The work at Karnak has been distinguished during the last two years by two remarkable discoveries.  Outside the main temple, to the north of the Hypostyle Hall, M. Legrain found a series of private sanctuaries or shrines, built of brick by personages of the XVIIIth Dynasty and later, in order to testify their devotion to Amen.  In these small cells were found some remarkable statues, one of which is illustrated.  It is one of the most perfect of its kind.  A great dignitary of the XVIIIth Dynasty is seen seated with his wife, their daughter standing between them.  Round his neck are four chains of golden rings, with which he had been decorated by the Pharaoh for his services.  It is a remarkable group, interesting for its style and workmanship as well as for its subject.  As an example of the formal hieratic type of portraiture it is very fine.

The other and more important discovery of the two was made by M. Legrain on the south side of the Hypo-style Hall.

[Illustration:  379.jpg THE GREAT TEMPLE OP KAKNAK.]

The left-hand obelisk is the highest in Egypt, and was erected by
Hatshepsu; the right-hand obelisk was put up by Thothmes III.

M. de Morgan in the work at Dashur.  His task is to clear out the whole temple thoroughly, to discover in it what previous investigators have left undiscovered, and to restore to its original position what has fallen.  Tentative excavations, begun in an unoccupied tract under the wall of the hall, resulted in the discovery of parts of statues; the place was then regularly excavated, and the result has been amazing.  The ground was full of statues, large and small, at some unknown period buried pell-mell, one on the top of another.  Some are broken, but the majority are perfect, which is in itself unusual, and is due very much to the soft, muddy soil in which they have lain.  Statues found on dry desert land are often terribly cracked, especially when they are of black granite, the crystals of which seem to have a greater tendency to disintegration than have those of the red syenite.  The Karnak statues are figures of pious persons, who had dedicated portraits of themselves in the temple of Amen, together with those of great men whom the king had honoured by ordering their statues placed in the temple during their lives.

Of this number was the great sage Amenhetep, son of Hapi, the founder of the little desert temple of Der el-Medina, near Der el-Bahari, who was a sort of prime minister under Amenhetep III, and was venerated in later days as a demigod.  His statue was found with the others by M. Legrain.  Among them is a figure made entirely of green felspar, an unusual material for so large a statuette.  A fine portrait of Thothmes III was also found.  The illustration shows this wonderfully fruitful excavation in progress, with the diggers at work in the black mud soil, in the foreground the basket-boys carrying away the rubbish on their shoulders, and the massive granite walls