found at Tell el-Amarna, "for gold is as water in thy land." It is
probable that Egypt really attained the height of her material wealth
and prosperity in the reign of Amenhetep III. Certainly her dominion
reached its farthest limits in his time, and his influence was felt from
the Tigris to the Sudan. He hunted lions for his pleasure in Northern
Mesopotamia, and he built temples at Jebel Barkal beyond Dongola. We see
the evidence of lavish wealth in the furniture of the tomb of Iuaa and
Tuaa. Yet, fine as are many of these gold-overlaid and overladen objects
of the XVIIIth Dynasty, they have neither the good taste nor the charm
of the beautiful jewels from the XIIth Dynasty tombs at Dashûr. It is
mere vulgar wealth. There is too much gold thrown about. "For gold is as
water in thy land." In three hundred years' time Egypt was to know what
poverty meant, when the poor priest-kings of the XXIst Dynasty could
hardly keep body and soul together and make a comparatively decent show
as Pharaohs of Egypt. Then no doubt the latter-day Thebans sighed for
the good old times of the XVIIIth Dynasty, when their city ruled a
considerable part of Africa and Western Asia and garnered their riches
into her coffers. But the days of the XIIth Dynasty had really been
better still. Then there was not so much wealth, but what there was (and
there was as much gold then, too) was used sparingly, tastefully, and
simply. The XIIth Dynasty, not the XVIIIth, was the real Golden Age of
Egypt.

From the funeral panoply of a tomb like that of Iuaa and Tuaa we can
obtain some idea of the pomp and state of Amenhetep III. But the remains
of his Theban palace, which have been discovered and excavated by Mr. C.
Tytus and Mr. P. E. Newberry, do not bear out this idea of magnificence.
It is quite possible that the palace was merely a pleasure house,
erected very hastily and destined to fall to pieces when its owner tired
of it or died, like the many palaces of the late Khedive Ismail. It