ained intact on the Egyptian frontier, awaiting its
opportunity.

Minephtah lived for some time after this memorable year* and the number
of monuments which belong to this period show that he reigned in peace.
We can see that he carried out works in the same places as his father
before him; at Tanis as well as Thebes, in Nubia as well as in the
Delta. He worked the sandstone quarries for his building materials,
and continued the custom of celebrating the feasts of the inundation at
Silsileh. One at least of the stelae which he set up on the occasion of
these feasts is really a chapel, with its architraves and columns, and
still, excites the admiration of the traveller on account both of its
form and of its picturesque appearance.

* The last known year of his reign is the year VIII. The
lists of Manetho assign to him a reign of from twenty to
forty years; Brugsch makes it out to have been thirty-four
years, from 1300 to 1266 B.C., which is evidently too much,
but we may attribute to him without risk of serious error a
reign of about twenty years.

The last years of his life were troubled by the intrigues of princes who
aspired to the throne, and by the ambition of the ministers to whom he
was obliged to delegate his authority.

[Illustration: 263.jpg THE CHAPELS OF RAMSES II. AND MINEPHTAH AT
SISILEH]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.

One of the latter, a man of Semite origin, named Ben-Azana, of
Zor-bisana, who had assumed the appellation of his first patron,
ramsesupirniri, appears to have acted for him as regent. Minephtah
was succeeded, apparently, by one of his sons, called Seti, after his
great-grandfather.* Seti II. had doubtless reached middle age at the
time of his accession, but his portraits represent him, nevertheless,
with the face and figure of a young man.** The expression in these is
gentle, refined, haughty, and somewhat melancholic. MU It is the type
of Seti I. and Ramses II., but enfeebled and, as it were, saddened. An
inscription of his second year attributes to him victories in Asia,***
but others of the same period indicate the existence of disturbances
similar to those which had troubled the last years of his father.

* E. de Rouge introduced Amenmeses and Siphtah between
Minephtah and Seti II., and I had up to the present followed
his example; I have come back to the position of Chabas,
making Seti II. the immedia