never completely lost the technical knowledge of their calling, and the ancient buildings furnished them with various types of models, which they had but to copy faithfully in order to revive their old traditions.  A few years after this revival a new school sprang up, whose originality became daily more patent, and whose leaders soon showed themselves to be in no way inferior to the masters of the older schools.  Ahmosis could not be accused of ingratitude to the gods; as soon as his wars allowed him the necessary leisure, he began his work of temple-building.  The accession to power of the great Theban families had been of little advantage to Thebes itself.  Its Pharaohs, on assuming the sovereignty of the whole valley, had not hesitated to abandon their native city, and had made Heracleopolis, the Fayum or even Memphis, their seat of government, only returning to Thebes in the time of the XIIIth dynasty, when the decadence of their power had set in.  The honour of furnishing rulers for its country had often devolved on Thebes, but the city had reaped but little benefit from the fact; this time, however, the tide of fortune was to be turned.

[Illustration:  130.jpg PAINTING IN TOMB OF THE KINGS THEBES]

The other cities of Egypt had come to regard Thebes as their metropolis from the time when they had learned to rally round its princes to wage war against the Hyksos.  It had been the last town to lay down arms at the time of the invasion, and the first to take them up again in the struggle for liberty.  Thus the Egypt which vindicated her position among the nations of the world was not the Egypt of the Memphite dynasties.  It was the great Egypt of the Amenemhaits and the Usirtasens, still further aggrandised by recent victories.  Thebes was her natural capital, and its kings could not have chosen a more suitable position from whence to command effectually the whole empire.  Situated at an equal distance from both frontiers, the Pharaoh residing there, on the outbreak of a war either in the north or south, had but half the length of the country to traverse in order to reach the scene of action.  Ahmosis spared no pains to improve the city, but his resources did not allow of his embarking on any very extensive schemes; he did not touch the temple of Amon, and if he undertook any buildings in its neighbourhood, they must have been minor edifices.  He could, indeed, have had but little leisure to attempt much else, for it was not till the XXIInd year of his reign that he was able to set seriously to work.*

* In the inscription of the year XXII., Ahmosis expressly states that he opened new chambers in the quarries of Turah for the works in connection with the Theban Amon, as well as for those of the temple of the Memphite Phtah.

An opportunity then occurred to revive a practice long fallen into disuse under the foreign kings, and to set once more in motion an essential part of the machinery of Egyptian administration.  The quarries