What Became of Rameses I?

Gaston Maspero's assertion in his 1889 book that a naked mummy of an unidentified man from the DB320 cache that had raised its arms is Rameses I.

Over the years the mummy of Rameses II has been replaced as the mummy in the story because his arms are unusually high above his torso. The problem becomes that Rameses II was not found lying naked next to coffin fragments of Rameses I in fact Rameses II was sealed in his coffin and tied into a shroud which bore inscriptions of his Osirifications.

Still somewhere around this time the mummy in question that of Rameses I(?) disappeared.

The question had been raised in 1901 with the robbery of the tomb of Amenhotep II and the riffling of the said Kings mummy. What was the value of an authentic Kings mummy on the black market.

Important men in important places in the antiquiries service must first be looked too. Was the temptation of those who held keys to great to be ignored. A King like Ramses II would be immediately missed but a lesser King such as Rameses Grand father the first Rameses not so soon.

So sometime between 1889 and 1902 the mummy in question vanishes from the Bouloq museum or its transfer to the Giza museum. To my knowledge no record was created in 1902 to register the mummy in the incoming collection of the new Cairo museum.

Most likely a search of nearby medical facilities might reveal not only Rameses I but hopefully the Priest King Pinudgem I as well.

Certainly if a royal mummy was in the possession of a foreign nations collection it would have been noticed by now. So we are left with an old private collection or misplaced by the antiquities service.

Since the misplacing of the mummy of a king seems hard to believe we are left with the reality that not one but two Kings are missing from the collection and we do know that the 21rst dynasty Priest King was found and now remains unaccounted for.

We are left with at the very least sloppy work on behalf of the Egyptian antiquities service which has resulted in loss of major pieces from the national collection.

The worst scenario of a stolen King is probably less than probable and both Pinudgem and Rameses I are more than likely present in some long forgotten coffins on dusty shelves in Cairo.