To Speak the Name of the Dead Is to Make Them Live Again
To speak the proper noun of the dead is to brand them live again.
—aboriginal Egyptian inscription
What'due south in a proper noun? Well, in the case of Rameses I, no less than immortality—and this for a man of humble roots. For "Rameses," which he began calling himself after condign pharaoh in 1307 B.C.*, has come downward to the states today as i of the most recognizable names from aboriginal Egypt. For many it conjures upward vast empires along the Nile, colossal monuments in stone, pharaohs somehow loftier than kings ruling over a culture that rivals in atypical magnificence whatever the globe has produced.
And Rameses I gave us more than only a proper name. He gave united states of america a Dynasty, the 19th, one of the almost illustrious aboriginal Arab republic of egypt ever knew. And he gave united states living legends: his son Seti I ushered in a menstruation of art and culture unrivaled in later on Egyptian civilization, and his grandson Rameses Two earned the suffix "the Great" past building more temples and erecting more obelisks and statues (and siring more than children) than any other pharaoh. No fewer than 10 subsequent pharaohs proudly adopted the proper noun Rameses, Rameses Eleven passing on—and catastrophe the and so-chosen Ramesside period—237 years later his namesake took the throne.
Yet Rameses I was not of royal blood. He became pharaoh when he was already old by ancient standards (probably in his 50s). And he reigned for less than two years. All of which makes his immortality all the more remarkable.
Growing upwardly in strange times
Rameses I was born in the mid-14th century B.C. His home lay most Avaris, a town in northern Egypt situated on the far side of the great fan-like Nile Delta from where Alexandria sits today (see map). He came from a long line of soldiers; his father Seti, later on whom the hereafter Rameses I would name his son, was a troop commander and judge. The proper name that judge Seti and his married woman gave the future pharaoh was Paramessu.
Paramessu grew up in 1 of the most unusual periods in Egyptian history. The pharaoh Amenhotep 4, better known as Akhenaten, who assumed the throne well-nigh the time that Paramessu was born, shook the foundation of Egyptian society. With the revolutionary zeal of a Lenin or Mao, Akhenaten swept away the onetime organized religion, replacing information technology with a monotheistic cult worship of the dominicus-disc Aten. He built a new capital urban center, Akhetaten ("the Horizon of the Aten"), and moved the seat of government in that location from Thebes, which had been the pharaohs' capital letter for nearly of the 18th Dynasty. And he ushered in an entirely new style of art, with figures—including his own famously misshapen form—fatigued with more realism than was mutual in the erstwhile, more formal style.
Rameses I left a pregnant mark on Egyptian civilization—non least his evocative name.
When Akhenaten died in 1333 B.C., his son Tutankhaten took his identify on the throne, even though he was only nigh nine years onetime at the time. In the 2d twelvemonth of his reign—no dubiousness at the instigation of the two highest-ranking officials from his begetter's court, Ay and Horemheb, who effectively ran the boy's court—Tutankhaten dropped the "-aten" suffix from his name in favor of "-amun." This signaled the beginning of the dismantling of everything Akhenaten had done and the reinstitution of the onetime ways, including belief in Amun, the Male monarch of Gods. When Tutankhamun—aka Male monarch Tut—died heirless when he was about 17 years former, Ay and later on Horemheb continued the restoration as the concluding two pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty.
An abbreviated reign
Through all this, the soon-to-be Rameses I was rising chop-chop in the ranks of the military machine. He surpassed his father's position every bit troop commander and eventually gained the favor of Horemheb, who himself had been caput of the ground forces nether Akhenaten. Indeed, during Horemheb'due south reign (1319-1307 B.C.), Paramessu went on to get vizier—roughly equivalent to today'southward prime minister—and held a cord of important titles: Master of Equus caballus, Commander of the Fortress, Controller of the Nile Oral fissure, Charioteer of His Majesty, King's Envoy to Every Foreign Country, Purple Scribe, Colonel, and General of the Lord of the 2 Lands. Corking for a soldier's son without a drop of royal blood in his veins.
Paramessu'due south rise did non stop there, of course. Having become Horemheb's friend and confidant, he ultimately became both coregent with the pharaoh and, since Horemheb apparently had no heirs, his manus-picked successor. Upon Horemheb'due south death in 1307, Paramessu causeless the throne equally Rameses ("Ra [the lord's day god] Has Fashioned Him"). Pharaohs of the twenty-four hours took v different names, and one of Rameses's others, his and so-called Gold Horus proper name, was "He Who Confirms Ma'at Throughout the Two Lands." Ma'at was a girl of the dominicus god Ra, and the proper noun every bit a whole signified Rameses' desire to continue the piece of work of his predecessors to disengage the heretical handiwork of Akhenaten.
Like most pharaohs, Rameses I immediately set virtually doing things for which he would be remembered. These pursuits took him to the far ends of his kingdom, and even across. At Buhen in southern Arab republic of egypt, he made additions to the Nubian garrison. At Karnak Temple in Thebes—where his son and grandson would later on cock the Bang-up Hypostyle Hall, one of the greatest monuments of the ancient globe—Rameses I had reliefs carved on the massive gateway known every bit the Second Pylon. Further north at Abydos, the burial place of the get-go kings of a unified Egypt, he began structure of a chapel and temple (Seti I would complete it). Still farther north, Rameses I reopened Egyptian turquoise mines in the Sinai, and he led at least 1 military trek into western asia.
A name for the ages
Despite the promising start, Rameses I's reign concluded so quickly that his tomb was only partially complete when he died. In contrast to the cavernous crypts of his successors, Seti I and Rameses II, his is simply antechamber in size. As in life, in death Rameses I did not leave much behind, at to the lowest degree after aboriginal robbers had finished with his tomb. When the Italian explorer Giovanni Belzoni discovered the sepulcher in 1817, all that remained in the way of grave appurtenances was Rameses' damaged granite sarcophagus, a pair of 6-foot wooden guardian statues once covered in gilt foil, and some statuettes of underworld deities. His mummy was missing, also. The most important surviving artifacts were well-executed paintings from the Book of Gates, one of the Egyptian treatises on the underworld, lining the walls of his burial chamber.
All the same for and then cursory a reign, and for having had just ane child with his wife Sitra, Rameses I left a meaning mark on Egyptian civilization—not least his evocative name. 
*Note: Scholars yet debate exact dates of ancient Egyptian reigns and dynasties. The dates in this article come from the chronology developed past John Baines and Jaromir Málek and used in their book Atlas of Aboriginal Arab republic of egypt.
Few today know the proper noun Paramessu, but the name this ancient Egyptian soldier took upon becoming pharaoh resounds through the ages: Rameses. Here, a stone head of Paramessu at present in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
Arab republic of egypt in Rameses I's day
In this painting from his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Rameses I is depicted between the falcon-headed "soul of Pe" and the canis familiaris-headed "soul of Nekhen," spiritual beings that represented the traditional regions of Lower and Upper Egypt.
Many experts see a physical resemblance between the mummified head of what is now thought to exist Rameses I (meridian) and the heads of his son Seti I (middle) and grandson Rameses Two.
Peter Tyson is editor in main of NOVA online.
Source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mummy/rameses.html
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