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The temple of Seti I at Abydos: what to read on its walls
22 October 2026
The temple of Seti I at Abydos holds the finest carved hieroglyphs of the New Kingdom, and it lets you compare two kings' carving on one walk. Seti I, who reigned until 1279 BC, built it for Osiris, five other gods and himself. He died before it was finished. His son Ramesses II completed the front, so the outer halls carry Ramesses's quick, deep sunk relief and the inner rooms Seti's delicate raised relief, much of it still painted.
The plan is shaped like an L. Two courts and two pillared halls lead to seven chapels side by side, with the Osiris halls behind them and a wing on the south side that holds the Gallery of the Lists. The Osireion, a sunken symbolic tomb of Osiris, lies just behind the temple.
Ramesses II signed the courts and the first hall
In the courts Ramesses II's sculptors carved the battle of Qadesh and the king offering to the gods. The signs are sunk into the stone, each outline cut deep so that it throws a hard shadow. Sunk relief was quicker to cut than raised relief.
His throne name runs through these walls: Usermaatre Setepenre, wsr-mꜣꜥt-rꜥ stp-n-rꜥ, said "user-maat-ra setep-en-ra", "the justice of Ra is strong, chosen of Ra". Look for the head of a canine (F12) for wsr, "strong", the seated goddess Maat (C10), and the adze (U21) for stp, "chosen".
Seti's raised relief starts in the second hall
Step into the second pillared hall and the carving changes. Here the background was cut away and the signs stand proud of the wall, with feathers, pleats and the eyes of birds modelled inside each one. This is the work of Seti's own sculptors.
His throne name, Menmaatre, mn-mꜣꜥt-rꜥ, "eternal is the justice of Ra", is three signs in a cartouche: the sun (N5), Maat and the game board (Y5). His birth name, Seti, means "the one of Seth" and elsewhere is written with the seated god Seth (C7). Abydos was the city of Osiris, whom Seth murdered, so here the Seth sign in the king's name was replaced by the knot amulet of Isis.
Seven chapels show the daily ritual
At the back of the second hall, seven doorways open side by side. The chapels belong to the deified Seti, Ptah, Ra-Horakhty, Amun-Ra, Osiris, Isis and Horus. The last three are the family of Abydos. Ptah, Ra-Horakhty and Amun stand for the great temples of Memphis, Heliopolis and Thebes.
On their walls the king performs the daily service for the god's statue, scene after scene, and receives life and dominion in return. Each scene has short columns of text over the figures: the name of the god, the name of the rite and the king's cartouches. Look for the ankh (S34), life, held out to the king.
The king list fills a corridor in the south wing
A corridor off the second hall leads to the rooms of the south wing. On its wall Seti and the young prince Ramesses honour the 76 kings they counted as their rightful ancestors, each in a cartouche, from Menes to Seti himself. The Abydos King List has its own guide, with the kings to find and the ones left out.
Beyond it lies a court and hall for preparing offerings, sometimes called the slaughterhouse. Its walls show Seti offering meat to Osiris, Isis, Horus and the jackal god Wepwawet, and butchers cutting up cattle.
Osiris owns the halls behind the chapels
The Osiris chapel has a door in its back wall. It leads to a cross-wise suite of rooms for the god's cult, with two halls and small chapels for Osiris, Isis and Horus. The djed pillar (R11), the backbone of Osiris, appears again and again here.
Osiris's name is wsir, said "wesir": the seat (Q1) and the eye (D4), often followed by the seated god (A40). Behind the temple, below ground level, lies the Osireion, the granite hall built for Seti as a symbolic tomb shared with Osiris.
The helicopter is two royal titles carved over each other
On an architrave, one of the stone beams that carry the roof, a famous patch of signs seems to show a helicopter and other machines. Egyptologists read it as a palimpsest. Seti's sculptors first carved one of his titles, "powerful of scimitar, who suppresses the Nine Bows", ending in his cartouche Menmaatre. After his death the signs were filled with plaster and Ramesses II's titles were cut over them: "Two Ladies: protector of Egypt, who repels the foreign lands", ending in Usermaatre Setepenre.
Over three thousand years the plaster fell out. Both texts now show at once, and the helicopter is Seti's bow sign seen through two arm signs of Ramesses. The Egyptologist Peter Brand gives both readings in his book on Ramesses II (2023).
Side light brings out the signs to learn first
The halls are dim and the raised signs are shallow. Hold the phone to one side of a sign, so the light from the doorway or a lamp crosses it at an angle, and the modelling appears. Flash flattens it.
In the chapels the texts are at eye level. Frame one column at a time and let the camera box the signs. Where paint has gone and the carving is faint, take a photo and trace the sign over it.
Six signs open most of the temple texts:
Questions
Where is the temple of Seti I?
At Abydos, on the west bank of the Nile about 10 km from the river near the town of el-Balyana, in Upper Egypt. Most visitors come on a day trip from Luxor.
How long do you need at the temple of Seti I at Abydos?
Allow at least two hours inside the temple, more if you want to read the chapels and the king list. Add time to look down into the Osireion from its rim.
Who was Omm Sety?
Dorothy Eady, an Englishwoman who believed she had lived at Abydos in Seti's time. She moved there in 1956, worked for the antiquities service and showed visitors round the temple until her death in 1981.
Was the temple of Seti I a tomb?
No. Seti was buried in the Valley of the Kings. The temple served the cult of Osiris and the other gods, with Seti honoured among them, and the Osireion behind it gave him a symbolic tomb beside the god.
Glossary
- amulet
- A small charm worn by the living or wrapped with a mummy for protection, often shaped like a sign such as the ankh or the scarab.
- ankh
- The sign of life, ꜥnḫ, a cross with a loop on top. Gods hold it out to kings in temple scenes.
- birth name
- The name a king was given at birth, written in the second cartouche after the title "son of Ra". Egyptologists also call it the nomen.
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- Egyptologist
- A scholar who studies ancient Egypt: its language, writing, objects, buildings and history.
- hieroglyphs
- The picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BC to AD 394. A sign can stand for sounds, for a whole word, or for the kind of thing a word means.
- Maat
- Truth, justice and the right order of the world, shown as a goddess with an ostrich feather on her head. Kings claimed to uphold it.
- New Kingdom
- Egypt's age of empire, about 1550 to 1069 BC, the time of Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II.
- relief
- A carving on a flat surface. In raised relief the background is cut away. In sunk relief the figures are cut into the stone.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- throne name
- The name a king took when he came to the throne, written in the first cartouche after the title "King of Upper and Lower Egypt". Egyptologists also call it the prenomen.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Temple of Seti I at Abydos monument
- Abydos site
- Osireion monument
Sources
More to read
- A hieroglyph walk through Karnak Karnak hieroglyphics to read on a walk: cartouches on the Hypostyle Hall columns, Hatshepsut's obelisk, Shoshenq's list of towns and the White Chapel.
- Reading Abu Simbel: the king's name in stone, from façade to sanctuary Abu Simbel hieroglyphics to read: the rebus of Ramesses II's name over the door, Greek soldiers' graffiti, the Kadesh reliefs and Nefertari's temple.
- Ten inscriptions to read at the British Museum British Museum hieroglyphics to read: the Rosetta Stone, Ramesses II's cartouches, the Abydos king list, the Shabaka Stone, Nebamun's paintings and more.