Photo from Theodore M. Davis 



more; mummifii:d monke:ys from thi: tomb of amenhoti:p II 



Other curious contents of the tombs were mummified ducks and chickens. These were 

 preserved in wooden vessels, carved to represent the bird they contained. Another vessel 

 contained delicious honey, which had been there for thousands of years. 



This took place under the eleventh dy- 

 nasty, which may be dated about 350^- 

 B. C. or 2160 B. C, according to the 

 scheme of chronology which is preferred. 

 The twelfth dynasty indeed shifted the 

 seat of government again back to the 

 neighborhood of the old northern capi- 

 tal ; still they were Theban princes, and 

 it is with Thebes that the story of Egypt's 

 greatness is bound up during all the rest 

 of her history. 



One of the remarkable finds of mod- 

 ern excavation has been that of the great 

 funerary temple of King Mentuhotep 

 Neb-hapet-ra, of the eleventh dynasty, 

 which has conclusively shown us that this 

 line of kings, hitherto almost as shadowy 

 as its immediate predecessors, was in- 

 deed a great and powerful dynasty, the 

 worthy forerunner of the Amenemhats 

 and Senuserts of the following line, who 

 brought in the Golden Age of the Mid- 

 dle Kingdom. 



one: of THF most BFAUTIFUI, TEMPLFS 

 FXCAVATFD 



At Deir-el-Bahari, near Thebes, there 

 lies in a great bay of the limestone cliffs 

 one of the most famous and beautiful of 

 Egyptian temples, the terraced temple of 

 Queen Hatshepsut, of the eighteenth dy- 

 nasty. This wonderful building has al- 

 ways been known to exist and was com- 

 pletely excavated by Professor Naville 

 in the nineties of last century. But on 

 the completion of the work in 1898 there 

 still remained a large tract to the south 

 of Hatshepsut's temple covered with 

 mounds of debris and awaiting explora- 

 tion. Here, in 1903, Professor Naville 

 resumed work for the Egyptian Explora- 

 tion Fund. Excavation speedily revealed 

 the existence of a temple of considerable 

 importance, and the completion of the 

 work laid bare the remains of a building 

 fairly comparable in scale with the more 

 famous temple beside it, anticipating to 



