Siptah (19th dynasty)

Preceded by: Seti II	Pharaoh of Egypt 19th Dynasty	Succeeded by: Tausret
Siptah
Ramesses-Siptah, Merenptah-Siptah
Siptah on a wall relief in his KV47 tomb.
Reign
1197-1191 BC (6 years)
Royal Titulary Praenomen Akhenre-Setepenre Effective for Re, Chosen of Re Nomen Merenptah-Siptah Born of Ptah, Son of Ptah Horus name Kanakhte-Meryhapi Strong Bull, Beloved of Hapi Nebty name Seaaiunu Made great in Heliopolis Golden Horus [...]Mi'itefre [...] like his father Re
Legacy
Father	Merenptah, Seti II or Amenmesses
Mother	Sutererey (?)
Died	1191 BC (age c. 16)
Burial	KV47

For other pages by this name, see Siptah or Merenptah.

Akhenre-Setepenre Siptah (r. 1197-1191 BC) was the penultimate ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty during the New Kingdom. Siptah ruled Egypt for about six years. His accession occurred on I Peret day two around the month of December. He was not the Crown Prince, but succeeded to the throne after the death of Seti II. Siptah was still only around ten years old and Tausret therefore served as queen-regent. After Siptah's early demise, Tausret simply assumed his regnal years and ruled Egypt for another year or two at the most. Siptah is excluded from Ramesses III's list of ancestors at Medinet Habu which can only mean that he was not seen as a legitime pharaoh by his Twentieth Dynasty successors, which explains why Manetho attributes 7 years to Thuris (Tausret) and makes no mention of Siptah.

Name

Upon coronation, Siptah adopted the throne name (or prenomen) Akhenre-Setepenre (transliteration: Ꜣḫn-n-rꜤ stp-n-rꜤ, meaning: "Effective for Re, Chosen of Re"). His birth name was Ramesses-Siptah (rꜤ-ms-s sꜢ-ptḥ, "Re Fashioned Him, Beloved of Ptah"). In Year 2 of his reign, Siptah changed his prenomen from Sekhaenre-Meryamun to Akhenre-Setepenre. He also changed the epithet of his nomen from Ramesses to Merenptah at the same time. His whole name is thus realised as Akhenre-Setepenre Merenptah-Siptah.

Royal titulary prior to Year 2

Throne name

Sekhaenre-Meryamun Re causes his Appearance, Beloved of Amun

Nomen

Ramesses-Siptah Re Fashioned Him, Son of Ptah

Family

See also: 19th Dynasty Family Tree.

His father's identity remains controversial, but since Siptah was a King's Son, Merenptah, Seti II and Amenmesses have all been suggested. Both Siptah and Amenmesses spent their youth in Panopolis (modern: Akhmim) and both are specifically excluded from Ramesses III's Medinet Habu procession of statues of ancestral kings unlike Merenptah or Seti II. This suggests that the Twentieth Dynasty kings formally considered Seti II the last legitimate ruler, making it unlikely that Siptah was his son, since father to son succession was traditional. It may also suggest that Amenmesses and Siptah were inter-related in such a way that they were "regarded as illegitimate rulers and that therefore they were probably father and son". Although the fact that Siptah later changed his royal name or nomen to Siptah-Merenptah after his Year 2 suggests rather that his father was either Merenptah or Seti II (the latter's nomen includes Merenptah as well). Amenmesses and Siptah would therefore probably be sons of Merenptah by minor wives and thus half-brothers of Seti II, in order to later be considered illegitimate. As (half-)brothers, Amenmesses and Siptah may well have been raised at the same harem palace, which was apparently situated at Panopolis.

For many years, Tiaa was accepted as the principal wife of Seti II and mother of Pharaoh Siptah. This was based on a number of funerary objects found in the KV47 tomb of Siptah bearing the name of Tiaa as King's Wife and King's Mother. However, recent research showed that all these artifacts belonged to Tiaa, the Eighteenth Dynasty wife of Thutmose IV, and washed into Siptah's tomb from her nearby KV32 tomb as the result of an accidental breakthrough.

A relief in the Louvre Museum (E 26901) "pairs Siptah's name together with the name of his mother" a certain Sutererey (alternatively: Sutailja or Shoteraja). Sutererey was a Canaanite rather than a native Egyptian name, which means that she was almost certainly a king's concubine from Canaan. However, Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton assert that this is not correct and that the lady was, instead, the mother of another prince Siptah and a wife of Ramesses II.

Whether Siptah had any wives remains unknown, but he almost certainly had not fathered any children.

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 Gebel el-Silsila. A key graffito located at the entrance to the Speos of Horemheb at Gebel el-Silsila 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, a decision that might have been influenced by Tausret as she ultimately benefitted the most from Bay's demise. News of his execution was passed to the Workmen of Deir el-Medina in Ostraca IFAO 1254, which has been translated and published by Pierre Grandet. Callendar 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 Year 6 on a graffito located at the South Temple of Buhen.

Siptah ruled Egypt for almost six years as a young man. Due to his youth and perhaps his problematic parentage, he was placed under the guidance of the queen-regent, Tausret.

Burial and Succession

Evidence for Siptah's burial on the latter date is recorded in ostracon O. Cairo CG 25792. This ostraca from Deir el-Medina mentions that the Vizier Hori visited the workmen of Deir el-Medina 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, Tausret and Setnakhte 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. Tausret was ousted from power by Setnakhte; 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 in his Year 6. 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 his KV47 rock-cut tomb in the Valley of the Kings, 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 Tausret and Bay, clearly part of the same architectural design.

Mummy

Mummyhead of Siptah (Smith 1912).

Siptah's mummy has the inventory number CG 61080. He was only a child of ten or eleven years when he assumed power since a medical examination of his mummy reveals the king was about sixteen years old at death. He was tall at 1.6 metres and had curly reddish brown hair and likely suffered from poliomyelitis, with a severely deformed and crippled left foot.

In April 2021 his mummy was moved from the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities to National Museum of Egyptian Civilization along with those of 17 other kings and 4 queens in an event termed the Pharaohs' Golden Parade.

See also

• 19th Dynasty Family Tree
• KV47

Bibliography

• Aldred, C., 1963: The parentage of King Siptah. JEA 49.
• Altenmüller, H., 1984: Der Begräbnistag Sethos II. SAK 11.
• Altenmüller, H., 1992: Bemerkungen zu den neu gefundenen Daten im Grab der Königin Twosre (KV 14) im Tal der Könige von Theben.
• Altenmüller, H., 1994: Das Graffito 551 aus der thebanischen Nekropole. SAK 21.
• Beckerath, J. von, 1997: Chronologie des Pharaonischen Ägypten. MAS:Philipp von Zabern.
• Callender, G., 2006: The Cripple, the Queen & the Man from the North. KMT Vol. 17, No. 1.
• Dodson, A./Hilton, D., 2004: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson.
• Grandet, P., 2000: L'execution du chancelier Bay O. IFAO 1864. BIFAO 100.
• Harris, J.E./Wente, E.F., 1980: An X-Ray Atlas of the Royal Mummies. Chicago.
• Jenni, H./Dorn, A./Paulin-Grothe, E./Aston, D., 2021: Das Grab der Königin Tiaa im Tal der Könige (KV 32). In: Swiss Egyptological Studies. (SES) Band 1, Basel.
• Smith, G.E., 1912: The Royal Mummies. Catalogue of the Royal Mummies in the Museum of Cairo (2000 reprint). Duckworth and Co., London.

Predecessor: Seti II

Pharaoh of Egypt Nineteenth Dynasty

Successor: Tausret