The last travel
| Ramses died in Pi-Ramses in 1213 Bc. After the seventy days necessary for
the embalming, the body was accompanied to his last home with all the honors
such a great pharaoh deserved. An enourmos fleet with the successor’s royal boat
at the head, the pharaoh Merenptah, navigated along the Nile to Tebe. Everywhere
during his journey a desperated crowd paid the nightful tributes to the king who
had given to them and to Egypt prosperity and well-being. When cast the anchor
in Tebe, the funeral procession went toward the tomb, that had been excavated in
the rock in the necropolis in the valley of the kings. Inside the sarcophagus
was laid and the incredible treasure that should accompany him in the Reign of
the Dead. The entrance was then ssealed so nothing could disturb the pharaoh’s
eternal sleep. But it didn’t go this way. Afew decades later the tomb was
violated and the riches were taken away. This way the tormented story of Ramses
mummy began. IT was moved more than once by the Egyptian priests in the
necropolis toa void the sacks by the thieves, who to gat some precious objects
even removed the bandages from the corpses to look for the gold amulets and
jewels hidden among them during the embalming. Around 1000 BC, with those of
other sovereigns, the mummy was finally put in the secret hiding-place near
Hatshepsut’s temple in Deir el-Bahari, near Tebe. It remained here until 1881, when it was discovered and brought to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. |
