[Illustration:  346.jpg THE UPPER COURT AND TRILITHON GATE]

     Of The Xviiith Dynasty Temple At Dek El-Bahari.  About 1500
     B.C.

This is the famous gate on which the jealous Thothmes III chiselled out Hatshepsu’s name in the royal cartouches and inserted his own in its place; but he forgot to alter the gender of the pronouns in the accompanying inscription, which therefore reads “King Thothmes III, she made this monument to her father Amen.”

Among Prof.  Naville’s discoveries here one of the most important is that of the altar in a small court to the north, which, as the inscription says, was made in honour of the god Ra-Harmachis “of beautiful white stone of Anu.”  It is of the finest white limestone known.  Here also were found the carved ebony doors of a shrine, now in the Cairo Museum.  One of the most beautiful parts of the temple is the Shrine of Anubis, with its splendidly preserved paintings and perfect columns and roof of white limestone.  The effect of the pure white stone and simplicity of architecture is almost Hellenic.

The Shrine of Hathor has been known since the time of Mariette, but in connection with it some interesting discoveries have been made during the excavation of the XIth Dynasty temple.  In the court between the two temples were found a large number of small votive offerings, consisting of scarabs, beads, little figures of cows and women, etc., of blue glazed faience and rough pottery, bronze and wood, and blue glazed ware ears, eyes, and plaques with figures of the sacred cow, and other small objects of the same nature.  These are evidently the ex-votos of the XVIIIth Dynasty fellahin to the goddess Hathor in the rock-shrine above the court.  When the shrine was full or the little ex-votos broken, the sacristans threw them over the wall into the court below, which thus became a kind of dust-heap.  Over this heap the sand and debris gradually collected, and thus they were preserved.  The objects found are of considerable interest to anthropological science.

The Great Temple was built, as we have said, in honour of Thothmes I and II, and the deities Amen-Ra and Hathor.  More especially it was the funerary chapel of Thothmes I. His tomb was excavated, not in the Dra’ Abu-l-Negga, which was doubtless now too near the capital city and not in a sufficiently dignified position of aloofness from the common herd, but at the end of the long valley of the Wadiyen, behind the cliff-hill above Der el-Bahari.  Hence the new temple was oriented in the direction of his tomb.  Immediately behind the temple, on the other side of the hill, is the tomb which was discovered by Lepsius and cleared in 1904 for Mr. Theodore N. Davis by Mr. Howard Carter, then chief inspector of antiquities at Thebes.  Its gallery is of very small dimensions, and it winds about in the hill in corkscrew fashion like the tomb of Aahmes at Aby-dos.  Owing to its extraordinary length, the heat and foul air in the depths of the