Ramesses I

The founder of the 19th Dynasty came to kingship near the end of a long career spent serving other kings. Ramesses I (d. c. 1290 BC) was born Paramessu into a military family from the eastern Delta; his father Seti was a troop commander, and Paramessu himself rose through army and state offices under Horemheb, the general who had taken the throne after the extinction of the 18th Dynasty's royal line. He accumulated an extraordinary portfolio — vizier, overseer of fortresses, master of horse, and high priestly office — and Horemheb, who had no surviving son, designated him heir.

His accession, conventionally placed around 1292 BC, was that of an elderly man, and his reign lasted barely two years. Its importance was dynastic rather than personal: Paramessu took the throne name Menpehtyre and the personal name Ramesses, and he already had an adult son, the future Seti I, and a grandson, the future Ramesses II. The succession was therefore secure in a way Egypt had not seen for decades, and the family from Avaris's region would rule for over a century, eventually moving the royal residence to Pi-Ramesses in their Delta homeland under his grandson.

The brief reign allowed only modest works. He began decoration connected with the great hypostyle hall at Karnak, a project his son would carry forward, and Seti I may have shared duties late in the reign, though a formal co-regency is uncertain. His wife Sitre became the first queen buried in what developed into the Valley of the Queens.

Ramesses I was buried in a small, hastily finished tomb in the Valley of the Kings, KV16, its painted decoration nonetheless of high quality. His mummy was apparently removed in antiquity to the Deir el-Bahri cache; a body acquired in the nineteenth century, long displayed in a museum at Niagara Falls, was judged on circumstantial and physical grounds to be very likely his and was returned to Egypt in 2003, though the identification cannot be absolutely confirmed. His son Seti I honored him with a chapel at Abydos.