Page:Six Temples at Thebes 1896.djvu/14

 cartouche of Tahutmes I and the name Aa-kheperka-ra-senb. These slabs are of coarse brown sandstone painted in body colour, without any sculpturing.

A tablet (. I, 3) of limestone shows a woman named Bakt, making a meat offering and a drink offering to the cow of Hahtor, for the benefit of her husband, the engraver of Amen, named Amenemhat. The three hollows at the top are apparently for two ears, and perhaps the sign of a hide; it seems as if some inlaid objects had been inserted, of glass or metal.

A portion of an altar (. I, 4) of sandstone dedicated by a chief priest of Tahutmes III named Ra, was found in the temple ruins of Amenhotep II. This priest was the husband of the nurse of Amenhotep II, and his tomb is one of the finest in Qurneh, published partly in Lepsius "Denkmaler" III, 62, and Prisse "Art," where the glass and stone vases are figured.

A large wooden ushabti (. II, 1) was found in a high heap of ashes upon the top of the brick galleries behind the Ramesseum: how it can have come into such a position cannot be traced. It belonged to the tomb of the great viceroy of the Sudan under Tahutmes III, named Nehi; he built the temple in the island of Sai, and carved the S. grotto of Ibrim. The work of this ushabti shows the taste of that time in the slender, delicately carved, and finely formed hieroglyphs.

A limestone Osiride figure (. II, 2) of Tahutmes I was found in the ruins of the temple of Amenhotep II; the work however seems to belong to the time of the earlier king, and it seems as if it might well have been brought from his tomb, and be an early type of royal ushabti.

Behind the temenos of the temple of Merenptah, we found at the base of the wall a patch of sand with small vases (. IV, 1–8) of rough pottery; and it appears that these belonged to the foundation deposit of some earlier building, which was cleared away by Merenptah. These seem on the whole to be rather earlier in type than the vases of Amenhotep II, figured next below them: but no positive date can be assigned to them.

On clearing a building in the outer court of Tahutmes IV, a part of an earlier stele was found used up in the threshold (. IX, 1). It represents a man named Min-mes, making offerings to his father Athu-usir; and from the work it is probably of about the reign of Tahutmes III.

These comprise all the remains earlier than Amenhotep II which were found in the course of the excavations. The later remains we shall notice in dealing with the temples of their respective periods in the following chapters.

8. To the north of the Ramesseum was a space of ground covered with chips of stone, and with a few brick walls showing upon it. When examined this proved to be a confused mass of structures of four different ages. First of all there had been some brick buildings, askew to the later plan; these had traces of colour on them, and were probably chapels of some tombs. A piece of this wall is shown on the north side of the plan,. XXIII, at A. The next building was the temple of Amenhotep II; and the occurrence of his name here cannot be due merely to his materials being brought from some other site at a later date, as five foundation deposits of his were found quite undisturbed in the rock.

Next Amenhotep III largely altered this temple. Sculptured blocks of Amenhotep II are found re-used, buried in the foundations of the colonnade of the portico; this re-use was before Amenhotep IV, as the name of Amen is not erased upon them, while it is erased on all the sculptures left above ground. Thus we are limited to Tahutmes IV or Amenhotep III in our ascription of the rebuilding; and it is fixed to the latter king by the many pieces of glazed pottery tubes, from some furniture, bearing his name. Probably to this time, or a little later, belong the many pieces of limestone with trial sculptures of some students, who seem to have used the temple as a school.

The last use of this site was for tombs of about the XXIInd dynasty. The walls of these are shown by mottled black and white on the plan. Within the enclosures were three tomb pits, marked here by diagonal lines. So much for the history of the site.

9. Turning now to the details of the temple of Amenhotep II, the only parts that we can be certain are original are the bases of the columns (as the deposits are undisturbed beneath them), and the stone foundations of walls which are built like the bases. The court was not so large as that of Tahutmes IV, and had only a single line of columns around it, the whole being about 140 feet wide, and 120 feet long.