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Case file s1333 · Egypt and Africa · 1192 BCE
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1192 BCE
KV 13 Bay: Isometric, plan and elevation images of KV13 taken from a 3d model
KV 13 Bay. R.F.Morgan. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
Year 5 of Siptah, third month of Shemu, day 27 (c. 1192 BC, conventional dating)
Place
Thebes (Luxor), Egypt
Field
Government (chancellor) · Royalty and nobility on the timeline
Legal tradition
Nineteenth Dynasty royal succession; execution of a "great enemy" (state criminal) · Royal and church law
Historical event
The succession struggle at the end of the Nineteenth Dynasty
Egypt and AfricaSecret children and false heirsBodies, bones and burialsMurder and sudden deathCrowns and successionAncient worldMiddle EastEgypt

Chancellor Bay put a boy king on the throne and was given a tomb among the kings, and a potsherd records that the king had him killed

Bay began as a scribe and royal cupbearer under Seti II and was probably of Asian origin. When Seti II died without an heir, two claimants remained: Siptah, a young and disabled son of the short-lived King Amenmesse, and Seti II's widow Twosret. Bay backed Siptah. He boasted that he had "established the king on the throne of his father" and took the title great chancellor of the whole land. Siptah gave him a tomb, KV13, in the Valley of the Kings, and vineyards in the Delta to supply his cult. In February 2000 the French Egyptologist Pierre Grandet joined two fragments of a limestone ostracon from the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina. It reads: "Year 5, third month of Shemu, day 27. This day the scribe of the Tomb Paser came to announce: Pharaoh has killed the great enemy Bay." "Great enemy" was the term for a state criminal. Bay was never buried in his tomb. Grandet's hypothesis is that Twosret forced the young king to approve the killing. Siptah died about a year later, and Twosret took the crown. After her, Setnakhte took the throne. Ramesses III took over her tomb, KV14, for his father Setnakhte, and her figures were altered. Her sarcophagus was moved into Bay's empty tomb and reused for Amenherkhepeshef, a son of Ramesses VI.

What the law took from it

A kingmaker's power lasts only as long as the person he placed on the throne, or that person's rival, has use for him.

Sources
  1. ifao.egnet.netPress
  2. ancientegyptonline.co.ukPress
  3. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Chancellor Bay put a boy king on the throne and was given a tomb among the kings, and a potsherd records that the king had him killed,” story s1333, https://www.celebrity.estate/chancellor-bay-1192-bc, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Egypt and AfricaSecret children and false heirsBodies, bones and burialsMurder and sudden deathCrowns and successionAncient worldMiddle EastRoyal and church lawEgypt