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Hatshepsut had been gradually completing his work, and the temple was now growing into a most beautiful building, very different from ordinary Egyptian temples.
Queen Hatshepsut has left other memorials of her greatness besides the temple with its story of her voyage. She has told us how one day she was sitting in her palace, and thinking of her Creator, when the thought came into her mind to rear two great obelisks before the Temple of Amen at Karnak.
For a full account of this temple, its decoration, and the expedition of Hatshepsût, see the Deir el Baharî publications of the Egypt Exploration Fund. The Egyptians regarded man as composed of various different entities, each having its separate life and functions.
But his daughter, Hatshepsut, continued his good work. She rebuilt the temples which the Hyksos had destroyed and she founded a strong state in which soldiers and merchants worked together for a common purpose and which was called the New Empire, and lasted from 1600 to 1300 B.C. Military nations, however, never last very long.
The conquering Dynasty had been succeeded by the Eighteenth, the Dynasty of Queen Hatshepsut, Tahutmes III., and Amenhotep III., and Egypt was in the full tide of a great revival, alike in world-influence, in trade, and in art.
Syria was conquered in these reigns and Asiatic civilization and influences poured in upon Egypt. The great Tahutmes III, whose reign was "one of the grandest and most eventful in Egyptian history," had a strong Negroid countenance, as had also Queen Hatshepsut, who sent the celebrated expedition to reopen ancient trade with the Hottentots of Punt.
But these two great obelisks of Queen Hatshepsut were 98-1/2 feet high, and weighed about 350 tons apiece. Yet Sen-mut had them quarried, and set up, and carved all over from base to summit in seven months from the time when the Queen gave her command!
They are placed to right and left of the stela; that is to say, on either side of the door which leads to the dwelling of the dead. Erected before the pylon-gates of temples, they are made of granite, and their dimensions are considerable. The loftiest known is the obelisk of Queen Hatshepsût at Karnak, which rises to a height of 109 feet.
With these exceptions, they made the same use of the precious metals as we do ourselves. We gild the crosses and cupolas of our churches; they covered the doors of their temples, the lower part of their wall-surfaces, certain bas-reliefs, pyramidions of obelisks, and even whole obelisks, with plates of gold. The obelisks of Queen Hatshepsût at Karnak were coated with electrum.
The arm-pieces are of lightwood with cobra snakes carved upon the flat in low relief, each snake covered with hundreds of small silver annulets, to represent the markings of the reptile. This chair, dated by a fragment of a royal cartouche, belonged to Queen Hatshepsût, of the Eighteenth Dynasty. It is now in the British Museum.
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