Egypt Exploration Society
The Length of the Reign of Sethos I Author(s): Morris L. Bierbrier Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 58 (Aug., 1972), p. 303 Published by: Egypt Exploration Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3856264 Accessed: 07/02/2010 06:30 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ees. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
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The length of the reign of Sethos I THE well-known Munich statue of the high priest of Amn, Bakenchons his career as I, givess i i a n nsw as as a nds ikr, M[n-m;rt-rr],' including: 4 years years youth (kwn), hry ih(w)-n-shpr a wb of Amn, n mn, 155years hm-ntr 2 ase 4 years asait-nr years as years as hm-ntr 3 n mn, n Imn, and 27 years as hm-ntr tpy n Tmn.2 The statue was dedicated while Bakenchons was still alive: he prays di.f n3i rhrw m nfr hr-s; rnptIIo, and so he might have continued in office for a year or two longer. The statue also bears the cartouches of the reigning pharaoh, Wsr-m;rt-rr stp-n-rr and Rr-ms-sw mry-'Imn,i.e. Ramesses II. Bakenchons is independently attested in office in Year 46 of Ramesses II.3 However, the succeeding high priest Roma-Roy, who served under Merenptah and Sethos II, claims to have been inducted into office by Ramesses II, doubtless towards the end of his reign.4 It can at once be seen that not all of Bakenchons's 70 years' service as a priest can be fitted into the 67 years of Ramesses II unless one assumes pluralism of offices or a mistake in the inscription, either of which seems gratuitous. If one were to assume that the time which elapsed after the completion of this statue, encompassing the death of Bakenchons, the installation of Roma-Roy, and the death of Ramesses II, was of short duration-say, barely a year-then the statue might have been dedicated in Year 66 of Ramesses II. Bakenchons would have been, in descending order, high priest of Amin from Year 40 to Year 66, second prophet from Year 28 to Year 39, third prophet from Year 13 to Year 27, and it-ntr from Year i to Year 12. His four years as wrb must have been spent under the previous pharaoh. Now Bakenchons prior to this had already served i years as a youth, hry ih(w)-n-shpr n nsw Mn-m;rt-rr, i.e. under Sethos I. The four years as wrbmust also belong under Sethos I, and therefore Sethos I will have reigned at least 15 years. If it were found necessary to move the dates of the various stages of Bakenchons's career to earlier points in the reign of Ramesses II-which may well be likely-then the reign of Sethos I would have to be correspondingly increased in length over and above the 15 years already here ascertained.5 MORRISL. BIERBRIER
Further remarks on statuettes of Atum6 A NUMBERof additions and corrections to my earlier article may be made here. I shall also enumerate several further classes of three-dimensional representation not mentioned there. For various reasons consideration of two-dimensional iconography and large-scale sculpture must be postponed to a later study. I failed to notice that the 'old private collection in Cairo' was a true provenance for Ashmolean 1969.490, and that the piece is in fact illustrated and described in Collection de feu Omar Pacha Sultan - catalogue descriptif(Paris, I929), vitrine i, no. 46 with pi. I (only the top of the figure is The cartoucheis broken,but as a cornerof the mn-signremains,the readingand restorationare not in doubt. 2 Latest publication, Maria Plantikow-Miinster, 'Die Inschrift des Bik-n-hnsw in Miinchen', ZAS 95 (1969), 117-35, with antecedent literature. 3 In Papyrus Berlin P 3047, see W. Helck, JARCE 2 (I963), 65-73, pls. 9-12. 4 Karnak statue Cairo Cat. 42186, see G. Lefebvre, Inscriptions concernantles grands pretres d'Amon RomeRoy et Amenhotep (I929),
23-4, inscription
III d.
Cf. the I4 or I5 years allowed for by E. Hornung, Untersuchungenzur Chronologieund Geschichte des Neuen Reiches (I964), 40-I, io8; and the possibilities of either 15 or 19 years deduced by W. Helck, Untersuchungenzu Manetho und den dgyptischenK6nigslisten (I956), 69-70, both basing themselves on calculations from versions of Manetho. 6 See 'A Bronze Statuette of Atum', JEA 56 (1970), 135-40. I am grateful to Dr. B. V. Bothmer for criticism of a typescript. Several of the additions are due to him. 5
