From the funeral panoply of a tomb like that of Iuaa and Tuaa we can obtain some idea of the pomp and state of Amenhetep III.  But the remains of his Theban palace, which have been discovered and excavated by Mr. C. Tytus and Mr. P. E. Newberry, do not bear out this idea of magnificence.  It is quite possible that the palace was merely a pleasure house, erected very hastily and destined to fall to pieces when its owner tired of it or died, like the many palaces of the late Khedive Ismail.  It stood on the border of an artificial lake, whereon the Pharaoh and his consort Tii sailed to take their pleasure in golden barks.  This is now the cultivated rectangular space of land known as the Birket Habu, which is still surrounded by the remains of the embankment built to retain its waters, and becomes a lake during the inundation.  On the western shore of this lake Amenhetep erected the “stately pleasure dome,” the remains of which still cover the sandy tract known as el-Malkata, “the Salt-pans,” south of the great temple of Medinet Habu.  These remains consist merely of the foundations and lowest wall-courses of a complicated and rambling building of many chambers, constructed of common unburnt brick and plastered with white stucco on walls and floors, on which were painted beautiful frescoes of fighting bulls, birds of the air, water-fowl, fish-ponds, etc., in much the same style as the frescoes of Tell el-Amarna executed in the next reign.  There were small pillared halls, the columns of which were of wood, mounted on bases of white limestone.  The majority still remain in position.  In several chambers there are small daises, and in one the remains of a throne, built of brick and mud covered with plaster and stucco, upon which the Pharaoh Amenhetep sat.  This is the palace of him whom the Greeks called Memnon, who ruled Egypt when Israel was in bondage and when the dynasty of Minos reigned in Crete.  Here by the side of his pleasure-lake the most powerful of Egyptian Pharaohs whiled away his time during the summer heats.  Evidently the building was intended to be of the lightest construction, and never meant to last; but to our ideas it seems odd that an Egyptian Pharaoh should live in a mud palace.  Such a building is, however, quite suited to the climate of Egypt, as are the modern crude brick dwellings of the fellahin.  In the ruins of the palace were found several small objects of interest, and close by was an ancient glass manufactory of Amenhetep III’s time, where much of the characteristic beautifully coloured and variegated opaque glass of the period was made.

[Illustration:  356.jpg THE TOMB-HILL OF SHEKH ’ABD EL-KUBNA, THEBES.]