ABSTRACT
Having completed our survey of Thebes of the Living, on the eastern bank of the Nile, we have now to survey the not less interesting Thebes of the Dead, on the western bank. We have already seen that the rule of life on the eastern bank and burial on the western is not by any means invariable, some of the most interesting series of tombs being situated on the east bank, e.g., the Middle Kingdom tombs of the nomarchs at Beni Hasan, and the Empire tombs of the Akhenaten period at El-’Amârna. But, in general, the rule of burial in the west holds good in fact as in the literature; and if Giza and Saqqâra are the most notable instances of it in Lower Egypt, the Theban necropolis is the counterpart in Upper Egypt of the great necropolis of Ancient Memphis in the north. These two great cities of the dead are the complement of one another, not only in situation, but in date. The northern one is essentially an Old Kingdom city; the Theban necropolis is just as essentially of the Empire, and largely, though by no means exclusively, of the period when the Empire was a great and prosperous reality, and Thebes was at the height of its glory. At this period, beginning with the rise of the Empire under the Pharaohs of the early XVIIIth Dynasty, and closing, roughly, with the death of Ramses III of the XXth, the western city must have been almost comparable with the eastern in greatness, and perhaps even more than comparable with it in splendour; for, if it had nothing so vast as Luxor and Karnak to impress the eye, it had an unrivalled series of great mortuary temples stretching from El-Quina on the north to Medinet Habu on the south. Of these, one, the Ramesseum, is a worthy companion to Luxor and Karnak in all respects; while another, Medinet Habu, though scarcely worthy to rank along with these in architectural quality, is yet of extreme interest; and the two terraced temples of El-Deir el-Bahari have no rivals on the eastern bank. Probably there never was a time when the whole long line of mortuary temples which stretches 405along the western plain beneath the cliffs of the Libyan range was perfect and complete all at once, for dilapidation began very soon in some of the temples, and was hastened by the sacrilegious greed of some of the later Pharaohs; but even when allowance has been made for this, the eastern face of the City of the Dead, which looked across the Nile to Thebes of the Living, must have been of surpassing magnificence.
