When Ramses II. ascended the throne, he may have been about twelve years old, or a little more. From this epoch we should count the years of his reign up to its sixty-seventh year, so that he was an old man of eighty when he left this mortal scene.

After Seti had assured the birthright of his race, in the manner we have described, by the joint elevation of his eldest son to the throne, it must have been easy for him to meet the reproach that he was not of royal descent. While he actually ruled the land as king, Ramses, his son, as legitimate sovereign, gave authority to all the acts of his father.

It seems to have been under their double reign that the wars took place, of which we have not yet spoken, and which were waged against the nations to the south of Egypt. When Seti, however, in the great list of conquered peoples, on his wall of victories at Karnak, mentions the countries of Kush and Punt, with all the great and small races of the southern lands of Africa, as the subjects of his crown, we must not forget that here, as so often on the monuments, the ancient usage was followed of exhibiting, in a renewed publication with more or less detail, before the eyes of the vain Egyptians, the whole catalogue of those peoples, transcribed from the temple-books of the subjects of Egypt.' Nevertheless, individual records of the time of Seti bear witness to campaigns of the Egyptian army beyond the frontier city of Syene (as those of Doshe and Sesebi). Egyptian viceroys, already well known to us under the name of King's sons of Kush, acted as governors in the place of Pharaoh in the south, and

took care that the tributes imposed were regularly paid. As such are mentioned, in the joint reign of Seti and Ramses II., governors named Ani and Amenemape, a son of Pa-uër. The family of the latter, consisting of numerous members, will occupy us hereafter, for a particular reason.

The reign of Seti belongs to that period in the history of the country, in which Egyptian art enjoyed the peculiar care and taste of the king, and, on the other hand, answered to this patronage in the most worthy manner, by the creation of real masterpieces. The Hall of Columns of Karnak, in so far as it was carried out while Seti was alive, and the temple of Osiris, in the desert at Abydus, are master-works of the first rank, the splendour of which consists, above all else, in the lavish profusion and beauty of the sculpture, even to the hieroglyphic characters. The celebrated tomb also of Seti (or, as the Pharaoh is there called, to avoid the hated name of Seti, Usiris) belongs to the most remarkable performances of Theban art, even to the variegated ornamentation in colours, which adds an abundance of rich life to the pictures and writing. It is the one called after the name of its discoverer, Belzoni's tomb,' which still to this day forms the chief point of attraction to all visitors to the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. Its artistic importance is enhanced by the rich abundance of pictures and inscriptions, which are for the most part of a mythological character, but which also involve a special significance in relation to astronomy, as do, above all, the very instructive roof-pictures of the so-called Golden Chamber. Unique in its kind is

the mythological substance of a long text, which is found in a side chamber of the same tomb, and which (as M. Naville has lately proved)' has for its subject a description of the destruction of the corrupt human race, according to the Egyptian view.

As Seti had erected one of the most splendid works to the god Amon on the right bank of the Theban metropolis, so also at his command there rose on the western bank of the river that wonderful temple, which he dedicated to the memory of his deceased father Ramessu I. I mean the Memnonium of Seti at old Qurnah. Again in many places on this monument, which belonged to the west country and consequently to the realm of Osiris, the king avoids giving himself the name of Seti. He calls himself generally Usiri, or Usiri Seti (in the last phrase Seti is another word, and not the name of the god Set). The sanctuary bore the designation, the splendid temple-building of King Mineptah Seti, in the city of Amon, on the western side of Thebes;' frequently also with the addition 'in sight of Ape' (namely, of the temple of Karnak). The temple, as has been remarked above, was dedicated to his deceased father, but also, moreover, to the gods of the dead, Osiris and Hathor, besides Amon and his company. The death of King Seti took place while the temple was in course of building. So the inscription informs us, which Ramses II. put up, as the finisher of the building, since it is there stated as follows:

1 Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archeology, vol. iv. pp. 1, foll. 1875.

'King Ramses II. executed this work, as his monument to his father Amon-ra, the king of the gods, the lord of heaven, the ruler of Thebes; and he finished the house of his father King Mineptah (Seti). For he died, and entered the realm of heaven, and he united himself with the sun-god in heaven, when this his house was being built. The gates showed a vacant space, and all the walls of stone and brick were yet to be raised; all the work in it of writing or painting was unfinished.'

In similar expressions does the inscription of Ramses at Abydus describe the unfinished building of the temple in the desert of that city, which was dedicated to Osiris and his associate gods, Isis, Hor, Amon, Hormakhu, and Ptah. Seti also dedicated a special document to the memory of his royal ancestors in the temple of Abydus, namely, the very celebrated Table of the Kings, called that of Abydus, containing the names of seventy-six kings, up to the founder of the empire, Mena. (See Appendix, A.)

In Memphis and Heliopolis, King Seti I. raised temples, or added new parts to temples already existing, which are likewise designated as 'splendid buildings.' Even though their last remains have now disappeared from the earth without leaving a trace, nevertheless their former existence is most surely proved by the testimony of inscriptions. In the same way, at the foot of the mountain behind the old town of El-kab, he erected a special temple to the goddess of the south, the heavenly Nukheb, and a similar one, in the form of a rock grotto, to the goddess Hathor, in her shape of a lioness, as Pakhith, in the cavern called by the ancients Speos Artemidos (the cave of Artemis). On these and similar works, the Theban school of artists,-who were

in the service of the temple of Amon, and applied themselves to the highest style of art,-were especially occupied. Among the sculptors of the time, the name of a certain Hi has been preserved; among the painters, Amen-uah-su is expressly celebrated as the 'first painter.' Both worked by the king's order in the decoration of the tomb which was destined for the then governor of Thebes, by name Pa-uër, the son of the chief priest of Amon, Neb-nuteru surnamed Thera, and of the oldest among the holy wives of the god, Mer-amon-ra, and also for his brother Tathao.2 Such records, which relate to the most important contemporaries of the kings, are useful and precious, for they frequently render good service in fixing the contemporary circumstances and events in Egyptian history nearly in their chronological order. They serve to keep open the sources which are destined sooner or later to bring the hidden stagnant waters of the Egyptian chronology and succession of the kings into a united current.

The tributes and the taxes, which under the third Thutmes were yearly contributed in rich abundance to the Pharaoh by the conquered nations and his own subjects, seem henceforward, from the reign of Seti, to have flowed in less abundantly, while the wants of the kings were the same, and the carrying out of costly buildings required a great expenditure. New sources must needs therefore be opened for the requisite means. So they began to devote special care to the regular working of the existing gold-mines in Egypt and Nubia,

1 Compare Denkmäler, III. pp. 132, &c.

2 Ibid.