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When civil war and foreign invasion brought Egypt to the brink of destruction, the arts, like all else, suffered and rapidly declined. It is sad to follow their downward progress under the later Ramessides, whether in the wall-subjects of the royal tombs, or in the bas-reliefs of the temple of Khonsû, or on the columns of the hypostyle hall at Karnak.
"Because I could not, Seti, seeing that another was present with you whom you refused to dismiss," and she let her eyes rest on me. "It matters not," said Pharaoh, "since now I will utter it with my own lips which perhaps is better. It is my will, Prince, that you forthwith wed the royal Princess Userti, that children of the true blood of the Ramessides may be born. Hear and obey."
Under the Ramessides, the conquests of Egypt reached their farthest limit. He is the first of the renowned conquerors, the forerunner of the Alexanders and Napoleons. His monuments are scattered over all Egypt.
The later Ramessides ventured upon no enterprises without consulting them. They stated their difficulties, and the god replied to each question by a movement of the head. According to the Stela of Bakhtan, a statue of Khonsû places its hands four times on the nape of the neck of another statue, so transmitting the power of expelling demons.
They were buried wherever it was cheapest in old tombs which had been ransacked and abandoned; in the natural clefts of the rock; or in common pits. At Thebes, in the time of the Ramessides, great trenches dug in the sand awaited their remains.
A second stronghold, erected a few hundred yards further to the south-east, replaced that of Kom es Sultan about the time of the Twelfth Dynasty, and narrowly escaped the fate of the first, under the rule of the Ramessides. Nothing, in fact, but the sudden decline of the city, saved the second from being similarly choked and buried.
The passion for precious metals was pushed to such extremes under the reigns of the Ramessides that it was no longer enough to use them only at table. Crater of precious metal. Cup of precious metal. Cruet of precious metal. Rameses II. and Rameses III. had thrones of gold not merely of wood plated with gold, but made of the solid metal and set with precious stones.
The Macedonian conquest brought back the same revolution in funerary fashions which followed the fall of the Ramessides, and double and triple mummy cases, over-painted and over-gilded, were again in demand.
The other colours before mentioned were in current use for not more than four or five centuries; that is to say, from the time of Ahmes I. to the time of the Ramessides. It was then, and only then, that ûshabtiû of white or red glaze, rosettes and lotus flowers in yellow, red, and violet, and parti-coloured kohl-pots abounded. The potters of the time of Amenhotep III. affected greys and violets.
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