AAHMES I., founder of the eighteenth dynasty.
AMENHOTEP I. (_Amenophis_), coffin and mummy.
THOTHMES I.--The coffin was occupied by the mummy of a priest-king, Pinotem, of the twenty-first dynasty. The mummy of Thothmes was not found.
The first known representation of a horse occurs on a monument of this reign; and it is supposed that the horse was introduced into Egypt from Asia about this time.
THOTHMES II.--The coffin and mummy were both found. Thothmes II. reigned but a short time.
THOTHMES III., one of the most famous of Egyptian kings. He continued his predecessors’ offensive movements against the Hyksos and their allies, and extended his conquests as far as the Tigris. In his reign Egypt was at the pinnacle of its greatness. The walls of his magnificent temple at Karnak are covered with inscriptions recounting his triumphs, and giving a list of the countries and peoples conquered by him. A stela of black granite found at Karnac, and now in the Egyptian National Museum, contains a poem in celebration of the victories of this king. The coffin and mummy found were broken.
HATSHEPSU, the great woman-king, sister and wife of Thothmes II. Becoming regent for her younger brother, Thothmes III., she assumed a king’s dress and masculine style. Neither the coffin nor the mummy were found. But it was the practice of the Egyptians in embalming to take out the intestines and preserve them separately; and the liver of Hatshepsu was discovered enclosed in a cabinet of wood, inlaid with ivory, which was marked with her name.
RAMESES I., founder of the nineteenth dynasty, was found placed in a coffin of the fashion of the twenty-first dynasty, from which the name of the original owner had been carefully scraped off.
SETI I., his successor (coffin and mummy). The superb alabaster sarcophagus of this monarch was already in the Soane Museum, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. When Belzoni discovered it in 1817, in the original sepulchre in the valley of the kings at Thebes, he was astonished to find the mummy and coffin gone. When the mummy of this Pharaoh was unrolled it was found that the body was long, fleshless, of a yellow-black colour, and had the arms crossed upon the breast. The head was covered with a mask of fine linen, blackened with bitumen, which it was necessary to remove with scissors. This operation brought to view the most beautiful mummy-head ever seen in the museum. The sculptors of Thebes and Abydos did not flatter this Pharaoh when they gave him that delicate, sweet, smiling profile which is known to travellers. After a lapse of thirty-two centuries the mummy retains the same expression which characterised the features of the living man. Seti I. must have died at an advanced age. The head is shaven, the eyebrows are white, the condition of the body points to more than three-score years of life; thus confirming the opinion of the learned, who have attributed a long reign to this king. Seti I. built the Hall of Columns in the Great Temple of Ammon, at Karnac. There exist numerous remains also at Koorneh, Abydos, and elsewhere, of the extensive and magnificent buildings which he erected with the aid of the conquered Semites, among whom the Israelites must probably be included. During his reign a great canal, the first of its kind, was completed, connecting the Nile with the Red Sea.