I was reading this online book in pdf format on The Rise and Fall of Ancient Eqypt by Toby Wilkinson and found this interesting tid-bit... We know from ancient history how each Pharoah tried out do the other one but this foreign Pharoah really tried to out do them all and the results were hilarious!... So much for the afterlife?... Brother Glen
Despite its thoroughly Egyptian character, Thebes had also fallen
under Libyan influence during the “renaissance era” of Ramesses XI’s
reign, due to the presence of Libyan soldiers in the uppermost
echelons of the Egyptian army. And, as we have seen, it was under the
military junta headed by Paiankh that the state-sponsored theft of
valuables from the royal tombs had begun. While campaigning in
Nubia, Paiankh had sent one letter to Thebes ordering the scribe of
the necropolis, Butehamun, and his assistant Kar to “uncover a tomb
amongst the tombs of the ancestors and preserve its seal until I
return.”3 The general’s instructions to his henchmen marked the
beginning of a deliberate policy to strip royal tombs of their gold, to
finance the war against Panehsy and to fund Paiankh’s wider
ambitions. The fact that all this was going on under the ancien régime
shows where power really lay. Once Ramesses XI was safely dead,
the New Kingdom monarchy consigned to history, and the military
rulers of Thebes de facto kings of Upper Egypt, the systematic
dismantling of the royal necropolis could be openly pursued as official
government policy.
At first, the main targets for the robbers were the tombs of the
Seventeenth Dynasty, the burials of royal relatives in the Valley of the
Queens, and the kings’ mortuary temples at the edge of the cultivation.
Then, on the pretext of safeguarding the integrity of all royal tombs, the
authorities switched their focus to the Valley of the Kings itself. In the
fourth year of Herihor’s rule (1066), Butehamun received an order to
carry out “work” in the tomb of Horemheb. It was the beginning of the
end for the royal necropolis. Over the next decade, the tombs of the
New Kingdom pharaohs were emptied one by one. The workmen who
carried out the task even seem to have had a map of the valley (surely
provided by the authorities) to assist the clearance. Their main
objective was to expropriate the large quantities of gold and other
valuables buried in the Theban hills. These were swiftly removed to the
state treasury, leaving only the mummies—rudely unwrapped in the
search for hidden jewels—to be taken to Butehamun’s imposing office
at Medinet Habu for processing and rewrapping. Little wonder that
Butehamun was proud to call himself, without a hint of irony, “overseer
of the treasuries of the kings.” So rife was tomb robbery in the Theban
necropolis at this time that private individuals designed their
interments with an obsessive emphasis on inaccessibility, to make the
robbers’ job as hard as possible.
Besides larceny, Butehamun’s exploratory work in the Valley of the
Kings had a second aim—to identify a permanent repository for the
royal corpses that had been so rudely removed from their resting
places. The tomb of Amenhotep II (next to the tomb of Horemheb) was
eventually identified as an ideal location. One fateful day around 1050,
the sacred remains of Egypt’s divine kings were unceremoniously
gathered up and shoved higgedly-piggedly into one of the tomb’s
chambers. In the process, the great Amenhotep III ended up in a coffin
inscribed for Ramesses III, with an ill-fitting lid made for Seti II.
Merenptah came to rest in the coffin of Sethnakht, while his own
sarcophagus made its way north to Djanet to serve the burial of
Egypt’s new Libyan ruler (Pasebakhaenniut I). In this unholy mess, the
dignified Thutmose IV lay cheek by jowl with the child king Siptah, the
military tough guy Sethnakht with the smallpox-ridden Ramesses V. It
was a desecration of everything that ancient Egypt had hallowed. An
even more illustrious gathering of royal ancestors—including the
victors against the Hyksos, Ahhotep and Ahmose; the founders of the
workmen’s village, Ahmose Nefertari and Amenhotep I; and the
greatest of all the warrior pharaohs, Thutmose III, Seti I, Ramesses II,
and Ramesses III—were bundled into a secondary cache in the tomb
of a Seventeenth Dynasty queen, there to await a more secure,
permanent resting place.
Despite its thoroughly Egyptian character, Thebes had also fallen
under Libyan influence during the “renaissance era” of Ramesses XI’s
reign, due to the presence of Libyan soldiers in the uppermost
echelons of the Egyptian army. And, as we have seen, it was under the
military junta headed by Paiankh that the state-sponsored theft of
valuables from the royal tombs had begun. While campaigning in
Nubia, Paiankh had sent one letter to Thebes ordering the scribe of
the necropolis, Butehamun, and his assistant Kar to “uncover a tomb
amongst the tombs of the ancestors and preserve its seal until I
return.”3 The general’s instructions to his henchmen marked the
beginning of a deliberate policy to strip royal tombs of their gold, to
finance the war against Panehsy and to fund Paiankh’s wider
ambitions. The fact that all this was going on under the ancien régime
shows where power really lay. Once Ramesses XI was safely dead,
the New Kingdom monarchy consigned to history, and the military
rulers of Thebes de facto kings of Upper Egypt, the systematic
dismantling of the royal necropolis could be openly pursued as official
government policy.
At first, the main targets for the robbers were the tombs of the
Seventeenth Dynasty, the burials of royal relatives in the Valley of the
Queens, and the kings’ mortuary temples at the edge of the cultivation.
Then, on the pretext of safeguarding the integrity of all royal tombs, the
authorities switched their focus to the Valley of the Kings itself. In the
fourth year of Herihor’s rule (1066), Butehamun received an order to
carry out “work” in the tomb of Horemheb. It was the beginning of the
end for the royal necropolis. Over the next decade, the tombs of the
New Kingdom pharaohs were emptied one by one. The workmen who
carried out the task even seem to have had a map of the valley (surely
provided by the authorities) to assist the clearance. Their main
objective was to expropriate the large quantities of gold and other
valuables buried in the Theban hills. These were swiftly removed to the
state treasury, leaving only the mummies—rudely unwrapped in the
search for hidden jewels—to be taken to Butehamun’s imposing office
at Medinet Habu for processing and rewrapping. Little wonder that
Butehamun was proud to call himself, without a hint of irony, “overseer
of the treasuries of the kings.” So rife was tomb robbery in the Theban
necropolis at this time that private individuals designed their
interments with an obsessive emphasis on inaccessibility, to make the
robbers’ job as hard as possible.
Besides larceny, Butehamun’s exploratory work in the Valley of the
Kings had a second aim—to identify a permanent repository for the
royal corpses that had been so rudely removed from their resting
places. The tomb of Amenhotep II (next to the tomb of Horemheb) was
eventually identified as an ideal location. One fateful day around 1050,
the sacred remains of Egypt’s divine kings were unceremoniously
gathered up and shoved higgedly-piggedly into one of the tomb’s
chambers. In the process, the great Amenhotep III ended up in a coffin
inscribed for Ramesses III, with an ill-fitting lid made for Seti II.
Merenptah came to rest in the coffin of Sethnakht, while his own
sarcophagus made its way north to Djanet to serve the burial of
Egypt’s new Libyan ruler (Pasebakhaenniut I). In this unholy mess, the
dignified Thutmose IV lay cheek by jowl with the child king Siptah, the
military tough guy Sethnakht with the smallpox-ridden Ramesses V. It
was a desecration of everything that ancient Egypt had hallowed. An
even more illustrious gathering of royal ancestors—including the
victors against the Hyksos, Ahhotep and Ahmose; the founders of the
workmen’s village, Ahmose Nefertari and Amenhotep I; and the
greatest of all the warrior pharaohs, Thutmose III, Seti I, Ramesses II,
and Ramesses III—were bundled into a secondary cache in the tomb
of a Seventeenth Dynasty queen, there to await a more secure,
permanent resting place.