PROBABLY SETY I (1291-1278 B.C.) RATHER THAN SETY II (1199-1193 B.C.)

Without a prenomen, which normally precedes the nomen, it is uncertain to which king this inscription belongs. Statues of both kings are rare. There are some orthographic peculiarities in this text. Sety I changed the writing of his name, using a tyet-girdle, only at Abydos so as to avoid using the ideogram of Seth. Redford in Akhenaten: The Heretic King, Princeton, 1984, says the word aten could not be expunged from ritual vocabulary and was used as a cultic word in Ramesside times; however, the word akhet before aten, i.e. "horizon of the aten" (familiar in Amarna times as the name of Akhenaten's capital) which precedes the royal name, is unparalleled especially at a time when Sety I was restoring the cults which had been abandoned during the Amarna period.

For a short shendyet-kilt, cf. G. Legrain, Catalogue Général des Antiquités Egyptiennes du Musée du Caire: Statues et Statuettes du Rois et des Particuliers, I, Cairo, 1906, pp. 44-56 for a greywacke statue of Amenophis II in Cairo Museum (no. CG 42077).