DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9059#0269
250
THE MONUMENTS OF UPPER EGYPT.
studying in its most remarkable parts. If we
now seek to realize the king's purpose in erecting
it, the problem only admits of the same solution
as in the case of the Rameseum. We may rest
assured that the spot selected for its site, border-
ing at once on the desert and on the necropolis,
was not idly chosen. We may read therein, as
it were, an anxious thought for posterity and
the founding of a sort of perpetual reminder of
the illustrious dead. It is the memory of
Rameses III., it is his very person that lives at
Medinet-Abou.
The Necropolis. — The necropolis is reached
from Luxor by the same route as the temples.
The large square courts pierced on three sides
with doors symmetrically disposed, which may
be observed on the way to Goornah, are common
tombs not worth noticing. But on leaving the
temple of Goornah and following the border of
cultivated land, one sees to the right some ter-
raced hills in front of which the ground has
been disturbed by innumerable excavations.
This is the necropolis called Drah-abou'l-neygah,
undoubtedly the most ancient in Thebes. The
tombs mostly date from the XIth and the XVIIth
dynasties, and from the beginning of the XVIII"1.
THE MONUMENTS OF UPPER EGYPT.
studying in its most remarkable parts. If we
now seek to realize the king's purpose in erecting
it, the problem only admits of the same solution
as in the case of the Rameseum. We may rest
assured that the spot selected for its site, border-
ing at once on the desert and on the necropolis,
was not idly chosen. We may read therein, as
it were, an anxious thought for posterity and
the founding of a sort of perpetual reminder of
the illustrious dead. It is the memory of
Rameses III., it is his very person that lives at
Medinet-Abou.
The Necropolis. — The necropolis is reached
from Luxor by the same route as the temples.
The large square courts pierced on three sides
with doors symmetrically disposed, which may
be observed on the way to Goornah, are common
tombs not worth noticing. But on leaving the
temple of Goornah and following the border of
cultivated land, one sees to the right some ter-
raced hills in front of which the ground has
been disturbed by innumerable excavations.
This is the necropolis called Drah-abou'l-neygah,
undoubtedly the most ancient in Thebes. The
tombs mostly date from the XIth and the XVIIth
dynasties, and from the beginning of the XVIII"1.