Nice view titled Theben in Aegypten, from steel engraving with fine detail and clear impression, approx. page size 25 x 18 cm, approx. image size is 14.5 x 9.5 cm. Print was published in Meyer's Universum by Bibliographic Institute Hildburghausen Germany.

Thebes,

ancient Egyptian WASE, WO'SE, or (from c. 22nd century BC) NOWE, or NUWE, one of the famed cities of antiquity, the capital of the ancient Egyptian empire at its heyday. Thebes lies on either side of the Nile River at approximately latitude 26 N. The modern town of Luxor, or al-Luxor, which occupies part of the site, is 419 miles (675 km) south of Cairo. Ancient Thebes was about six miles square; the main part of the city was situated along the Nile's east bank; along the west bank was "the city of the dead"--an area containing the Egyptian kings' mortuary temples and the houses of those priests, soldiers, craftsmen, and labourers who were devoted to their service.

History.

The ancient name of Thebes was Wase, or Wo'se. The nome, or province, of Wase, the fourth of Upper Egypt, is known to have existed from the 4th dynasty onward. Although there are a number of tombs dating from the 3rd millennium BC on the west bank, the earliest monuments that have survived at Thebes itself date from the 11th dynasty (2081-1939 BC), when the local nomarchs (governors) united Egypt under their rule. From this time Thebes became the royal capital of Egypt and was called Nowe, or Nuwe ("City [of Amon]"), after its chief god. The Greek name Thebes (Thebai) was derived from Ta-ope, the ancient Egyptian name for Luxor.

During the 12th dynasty (1938-1756 BC), the royal residence was moved to the area of Memphis, but the kings of Egypt continued to honour Amon, their family god, and hence built temples at Thebes. The Hyksos invaders had little or no control over the area, and it was the kings of Thebes who finally drove the Hyksos out of Egypt (c. 1530-20). Then began the era of greatest prosperity for Thebes. The 18th-dynasty pharaohs rebuilt it and made it their capital, embellishing its temples with the spoils of Asia and the tribute of Nubia. During the 15th century BC great palaces rose on either bank of the river, brightly painted and surrounded with gardens. Noblemen had their estates round about, and in the crowded streets foreign traders and mercenaries mingled with the citizens. Although their seat of government soon moved north to Memphis, the pharaohs of the New Kingdom vied with each other in building great temples on the east bank and even larger mortuary temples on the west.

The height of Theban prosperity was reached in the 14th century BC in the reign of Amenhotep III, much of whose vast wealth from foreign tribute was poured into the temples of Amon. For a brief period in the reign of his son Akhenaton, Thebes fell on evil times; the city was abandoned by the court, and the worship of Amon was proscribed. With its restoration by Tutankhamen, however, Thebes soon re gained its revenues and prestige and retained both through the reigns of Seti I and Ramses II, who still resided in Thebes from time to time. The city continued to be richly endowed; according to ancient sources, Ramses III donated 86,486 slaves and vast estates to Amon's temples.

Under the later Ramessids, Thebes began to decline; the government fell, it seems, into grave economic difficulties. In the reign of Ramses IX, about 1111 BC, a series of investigations into the plundering of royal tombs in the necropolis of western Thebes uncovered proof of corruption in high places, following an accusation made by the mayor of the east bank against his colleague on the west. The plundered royal mummies were moved from place to place and at last deposited by the priests of Amon in the tomb of Amenhotep II and in a tomb-shaft in Dayr al-Bahri. (The finding of these two hiding places was one of the great events of modern archaeological discovery.) Such maladministration in Thebes led to unrest. Control of local affairs tended to come more and more into the hands of the high priests of Amon, leading to a situation in which, after the death of the last Ramses, the government of Egypt was shared between the pharaoh in Tanis and the high pontiff at Thebes. Intermarriage and adoption strengthened the ties between them, daughters of the Tanite kings being installed as "God's Wife of Amon" at Thebes, where they wielded greater power.

The Napatan (Nubian) pharaohs made Thebes their capital. Its fame among the early Greeks was such that Homer speaks of the wealth of "hundred-gated Thebes." In 663 BC, however, it was sacked by Ashurbanipal's Assyrians, and, although rebuilt by the Saites, it never fully recovered. In Strabo's time (c. 63 BC-c. AD 21), the city had dwindled to a mere village visited by tourists who came to see the ancient temples.

Archaeology.

Four of the main complexes of ruins are discussed in separate articles. (See Karnak; Luxor; Kings, Valley of the; Queens, Valley of the.) Among the other chief sites of Thebes are the royal mortuary temples. In the New Kingdom, when the pharaohs hid their tombs in the secret Valley of the Kings, ostentation had to be concentrated in their mortuary temples, which rivaled each other in size and magnificence. Although they were designed for the performance of rites connected with the mortuary cult of the builder, they were all dedicated to Amon, the supreme god of Thebes, and had the character and essential form of a New Kingdom temple. They were built in western Thebes on the edge of the valley, in a sequence generally corresponding to a topographical arrangement from north to south. Only traces of most of the earlier ones remain. The most important will be mentioned here.

The temple of Hatshepsut at Dayr al-Bahri is the earliest large 18th-dynasty structure to survive and one of the most impressive. Here in the bay of cliffs, next to the pyramid-temple of Mentuhotep II, the queen's architect Senenmut in about 1473 BC designed a series of colonnades and courts on three levels. The approach from the valley led through an avenue of sphinxes, and in the forecourt was a garden planted with trees and vines. On either side of the sloping ramp leading to the next level, against the terrace face, was a gallery whose roof was supported on a double row of columns; a similar gallery ran along the westward side of the court on the next level, with side chapels dedicated to Anubis and Hathor. The top terrace contained a hall of columns, with further chapels on either side and a sanctuary dug into the cliff behind. Many of the series of reliefs in the colonnades and chapels are of great beauty and considerable interest: one depicts the transport of two obelisks by barge from Aswan to Karnak, another the divine marriage of Queen Ahmes with the god Amon and the resultant miraculous birth of Hatshepsut herself, and a third the maritime trading expedition sent by the queen to Punt, the land of incense on the Red Sea.

The mortuary temple of Amenhotep III must have been the largest and most splendid of all the Theban temples. It was, however, almost completely demolished by later pharaohs, and all that is left today are a few foundations, a huge stela 30 feet (9 m) high, and the two great statues known as the Colossi of Memnon, which once flanked the gateway in front of the temple pylon but now sit like lonely sentinels in the middle of cultivated fields. The statues represent Amenhotep III; with their crowns they were nearly 70 feet (21 m) high, each hewn from a single block of stone. The northern one was the "singing Memnon" celebrated in classical times because on certain days, shortly after sunrise, it emitted a curious high note; numerous Roman tourists, including the emperor Hadrian and his wife Sabina, came to Thebes to hear this marvel, but in the reign of Septimius Severus the statue was patched with masonry and never "sang" again.

The temple of Seti I at Qurnah survives only in part, the forecourt and pylon having disappeared. It was dedicated in part to the funerary cult of Ramses I, the father of Seti, and was completed by Seti's son Ramses II, who figures in the reliefs. The walls are decorated with scenes of purely religious content in which the pharaohs make offerings to various gods or are favoured by them.

The Ramesseum, or mortuary temple of Ramses II (Ramses the Great), though much ruined, retains some of its ancient grandeur. The wide outer pylon is decorated with vigorous scenes of the king's wars against the Hittites in Syria, and the inner pylon with episodes from the Battle of Kadesh and scenes from the festival of the harvest god, Min. Tall figures of the king in the guise of Osiris decorate the pillars of the inner court. In the first court stood a seated colossus of Ramses II; only fragments of it are left, but enough to show that it was of enormous size. It must have been more than 60 feet (18 m) high and weighed about 1,000 tons. The hypostyle hall beyond the second court is similar in design to that of the temple of Karnak; beyond were further pillared halls and a sanctuary that has now disappeared. Around the temple, within the high brick enclosure wall, are very extensive remains of vaulted buildings that must have been magazines, stables, workshops, and houses belonging to the temple staff. Diodorus Siculus describes the Ramesseum under the name of "the Tomb of Ozymandias" (i, 47-49).

The temple of Ramses III at Madinat Habu is the latest and most southerly of the great New Kingdom mortuary temples. The general plan was modeled on that of the Ramesseum: a wide front pylon, an outer and an inner peristyle court separated by a second pylon, a large pillared hall and two smaller vestibules, and the sanctuary surrounded by smaller rooms. The hypostyle hall is partly ruined, the pillars having been dismantled to the level of the first or second drums, but the temple is otherwise well preserved. Scenes carved on the walls of the inner halls show the king performing acts of worship before the gods. There are also scenes of battle in which the king in his chariot mows down the Libyans, attacks an Amorite city, and leads Libyans, Asians, and sea raiders as prisoners before Amon and Mut. On the external wall of the temple, a great sea battle between Egyptians and the Peleset (Philistines) and other "peoples of the sea" is depicted with much lively detail. Another outstanding relief is that on the outer face of the great pylon, which shows the pharaoh hunting wild cattle in a reedy, marshy landscape. Adjoining the temple are the remains of a palace. The high gate in the eastern side of the perimeter wall of the temple area is battlemented like a fortress. Within the precinct are other, smaller temples: one dates from the reign of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut but was altered and added to in various reigns and during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. There are also several mortuary chapels, a sacred lake, a well, and remains, as in the Ramesseum, of houses and vaulted magazines built of mud brick.

South of the temple of Madinat Habu stand the ruins of what must have been one of the finest buildings in western Thebes: the palace of King Amenhotep III and Queen Tiy at Malkata. It is in fact four palaces, one of which was occupied by Tiy. There was also a vast artificial lake, still traceable by a line of mounds to the southeast of Malkata, which may have been a harbour for shipping connected with the Nile.

In ancient Egypt there were other great cities, but none that has left so great a legacy to posterity. The great temples of Thebes with their historical scenes and inscriptions, the tombs with their wealth of illustration of daily life and religious belief, and the countless antiquities that now fill the museums and private collections of the world, are all aspects of that legacy. Few other sites have contributed more to the store of knowledge about early civilizations than that of ancient Thebes.