Another of Amenhotep’s palace-temples has been less unkindly treated by fortune than the one just mentioned.  The temple of Luxor, or El-Uksur, on the eastern bank of the river, about a mile and a half to the south of the great temple of Karnak, is a magnificent edifice to this day; and though some portions of it, and some of its most remarkable features, must be assigned to Rameses II., yet still it is, in the main, a construction of Amenhotep’s, and must be regarded as being, even if it stood alone, sufficient proof of his eminence as a builder.  The length of the entire building is about eight hundred feet, the breadth varying from about one hundred feet to two hundred.  Its general arrangement comprised, first, a great court, at a different angle from the rest, being turned so as to face Karnak.  In front of this stood two colossal statues of the founder, together with two obelisks, one of which has been removed to France, and now adorns the centre of the Place de la Concorde at Paris.  Behind this was a great pillared hall, of which only the two central ranges of columns are now standing.  Still further back were smaller halls and numerous apartments, evidently meant for the king’s residence, rather than for a temple or place exclusively devoted to worship.  The building is remarkable for its marked affectation of irregularity.  “Not only is there a considerable angle in the direction of the axis of the building, but the angles of the courtyards are hardly ever right angles; the pillars are variously spaced, and pains seem to have been gratuitously taken to make it as irregular as possible in nearly every respect."[23]

Besides this grand edifice, Amenhotep built two temples at Karnak to Ammon and Maut, embellished the old temple of Ammon there with a new propylon, raised temples to Kneph, or Khnum, at Elephantine and built a shrine to contain his own image at Soleb in Nubia, another shrine at Napata, and a third at Sedinga.  He left traces of himself at Semneh, in the island of Konosso, on the rocks between Philae and Assouan, at El-Kaab, at Toora near Memphis, at Silsilis, and at Sarabit-el-Khadim in the Sinaitic peninsula.  He was, as M. Lenormant remarks, “un prince essentiellement batisseur.”  The scale and number of his works are such as to indicate unremitting attention to sculpture and building during the entire duration of his long reign of thirty-six years.

On the other hand, as a general he gained little distinction.  He maintained, indeed, the dominion over Syria and Western Mesopotamia, which had been established by Thothmes III., and his cartouche has been found at Arban on the Khabour; but there is no appearance of his having made any additional conquests in this quarter.  The subjected peoples brought their tribute regularly, and the neighbouring nations, whether Hittites, Assyrians, or Babylonians, gave him no trouble.  The dominion of Egypt over Western Asia had become “an accomplished fact,” and was generally recognized by the old native kingdoms.  It did not extend, however, beyond Taurus and Niphates towards the north, or beyond the Khabour eastward or southward, but remained fixed within the limits which it had attained under the Third Thothmes.