Page:The Pharaohs and their people; scenes of old Egyptian life and history (IA pharaohstheirpeo00berkiala).pdf/207

 CHAPTER XI.

Thebes; its People, Temples, and Tombs—Close of the Nineteenth Dynasty.

In an inscription on the walls of the rock-temple at Abu-simbel, Rameses is represented as saying to the god Ptah, 'I have cared for the land to create for thee a new Egypt, such as it existed in the olden times,' and he specially mentions the splendid sanctuary he had built for that deity in Memphis. And not at Memphis alone, but everywhere throughout the land, from the city of Rameses in the north to the wonderful rock-temples of the south, we can see the magnificent traces left by the hand of this mighty sovereign. In Thebes itself, he added a grand court to the temple of Luxor founded by Amenhotep of the preceding dynasty. This temple was connected by an avenue of sphinxes with the still more magnificent 'great Temple of Amen,' the