Benson, Margaret; Gourlay, Janet: The temple of Mut in Asher: an account of the excavation of the temple and of the religious representations and objects found therein, as illustrating the history of Egypt and the main religious ideas of the Egyptians (London, 1899)

CHAP. XIII.]

THE RAMESSIDES.

239

than his predecessor's his reward was in all proba-
bility less substantial.

Rameses VI., a son of Rameses III., appears ^
from the evidences of his reign found in the Delta
to have been one of the greater kings of the dynasty.*
At Thebes he built the engirdling wall of Medinet
Habu, but his finest monument is the grave which
he stole from his predecessor and re-decorated. It
is in character with this that the contributions he
made to the temple of Mut are the carving of
his name on the pylon of Seti, and an alabaster
base found in 1896 (plan no. 8) bearing his
cartouches.

Rameses IX. shows a piety not too often remarked, B-c-

1 J 1120.

in his Commission instituted to inquire into the
spoliation of the graves of the Pharaohs. The
royal Commission did not wholly succeed in stopping
the plunder, which appears to have been carried out
by organised bands of thieves. More efficient safe-
guarding was found necessary as time went on.

We have from the temple of Mut but one other
monument of the dynasty, and that undated. This
is the broken statuette (Trench B, pi. XVII., fig. 2,
p. 349). The principal figure represented is name-
less, but she is the mother of the man standing by
her side, who is called " her son, her beloved one,
the sculptor Bak-en-Amen."

The statue, indeed, was probably a double one
representing both parents of the sculptor. On the
* ' Bubastis,' vol. for 1889-90, p. 46.