When Ramesses I became pharaoh on Horemheb’s death, his grandson and namesake – the future Ramesses II – was suddenly thrust on to the political stage as a royal scion. The princeling, then in late childhood or earliest adolescence, was the eldest son of Ramesses I’s eldest son and heir Sety, who would sit on the Horus Throne as Sety I less than two years after his father ascended it.
A few years previously, this Ramesside line had much to recommend itself to the childless King Horemheb, the last ruler of the waning Eighteenth Dynasty. Ramesses I, then called Paramessu, and his son Sety had both reached the highest echelons of Egypt’s military and civilian power structure. Among their numerous offices and accolades, each attained the rank of ‘great general of the army’ and vizier. Just as importantly, Paramessu’s line already had three generations, including his grandson, destined to become Ramesses II.
But scarcely two years after he took power, Ramesses I was dead. While Sety benefited from a lifelong career as an administrator and high-ranking military officer, his heir Ramesses (then about ten years old) was a blank slate. Moreover, the new Nineteenth Dynasty’s future was uncertain until Crown Prince Ramesses begat an heir of his own to continue the family line. Sety took steps to remedy both issues. Over the course of his decade-long reign, when his heir was a teenager, Sety I carefully prepared Ramesses to succeed him some day by elevating his status before the royal court and giving him practical experience in all the duties of a pharaoh.
Science versus The Arts