Western Bank at Thebes. These were of a funerary character, like those
of Dêr el-Bahari, already described. The most imposing of all in some
respects is the Ramesseum, where lies the huge granite colossus of
Ramses II, prostrate and broken, which Diodorus knew as the statue of
Osymandyas. This name is a late corruption of Ramses II's throne-name,
User-maat-Rà, pronounced Ûsimare. The temple has been cleared by
Mr. Howard Carter for the Egyptian government, and the small town of
priests' houses, magazines, and cellars, to the west of it, has been
excavated by him. This is quite a little Pompeii, with its small
streets, its houses with the stucco still clinging to the walls, its
public altar, its market colonnade, and its gallery of statues. The
statues are only of brick like the walls, and roughly shaped and
plastered, but they were portraits, undoubtedly, of celebrities of
the time, though we do not know of whom. On either side are the long
magazines in which were kept the possessions of the priests of the
Ramesseum, the grain from the lands with which they were endowed, and
everything meet to be offered to the ghost of the king whom they served.
The plan of the place had evidently been altered after the time of
Ramses II, as remains of overbuilding were found here and there. The
magazines were first investigated in 1896 by Prof. Petrie, who also
found in the neighbourhood the remains of a number of small royal
funerary temples of the XVIIIth Dynasty, all looking in the direction of
the hill, beyond which lay the tombs of the kings.

[Illustration: 372.jpg THE VALLEY OF THE TOMBS OF THE QUEENS AT THEBES.]

In which Prof. Schiaparelli discovered the tomb of Ramses
II's wife (1904).

We may now turn to Luxor, where immediately above the landing-place of