They devoted all their efforts to beautifying the principal towns of Egypt, and caused important works to be carried on in most of them—­at Karnak, in the great temple of Amon, at Luxor, at Bubastis, at Tanis, at Tell-Mokhdam, and in the sanctuary of Abydos.  At the latter place, Khasoshushri Nofirhotpu restored to Khontamentit considerable possessions which the god had lost; Nozirri sent thither one of his officers to restore the edifice built by Usirtasen I.; Sovkumsauf II. dedicated his own statue in this temple, and private individuals, following the example set them by their sovereigns, vied with each other in their gifts of votive stehe.  The pyramids of this period were of moderate size, and those princes who abandoned the custom of building them were content like Autuabri I. Horu with a modest tomb, close to the gigantic pyramids of their ancestors.  In style the statues of this epoch show a certain inferiority when compared with the beautiful work of the XIIth dynasty:  the proportions of the human figure are not so good, the modelling of the limbs is not so vigorous, the rendering of the features lacks individuality; the sculptors exhibit a tendency, which had been growing since the time of the Usirtasens, to represent all their sitters with the same smiling, commonplace type of countenance.  There are, however, among the statues of kings and private individuals which have come down to us, a few examples of really fine treatment.  The colossal statue of Sovkhotpu IV., which is now in the Louvre side by side with an ordinary-sized figure of the same Pharaoh, must have had a good effect when placed at the entrance to the temple at Tanis:  his chest is thrown well forward, his head is erect, and we feel impressed by that noble dignity which the Memphite sculptors knew how to give to the bearing and features of the diorite Khephren enthroned at Gizeh.  The sitting Mirmashau of Tanis lacks neither energy nor majesty, and the Sovkumsauf of Abydos, in spite of the roughness of its execution, decidedly holds its own among the other Pharaohs.

[Illustration:  414.jpg STATUE OF HARSUF IN THE VIENNA MUSEUM]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Ernest de Bergmann. 
     From Dahshur, now at Gizeh; it has been published in
     Morgan’s Dahshur.

The statuettes found in the tombs, and the smaller objects discovered in the ruins, are neither less carefully nor less successfully treated.  The little scribe at Gizeh, in the attitude of walking, is a chef d’oeuvre of delicacy and grace, and might be attributed to one of the best schools of the XIIth dynasty, did not the inscriptions oblige us to relegate it to the Theban art of the XIIIth.  The heavy and commonplace figure of the magnate now in the Vienna Museum is treated with a rather coarse realism, but exhibits nevertheless most skilful tooling.  It is not exclusively at Thebes, or at Tanis, or in any of the other great cities of Egypt, that we meet