Dr. Campbell Price

You could expect that if you didn't have a connection, you'd want there to be a connection by marrying a random princess of royal blood.

That was quite effective.

And it tended to be the blue-blooded women who really made the king, who really confirmed the legitimacy of the line.

Yes, and what Egyptologists call the Ramesside Age, because he is, as king, when he becomes king, for a short time, for a couple of years, he takes the name Ramesses and he becomes Ramesses I. He's Ramesses I, because we always hear about Ramesses II, don't we?

It's short-lived.

He has ambition.

You know, he starts a very nice tomb in the Valley of the Kings, which has to literally be cut short because he only lives a couple of years.

But something about Ramesses I... So we are using these names, which are the people in question's birth names.

So the parents of Ramesses I call him Pa-Ramesu, which means literally he of the sun god.

Wow.

But...

His name as king, he takes on a series of names, but the names the ancient Egyptians would have known these people by is the throne name, the pre-Gnomon as opposed to the Gnomon.

The Gnomon is your birth name, what your family might call you.

But the throne name for Ramesses I,

is telling.

So he's called Men Pechti Re.

So that means literally the strength of the sun god is established or establishing the strength of the sun god.

So Pechti means strength and we know that the first king of the 18th dynasty, Ahmose II, who's this military guy,

He is called Neb-Pechdi-Re.

So there's this reference to strength.