DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5066#0326
296 BUILDINGS AT THEBES ch. xiii.
The family of Amen-em-an plays an important part
in the monumental history of this period: he was
probably the immediate oppressor placed by Eamses II-
over the Israelites. The accompanying Genealogical
Tree has been compiled on the authority of a family
group preserved in the collection of antiquities at
Naples.
Like Abydos and Memphis, Thebes was also the
object of the especial care of Eamses II. New temples
were erected on both sides of the river, or those
which already existed were enlarged. In the great
sanctuary at Apet (Karnak), the king first completed
the hall of Seti I., by the erection of the fifty-four
columns which were wanting on the south side, and of
a stone wall to surround the whole temple on the east
as far as the wall of the Hall of Columns just mentioned.
In Luqsor the temple of Amen, founded but not finished
by Amen-hotep III., was completed, the two splendid
propykea were placed before it, and two beautiful
obelisks were erected beside the colossal granite statues
of the king. On the western side, the temple of the
dead built by Seti I. at Old Giirnah was finished, and
on the south-western side of it a special temple of
victory, called the ' Kamesseum,' was dedicated to the
God Amen. Here stood also the largest statues of the
king, which, according to tradition, Cambyses threw
down when he visited Thebes. In Nubia Eamses
founded Pa-Ea, near Derr; Pa-Amen, near Wady-Serbua;
and Pa-Ptah, near Gerf Hussein. Above all he excavated
that magnificent rock-temple at Abu Simbel the facade
of which surpasses everything which imagination can
picture. There in Nubia, in a solitary wall of rock,
far removed from human habitations, a temple was
hewn out and dedicated to the great gods of the land—
to Amen of Thebes, Ptah of Memphis, Horemkhu of
The family of Amen-em-an plays an important part
in the monumental history of this period: he was
probably the immediate oppressor placed by Eamses II-
over the Israelites. The accompanying Genealogical
Tree has been compiled on the authority of a family
group preserved in the collection of antiquities at
Naples.
Like Abydos and Memphis, Thebes was also the
object of the especial care of Eamses II. New temples
were erected on both sides of the river, or those
which already existed were enlarged. In the great
sanctuary at Apet (Karnak), the king first completed
the hall of Seti I., by the erection of the fifty-four
columns which were wanting on the south side, and of
a stone wall to surround the whole temple on the east
as far as the wall of the Hall of Columns just mentioned.
In Luqsor the temple of Amen, founded but not finished
by Amen-hotep III., was completed, the two splendid
propykea were placed before it, and two beautiful
obelisks were erected beside the colossal granite statues
of the king. On the western side, the temple of the
dead built by Seti I. at Old Giirnah was finished, and
on the south-western side of it a special temple of
victory, called the ' Kamesseum,' was dedicated to the
God Amen. Here stood also the largest statues of the
king, which, according to tradition, Cambyses threw
down when he visited Thebes. In Nubia Eamses
founded Pa-Ea, near Derr; Pa-Amen, near Wady-Serbua;
and Pa-Ptah, near Gerf Hussein. Above all he excavated
that magnificent rock-temple at Abu Simbel the facade
of which surpasses everything which imagination can
picture. There in Nubia, in a solitary wall of rock,
far removed from human habitations, a temple was
hewn out and dedicated to the great gods of the land—
to Amen of Thebes, Ptah of Memphis, Horemkhu of