here it
appeared necessary, and the need of restoration was indeed pressing
after the disorders occasioned by the Assyrian invasion and the
Ethiopian suzerainty. At Karnak, and in the great temples on both banks
of the Nile, Psammetichus, respecting the fiction which assigned the
chief authority to the Pallacides, effaced himself in favour of them,
allowing them to claim all the merit of the work; in the cities they
erected small chapels, in which they are portrayed as queens fulfilling
their sacerdotal functions, humbly escorted by the viceroy who in other
respects exercised the real power. The king's zeal for restoration is
manifest all along the Nile, at Coptos, Abydos,* and in the plains of
the Delta, which are crowded with memorials of him. His two favourite
capitals were Memphis and Sais, on both of which he impartially lavished
his favours.

* The first Egyptologists attributed the prenommai cartouche
of Psammetichus I. to Psammetichus II., and _vice versa_:
this error must always be kept in mind in referring to their
works.

At Memphis he built the propylons on the south side of the temple of
Phtah, and the court in which the living Apis took his exercise and was
fed: this court was surrounded by a colonnade, against the pillars of
which were erected statues twelve cubits high, probably representing
Osiris as in the Eames-seum and at Medinet-Habu. Apis even when dead
also received his share of attention. Since the days when Ramses II.
had excavated the subterranean Serapeum as a burial-place of the sacred
bulls, no subsequent Pharaoh who had reigned at Memphis had failed to
embellish their common tomb, and to celebrate with magnificence their
rites of sepulture.

[Illustration: 355.jpg CHAMBER AND SARCOPHAGUS OF AN APIS]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving published in
Mariette.

The body of the Apis, carefully embalmed, was sealed up in a coffin or
sarcophagus of hard stone, the mouth of the vault was then walled up,
and against the fresh masonry, at the foot of the neighbouring rocks,
on the very floor of the passage, or wherever there was a clear space
available, the high dignitaries, the workmen or the priests who had
taken any part in the ceremonial, set up a votive stele calling down
upon themselves and their families divine benedictions.

[Illustration: 356.jpg THE GREAT GALLERY OF THE SERAPEUM]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an engraving of Deveria.

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