* The exact relationship between Nakhtusit and Ramses II. is not known; he was probably the grandson or great-grandson of that sovereign, though Ed. Meyer thinks he was perhaps the son of Seti II.  The name should be read either Nakhitsit, with the singular of the first word composing it, or Nakhitusit, Nakhtusit, with the plural, as in the analogous name of the king of the XXXth dynasty, Nectanebo.

Many were the difficulties that he had to encounter before he could restore to his country that peace and wealth which she had enjoyed under the long reign of Sesostris.  It seems probable that his advancing years made him feel unequal to the task, or that he desired to guard against the possibility of disturbances in the event of his sudden death; at all events, he associated with himself on the throne his eldest son Ramses—­not, however, as a Pharaoh who had full rights to the crown, like the coadjutors of the Amenemhaits and Usirtasens, but as a prince invested with extraordinary powers, after the example of the sons of the Pharaohs Thutmosis and Seti I. Ramses recalls with pride, towards the close of his life, how his father “had promoted him to the dignity of heir-presumptive to the throne of Sibu,” and how he had been acclaimed as “the supreme head of Qimit for the administration of the whole earth united together."* This constituted the rise of a new dynasty on the ruins of the old—­the last, however, which was able to retain the supremacy of Egypt over the Oriental world.  We are unable to ascertain how long this double reign lasted.

     * The only certain monument that we as yet possess of this
     double reign is a large stele cut on the rock behind
     Medinet-Habu.

[Illustration:  289.jpg NAKHTUSIT.]

Nakhtusit, fully occupied by enemies within the country, had no leisure either to build or to restore any monuments;* on his death, as no tomb had been prepared for him, his mummy was buried in that of the usurper Siphtah and the Queen Tausirit.

* Wiedemann attributes to him the construction of one of the doors of the temple of Mut at Karnak; it would appear that there is a confusion in his notes between the prenomen of this sovereign and that of Seti II., who actually did decorate one of the doorways of that temple.  Nakhusit must have also worked on the temple of Phtah at Memphis.  His cartouche is met with on a statue originally dedicated by a Pharaoh of the XIIth dynasty, discovered at Tell-Nebesheh.

He was soon forgotten, and but few traces of his services survived him; his name was subsequently removed from the official list of the kings, while others not so deserving as he—­as, for instance, Siphtah-Minephtah and Amenmesis—­were honourably inscribed in it.  The memory of his son overshadowed his own, and the series of the legitimate kings who formed the XXth dynasty did not include him.  Ramses III. took for his hero his namesake, Ramses the Great,