the
beginning of Theban power--that the latest discoveries at Thebes have
thrown some new light.

More than anywhere else in Egypt excavations have been carried on at
Thebes, on the site of the ancient capital of the country. And here, if
anywhere, it might have been supposed that there was nothing more to be
found, no new thing to be exhumed from the soil, no new fact to be added
to our knowledge of Egyptian history. Yet here, no less than at Abydos,
has the archaeological exploration of the last few years been especially
successful, and we have seen that the ancient city of Thebes has a great
deal more to tell us than we had expected.

The most ancient remains at Thebes were discovered by Mr. Newberry in
the shape of two tombs of the VIth Dynasty, cut upon the face of the
well-known hill of Shekh Abd el-Kurna, on the west bank of the Nile
opposite Luxor. Every winter traveller to Egypt knows, well the ride
from the sandy shore opposite the Luxor temple, along the narrow pathway
between the gardens and the canal, across the bridges and over the
cultivated land to the Ramesseum, behind which rises Shekh Abd el-Kurna,
with its countless tombs, ranged in serried rows along the scarred and
scarped face of the hill. This hill, which is geologically a fragment of
the plateau behind which some gigantic landslip was sent sliding in the
direction of the river, leaving the picturesque gorge and cliffs of Der
el-Bahari to mark the place from which it was riven, was evidently the
seat of the oldest Theban necropolis. Here were the tombs of the Theban
chiefs in the period of the Old Kingdom, two of which have been found
by Mr. Newberry. In later times, it would seem, these tombs were largely
occupied and remodelled by the great nobles of the XVIIIth Dynasty, so
that now nearly all the tombs extant on Shekh Abd el-Kurna belong to
that dynasty.

Of the Thebes of the IXth and Xth Dynasties, when the Herakleopolites
ruled, we have in the British Museum two very remarkable statues--one of
which is here illustrated--of the steward of the palace, Mera. The tomb
from which they came is not known. Both are very beautiful examples
of the Egyptian sculptor's art, and are executed in a style eminently
characteristic of the transition period between the work of the Old and
Middle Kingdoms. As specimens of the art of the Hierakonpolite period,
of which we have hardly any examples, they are of the greatest interest.
Mera is represented wearing