Pharaoh Seti 'the Great'

Pharaoh Seti ‘the Great’ b by Damien F. Mackey “Merenptah’s involvement with the Osireion raises some questions, not least, how did he gain access when the brick arch appears to have been blocked up by Seti?” Keith Hamilton The somewhat poorly known pharaoh Merenptah - generally thought to have been the son and successor of Ramses II - needs, it seems, to be filled out with his supposed grandfather, Seti (the father of Ramses II). Merenptah’s relative obscurity (qua Merenptah) is apparent from the following quotes: http://www.ancientpages.com/2018/04/17/pharaoh-merneptah-his-giant-sarcophagus-and-unique-victory-stele/ “Greatly overshadowed by his dominant and long-lived father, Merneptah never had a chance to become a famous pharaoh and he was almost unknown for most of his life”. Note, in the next quote, the sequence: “probably”, “likely”, “presumed”, “possibly”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah “Merneptah was probably the fourth child of Isetnofret I, the second wife of Ramesses II, and he was married to Queen Isetnofret II, his royal wife, who was likely his full sister bearing the name of their mother. It is presumed that Merneptah was also married to Queen Takhat and one of their sons would succeed him as Seti II. They also were the parents of Prince Merenptah and possibly the usurper, Amenmesse, and Queen Twosret, wife of Seti II and later pharaoh in her own right”. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Merneptah “He left few monuments, but in his conduct of Egypt’s defense and diplomacy he was at least the equal of his father”. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10208b.htm “His original works are comparatively few and insignificant. His name is constantly found on the monuments of his father …”. Merenptah is thought to have “decorated” (in some cases, “largely”) monuments of Seti, even though he is considered to have been separated from Seti by the almost seven decades of reign of Ramses II. https://therolesandcontributionsofsetii.weebly.com/builder.html “The Osireion is located behind the Abydos temple and may have been intended to be a 'cenotaph' (empty tomb.) The architecture of the Osireion is particularly unusual: a rectangular 'island' surrounded by a channel of water was constructed in the middle of the hall on which large pillars were built. This design may have represented the primeval waters and mound which began all of creation. Although the structure was built by Seti I it was largely decorated by his grandson, Merenptah with scenes from 'The Book of Gates', images of the journey to the underworld, texts relating to astronomy and depictions of gods and goddesses”.  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Keith_Hamilton4/publication/328225133_The_Osireion_A_Layman%27s_Guide/links/5bbf5cbe299bf1004c5a4617/The-Osireion-A-Laymans-Guide.pdf “When Murray discovered and excavated the two chambers at the end of the entrance passage, she found them decorated with texts; she states, “The cartouche of Merenptah appeared in every place where it could be inserted, and we therefore had to consider the possibility of its being his tomb.” …. It seems clear therefore, that a lot of the preliminary laying out of the texts was accomplished by Seti, and that these texts were utilised by Merenptah, who only had to sculpt the walls and replace Seti’s name with his own; though his workers appeared to have missed Seti’s name on two occasions. There are indications that Ramesses II did likewise in the adjacent temple, when he completed Seti’s work; though there is no evidence that Ramesses did any work on the Osireion. Merenptah’s involvement with the Osireion raises some questions, not least, how did he gain access when the brick arch appears to have been blocked up by Seti? Frankfort makes no comment on it, other than to question Strabo’s access; he states, Ingress could not be obtained by the arch at the north end of the entrance passage, because we found it still bricked up with Seti’s bricks ...”. … But if this logic is good for Strabo, what about Merenptah? Merenptah was Seti’s grandson and he ruled after his long lived father Ramesses II, who ruled about 66 years: Merenptah would not be so fortunate and his reign is believed to be a more modest 10 years. It would seem therefore, that Merenptah took an unusual interest in the subterranean Osireion some 66 years after Seti bricked up the arch. If Merenptah had used this entrance, might not he have used bricks with his own name on it? So how did he gain access? …. http://www.historyembalmed.org/egyptian-pharaohs/merneptah.htm “Children:  Little information about his children but it is believed that his son Seti-Merneptah became Pharaoh Seti II”. Merenptah, not Ramses, originated Karnak text “… when [Frank J. Yurco] scraped away the superimposed names, he determined that the original inscription was not Ramses II but Merenptah …. The visage of a pharaoh carved on a nearby block resembled not Ramses but the figure found on Merenptah’s tomb”. John Noble Wilford The novel idea was expressed by me that the somewhat obscure pharaoh Merenptah, far from following on from Ramses II, son of Seti I, as according to conventional Egyptology, was (and fills out) Seti I himself. In accordance with this new approach it has become apparent, thanks to the research of the late Frank J. Yurco, that Kadesh battle inscriptions were originally placed by pharaoh Merenptah, and not by Ramses II as has been thought. And so we read in an article “Battle Scene on Egyptian Temple May Be Earliest View of Israelites”, by John Noble Wilford (and here I am not interested in the “Israelite” question): https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/04/science/battle-scene-on-egyptian-temple-may-be-earliest-view-of-israelites.html …. In an article published in the September issue of Biblical Archeology Review, Frank J. Yurco, an Egyptologist with the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, described his analysis of a hieroglyphic text in the Cairo Museum and four battle scenes carved on the Karnak wall …. …. Mr. Yurco's discovery grew out of his work with the University of Chicago's epigraphic survey of Egyptian temples and research for a doctoral dissertation he is preparing at the university's Oriental Institute. His first glimmering came when he found that four battle scenes carved on the Karnak wall had been mistakenly attributed to Ramses II, the pharaoh who ruled Egypt for much of the 13th century B. C. [sic]. It had been an understandable mistake. The centerpiece of that particular wall is the hieroglyphic text of the peace treaty that concluded the battle of Kadesh in Syria in 1275 [sic] between Ramses and the Hittite army. The four battle scenes that framed the treaty were therefore assumed to depict combat in that war. In his detective work, Mr. Yurco found that in the practice of the time, succeeding pharaohs had had their predecessors' names hammered out and plastered over and replaced with their own names. But when he scraped away the superimposed names, he determined that the original inscription was not Ramses II but Merenptah, pharaoh from 1212 to 1202 [sic]. The visage of a pharaoh carved on a nearby block resembled not Ramses but the figure found on Merenptah's tomb. ''That was when I made the conceptual leap that the battle scenes were from Merenptah's campaign against Canaan,'' Mr. Yurco said in an interview. …. [End of quote] Merenptah’s campaign is pure Seti. The above article continues: [Yurco’s] next step was to re-examine the Merenptah Stele, a black granite tablet inscribed with the account of the pharaoh's military exploits. The text, discovered a century ago and housed in the Cairo Museum, includes the earliest known mention of Israel. In describing Merenptah's four victories in Canaan, the text said: ''Askelon has been overcome. Gezer has been captured. Yano'am was made non-existent. Israel is laid waste, his seed is not.'' Mr. Yurco then connected the victories mentioned in the text with the four battle scenes at Karnak. The first was specifically identified, he discovered, as the town of Ashkelon. The next two could be Gezer and Yano'am, as they were fortified places lying on a line between Ashkelon on the coastal plain into the hill country. But the fourth scene, with pharaoh's horse and chariot team in the center and running roughshod over fallen soldiers, shows no walls or towers or other evidence of a fortified city. This reminded Mr. Yurco of a clue from the Merenptah Stele. …. [End of quote] The princes are prostrate saying: “Shalom!” Not one of the Nine Bows lifts his head: Tjehenu is vanquished, Khatti at peace, Canaan is captive with all woe. Ashkelon is conquered, Gezer seized, Yanoam made nonexistent; Israel is wasted, bare of seed, Khor is become a widow for Egypt. All who roamed have been subdued. By the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Banere-meramun, Son of Re, Merneptah, Content with Maat, Given life like Re every day.