Sunday, April 19, 2015
Set Sighting at Tanis
10:08am


Photo by James Whitfield
This image has been cropped and rotated upright, in situ, the block is laying on its side.

If we examine this at full size, we can make out part of the broken glyphs at the upper right. Half of "Neb tawy" (Ruler of the two lands) and enough of the cartouche to make out that it's Ramesses II's prenomen Usermaatre Setepenre:


Source: Wikipedia

Mr. Whitfield also photographed an especially beautiful cartouche of Ramesses II at Tanis.

"Recent German expeditions to Qantir, and those of the Austrian Archaeological Institute beginning in the 1970s under Manfred Bietak, have now established the location [of the Ramessid capital of Per-Ramesses], stretching as far as Tell el-Dab's to the south, as almost certainly that of Pi-Ramesses. Relatively little remains of the once-great capital, however. Because the branch of the Nile on which the city was located began to dry up during the 20th dynasty, virtually all the monuments were removed piece by piece by the kings of the 21st dynasty to their new capital at Tanis.

"It would appear, however, that Pi-Ramesse's religious centres had included a great temple of Re along with temples of Amun, Ptah and Sutekh (or Seth), remains of the last having been identified in the southern part of the city. In addition to these great structures , the 'Domain of Ramesses' also contained smaller temples of Wadjit and Astarte, and doubtless many other minor shrines and chapels." (Richard Wilkinson, The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt (Thames and Hudson 2000), page 108)

So this block was likely from that temple to Sutekh (aka Set)!

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