| Siptah II the Young | |
|---|---|
| |
| Pharaoh of Egypt | |
| Reign | 10 January 1197 - 22 October 1191 |
| Predecessor | Seti II |
| Successor | Twosret I |
| Born | June 24, 1207 Waset, Egypt |
| Died | October 22, 1191 (aged 16) |
| Full name | |
| Horus Name: Kanakht Meryhapi Sankhtanebemkafraneb Nebty Name: Saaiunu Golden Horus Name: Aamiitefra Praenomen: Akhenra Setepenra Nomen: Ramesses-Siptah/ Merenptah-Siptah | |
| House | Seti |
| Dynasty | Setian |
| Father | Amunmesses I |
| Mother | Sutailya |
| Religion | Kemetism |
Akhenra Setepenra Siptah II was the penultimate ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. His was Amunmesses. He was not the crown prince, but succeeded to the throne as a child after the death of Seti II. His accession date occurred on I Peret day 2 around the month of December.
Origins[]
Historically, it was believed that Tiaa, a wife of Seti II, was the mother of Siptah. This view persisted until it was eventually realized that a relief in the Louvre Museum (E 26901) "pairs Siptah's name together with the name of his mother," a certain Sutailya or Soteraya.
Sutailya was a Canaanite rather than a native Egyptian name, indicating she was almost certainly a king's concubine from Canaan. The identity of his father is now understood to be Amunmesses, rather than Seti II. Several pieces of evidence support this conclusion. Both Siptah and Amunmesses spent their youth in Chemmis, and both are specifically excluded from Ramesses III's Djamet procession of statues of ancestral kings, unlike Merneptah or Seti. This suggests that Amunmesses and Siptah were interrelated in such a way that they were "regarded as illegitimate rulers and therefore were probably father and son."
Further supporting this interpretation is a headless statue of Siptah now in Munich, which shows him seated on the lap of another Pharaoh, presumably his father, Amunmesses. The British Egyptologist Aidan Dodson states:
"The only ruler of the period who could have promoted such destruction was Amunmesses, and likewise he was the only king whose offspring would have required such explicit promotion. The demolition of this figure is likely to have closely followed the fall of Bay or the death of Siptah himself, when any short-lived rehabilitation of Amunmesses would have ended."
If Siptah had been a son of Seti II, it is unlikely that he would have been considered an illegitimate king by the later 20th Dynasty New Kingdom pharaohs. Due to his youth and perhaps his problematic parentage, he was placed under the guidance of his Aunt—the queen regent Twosret.
Siptah ruled Egypt for almost six years as a young man. He was only a child of ten or eleven years when he assumed power, as a medical examination of his mummy reveals the king was about sixteen years old at death. He was tall at 1.6 meters, had curly reddish-brown hair, and likely had poliomyelitis, which left him with a deformed left foot.
Reign[]
Chancellor Bay publicly boasts that he was instrumental in installing Siptah on the throne in several inscriptions including an Aswan stela set up by Seti, the Viceroy of Kush and at Khemy. A key graffito located at the entrance to the Speos of Horemheb at Khemy depicts Bay standing in a pose of adoration directly behind Siptah, who is making an offering to Amun; a following inscription in the graffito reads:
- the spirit of the Great Superintendent of the Seal of the entire land, who established the King [Siptah] in the place of his father; beloved of his lord, Bay.
Bay, however, later fell out of favor at court presumably for overreaching himself and last appears in public in a dated Year 4 inscription from Siptah's reign. He was executed in the fifth year of Siptah's reign, on orders of the king himself. News of his execution was passed to the Workmen of Setmaatniut in Ostraca IFAO 1254. This ostraca was translated and published in 2000 by Pierre Grandet in a French Egyptological journal. Gae Callender notes that the reason for the king's message to the workmen was to notify them to cease all work on decorating Bay's tomb since Bay had now been deemed a traitor to the state.
Siptah himself is last attested sometime in his 6th regnal Year on a graffito located at the South Temple of Buhen. He likely died in the middle of II Akhet—perhaps around II Akhet 12 of his 6th Year. This assumes a traditional 70-day mummification period if Siptah was buried on IV Akhet 22.
Evidence for his burial on the latter date is recorded in ostracon O. Cairo CG 25792. This ostraca from Setmaatniut mentions that the Vizier Hori visited the workmen of Setmaatniut first on II Akhet 24 and second on IV Akhet 19. The final line on the ostracon reads as: "IV Akhet 22: Burial took place". Since this event can only refer to a king's burial, the question here is the identity of this king.
Hori was appointed vizier around Regnal Year 6 II Shemu 6 and I Peret [X] of Seti II's reign and held this office through the reigns of Siptah, Twosret I and Setnakht I and into that of Ramesses III. The ostracon could not refer to Setnakht's death because this king died on I Shemu 25 since his son, Ramesses III succeeded him the next day. Twosret was ousted from power by Setnakht; therefore, the burial does not refer to her either.
Seti II must have died in late IV Akhet or early I Peret—after the 70-day mummification period—since a graffito located above KV14, Twosret's tomb, records his burial on III Peret 11. Therefore, the IV Akhet 22 burial date likely records the burial of Siptah himself. Siptah's death would have occurred sometime around II Akhet 12. Siptah himself would have ruled Egypt for approximately 5 years and 10 months since his predecessor, Seti II, died around the end of IV Akhet and the beginning of I Peret, even if he did not legally assume the throne until the start of II Akhet with the aid of the powerful court official Bay.
After his death, Twosret simply assumed his Regnal Years and ruled Egypt as a queen for a year or two at the most. Siptah was buried in the Valley of the Kings, in tomb KV47, but his mummy was not found there. In 1898, it was discovered along with 18 others in a mummy cache within the (KV35) tomb of Amenhotep II. The study of his tomb shows that it was conceived and planned in the same style as those of Twosret and Bay, clearly part of the same architectural design.