ABSTRACT
Upon the death of Horemheb, the void which that king had so feared was quickly filled by his appointed successor. The new ruler was a commoner by birth and had no royal connections whatsoever, either through blood or through marriage: his father being a troop commander in the army, and his wife being the daughter of a military man. With this background, then, but with a brilliant career behind him, Pramesse ascended the throne as Ramesses I. He was, of course, fully aware of his lack of any hereditary right to rule and he immediately set about establishing his legitimacy. Unlike Horemheb before him, he made no allusion on his public monuments to his pre-royal career. On a stela from Sinai, for example, he declared that the throne was destined for him from birth and that he was ‘the son of Amun, born of Mut, to rule all that the sun encircles’ (Davies, B. 1997: 196, l. 2).
