Material evidence fails us almost entirely, after the reign of Rameses III.
Towards the close of the eleventh century B.C., the high-priests of Amen
repaired the walls of Thebes, of Gebeleyn, and of El Hibeh opposite Feshn.
The territorial subdivision of the country, which took place under the
successors of Sheshonk, compelled the provincial princes to multiply their
strongholds. The campaign of Piankhi on the banks of the Nile is a series
of successful sieges. Nothing, however, leads us to suppose that the art of
fortification had at that time made any distinct progress; and when the
Greek rulers succeeded the native Pharaohs, they most probably found it at
much the same stage as it was left by the engineers of the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Dynasties.


[3] At Medinet Habû.




3.--PUBLIC WORKS.


A permanent network of roads would be useless in a country like Egypt. The
Nile here is the natural highway for purposes of commerce, and the pathways
which intersect the fields suffice for foot-passengers, for cattle, and for
the transport of goods from village to village. Ferry-boats for crossing
the river, fords wherever the canals were shallow enough, and embanked dams
thrown up here and there where the water was too deep for fordings,
completed the system of internal communication. Bridges were rare. Up to
the present time, we know of but one in the whole territory of ancient
Egypt; and whether that one was long or short, built of stone or of wood,