The Pharaoh of Niagara Falls

In the twilight of the 13th century B.C., the aged general Paramessu ascended the throne of Egypt as Menpehtyre Ramesses I, founding what would become the illustrious 19th Dynasty. Though his reign was brief (lasting little more than a year) his legacy was destined to echo through time. Upon his death, he was laid to rest with reverence in a small but finely crafted tomb, KV16, nestled within the Valley of the Kings. As was the custom, his body was embalmed according to the sacred rites, interred with treasures and prayers to secure his passage to the afterlife.

Yet the eternal slumber of kings was not to be. Centuries later, during the unrest of the Third Intermediate Period, Egypt’s royal tombs were subjected to waves of desecration and looting. In an effort to safeguard the remains of their forebears, Theban priests removed many royal mummies from their original resting places and reburied them in hidden caches. The body of Ramesses I, it seems, was among those carefully concealed, wrapped anew, and consigned to secrecy.

From Soldiers to Sovereigns: The Rise of the Ramesside Dynasty in Ancient Egypt

Fast-forward to the 19th century; a time when European collectors, adventurers, and antiquarians roamed the Nile in pursuit of the relics of lost civilisations. In the 1860s, the enterprising Abd el-Rassul family, famed for their clandestine discoveries, unearthed a cache of mummies in the Theban hills. Rather than report their find, they quietly sold several mummies on the burgeoning antiquities market. Among them, quite possibly, was the unlabelled and displaced form of Ramesses I.

From Egypt, the anonymous mummy journeyed across the seas into the hands of private collectors. By the early 20th century, it found an unlikely home in the Niagara Falls Museum in Ontario, Canada; an eccentric collection of curiosities housed just steps away from the thundering falls. There, amid relics and oddities, the mummy stood silently for over a century, labelled simply as an “Egyptian nobleman,” its royal identity long forgotten.

Niagara Falls Museum

The Niagara Falls Museum, founded in 1827 by Thomas Barnett, holds the distinction of being Canada’s oldest museum. A curious blend of spectacle and scholarship, the museum functioned more as a cabinet of curiosities (not unlike Sir John Soane’s Museum in London) than a formal institution of academic study. Among its eclectic holdings was a surprising assemblage of Egyptian antiquities, amassed during the height of 19th-century Egyptomania.

The Egyptian collection included several mummies, elaborately painted coffins, and a variety of funerary artefacts including ushabtis, faience amulets, bead work, and fragments of Canopic jars. These items had been acquired not through excavation, but rather through purchase from antiquities dealers in Cairo, a common (if ethically questionable) practice of the time. Chief among them was a mummy long displayed under the vague label of “Egyptian nobleman”; a figure later identified as Ramesses I, founder of Egypt’s 19th Dynasty.

In 1999, long after the museum had closed its doors, the entire collection totalling nearly 700,000 objects, was purchased by Canadian treasure hunter and antiquities dealer Billy Jamieson, a flamboyant figure later known for his appearances on reality television. The Egyptian relics, including the unidentified royal mummy, passed into his care as part of this acquisition.

Soon after, Jamieson sold the Egyptian holdings to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. It was there, under the scrutiny of modern science, that the mummy received the attention it had long been denied. A series of detailed analyses including C.T. scanning, forensic facial reconstruction, and anatomical comparisons with known royal mummies, revealed striking similarities to the mummified remains of Seti I and Ramesses II. The embalming style, arm positioning, and cranial features led researchers to a remarkable conclusion: the mummy was almost certainly that of Ramesses I himself.

Recognising the profound historical and cultural importance of the find, the Carlos Museum arranged for the repatriation of the mummy to Egypt. In 2003, accompanied by ceremonial drums and a military guard of honour, the long-lost pharaoh was welcomed home. He now lies in dignified repose within the Luxor Museum, just across the Nile from the royal valley where his reign and his original tomb, once lay over three millennia ago.

Dr Chris Naunton: Royal Mummies, Robbers and Caches – links & further reading

As of 2025, Ramesses I remains housed in the Luxor Museum, where he has rested peacefully since his return. He was not included in the Pharaohs’ Golden Parade of 2021, a stately procession which saw the mummies of his son, Seti I, and grandson, Ramesses II “the Great”, transported from Cairo’s Egyptian Museum to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in Fustat. Ramesses I, already returned to the south, was spared the journey; having completed his own far more extraordinary voyage, from Thebes to Niagara and back again.

Ramesses I

Ramesses I’s mummy paints a picture of an elderly man who, having served in high military and administrative office, ascended the throne later in life, ruled briefly, and died under natural circumstances. The scientific examinations confirm royal characteristics but leave many personal details like precise cause of death and genetic lineage beyond our reach. Nonetheless, the mummy serves as a rare direct window into Egypt’s early 19th Dynasty and royal funerary practice.

Ramesses I had a short reign of little more than one year and likely ascended the throne in his fifties, suggesting he died around that age, though precise estimates are difficult. Ramesses I was not of royal birth, but came from a military and administrative background in northern Egypt (the Nile Delta region), likely of local Egyptian ethnicity, though no DNA or isotope studies have confirmed more specific heritage details. Although no genetic testing has been published, forensic facial reconstructions, cranial morphology, and embalming style align well with other royal individuals of Upper Egyptian origin.

The mummy does not show obvious signs of a violent death. No trauma that would indicate foul play has been documented to date.

The C.T. scans, X‑rays, skull measurements, and carbon dating supported the identification as Ramesses I, alongside forensic comparison with other royal mummies such as his son Seti I and grandson Ramesses II (“the Great”).

“Despite the care taken by Egyptian priests and workmen, the body of Ramesses I was not allowed to remain unmolested in his tomb. In 1817, the Italian collector and adventurer Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778-1823) entered the tomb but found it empty. Its riches and the mummy of the king had vanished.

Unbeknownst to Belzoni, Egyptian priests had moved the mummy of Ramesses at the end of the first millennium BC, when tomb robbery and looting was widespread in the Theban Necropolis. They had reburied the king in another location, believing him safe. However, in the 1860s the Abd el-Rassul family had found the body of Ramesses I and had sold him to a private collector in the United States. Passing from collector to collector, the mummy eventually ended up in the Niagara Falls Museum in Canada.

In the 1980s, Egyptologists hypothesized that the mummy was indeed Ramesses I, and a battery of scientific tests confirmed their speculation. In 1999, the mummy was sold to the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, and in 2003 it was given as a gift to the people of Egypt by the city of Atlanta. In October 2003, Ramesses I’s long journey back home ended to the sound of singing and a military marching band as his body was brought to rest in the renovated Luxor Museum.”

Pharaoh Seti I: Father of Egyptian Greatness
Dr. Nicky Nielsen, 2018.

Mummy of Ramesses I