffin and taken from the royal necropolis. Eventually, in 890BC, his mummy was finally laid to rest in a tomb high in the cliffs above Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el Bahri.

Sometime in the mid-1800s, the tomb at Deir el-Bahri was accidentally discovered by Ahmed Abd el-Rassul who sold off off mummies, coffins, and royal artifacts to tourists and collectors. When he was caught and stopped in 1881 the tomb contained 40 mummies, coffins, including that of Ramsses, but there was no sign of his mummy.

It was discovered that the mummy was sold for seven pounds to a physician from Canada named James Douglas in around 1860. Douglas acquired the royal mummy for the owner of a museum in Niagara Falls.

Ramesses I returned to Egypt in 1999 and now sits in the Carlos Museum.