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Updated: June 27, 2025
With the Saïte period we seem almost to have retraced our steps and to have reentered the age of the Pyramid Builders. All the pomp and glory of Thothmes, Amenhetep, and Ramses were gone. The days of imperial Egypt were over, and the minds of men, sickened of foreign war, turned for peace and quietness to the simpler ideals of the IVth and Vth Dynasties.
The precise character of the heretical dogma, which Amenhetep IV proclaimed and desired his subjects to. accept, has lately been well explained by Mr. de Garis Davies in his volumes, published by the "Archaeological Survey of Egypt" branch of the Egypt Exploration Fund, on the tombs of el-Amarna. He shows that the heretical doctrine was a monotheism of a very high order.
In 1898 M. Grébaut discovered the tomb of Amenhetep II, in which was found the mummy of the king, intact, lying in its sarcophagus in the depths of the tomb. The royal body now lies there for all to see. The tomb is lighted with electricity, as are all the principal tombs of the kings.
Men-khepru-Râ was the prenomen or throne-name of Thothmes IV. Tied round a pillar in the tomb is still a length of the actual rope used by the thieves for crossing the chasm, which, as in many of the tombs here, was left open in the gallery to bar the way to plunderers. The mummy of the king was found in the tomb of Amenhetep II, and is now at Cairo.
There lay Amenhetep himself, in a disproportionately large sarcophagus of rose-red granite from Suan; and in companion coffins were a woman and a girl, all three brilliantly illuminated. They had the look of the light hurting their poor eyes, and being outraged because, against their will, they were treated as if they had been paintings by old masters.
Discovered by M. Legrain at Karnak. Other important discoveries have been made by M. Legrain in the course of his work. About 1400 B.C. There are also reliefs of the reign of Amenhetep I, which are remarkable for the delicacy of their workmanship and the sureness of their technique.
The temple had always been remarkable on account of the prodigious number of seated figures of the lioness-headed goddess Sekhemet, or Pakhet, which it contains, dedicated by Amenhetep III and Sheshenk I; most of those in the British Museum were brought from this temple.
In the ruins of the palace were found several small objects of interest, and close by was an ancient glass manufactory of Amenhetep III's time, where much of the characteristic beautifully coloured and variegated opaque glass of the period was made.
Lit up by electric light we see King Amenhetep II., with his skin blackened to a parchment, drawn tightly over his chiselled aristocratic features.
There were small pillared halls, the columns of which were of wood, mounted on bases of white limestone. The majority still remain in position. In several chambers there are small daïses, and in one the remains of a throne, built of brick and mud covered with plaster and stucco, upon which the Pharaoh Amenhetep sat.
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