Originally called Pa-ra-mes-su, Ramesses I was of non-royal birth, being born into a noble military family from the Nile Delta region, perhaps near the former Hyksos capital of Avaris.

His uncle Khaemwaset, an army officer, married Tamwadjesy, the matron of Tutankhamun's[4] Harem of Amun, who was a relative of Huy, the viceroy of Kush, an important state post.

Ramesses also served as the High Priest of Set[6]—as such, he would have played an important role in the restoration of the old religion following the Amarna heresy of a generation earlier, under Akhenaten.

[7] According to the Jewish historian Josephus, in his book Contra Apionem which translated Manetho's Aegyptiaca, Manetho assigns this king a reign of 16 months, but this pharaoh certainly ruled Egypt for a minimum of 17 months based on his highest-known[clarification needed] date which is a Year 2 II Peret day 20 (Louvre C57) stela which ordered the provision of new endowments of food and priests for the temple of Ptah within the Egyptian fortress of Buhen.

Joyce Tyldesley states that Ramesses I's tomb consisted of a single corridor and one unfinished room whose walls, after a hurried coat of plaster, were painted to show the king with his gods, with Osiris allowed a prominent position.

[7] Seti I, his son and successor, later built a small chapel with fine reliefs in memory of his deceased father Ramesses I at Abydos.

The mummy's identity cannot be conclusively determined, but is most likely to be that of Ramesses I based on CT scans, X-rays, skull measurements and radio-carbon dating tests by researchers at Emory University, as well as aesthetic interpretations of family resemblance.

[13] The mummy had been stolen from the Royal Cache in Deir el-Bahari by the Abd el-Rassul family of grave robbers and sold by Turkish vice-consular agent Mustapha Aga Ayat at Luxor[14][15] to Dr. James Douglas who brought it to North America around 1860.

[17] In 1999, Jamieson sold the Egyptian artifacts in the collection, including the various mummies, to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia for US$2 million.