The only point in the Nile valley where the arrangements of an ancient city are still to be traced is upon the site of the new capital of Amenophis IV., built by him when he deserted Thebes and its god Amen.[19] This city, which owed its existence to royal caprice, seems to have been very soon abandoned. We do not even know the name it bore during its short prosperity, and since its fall the site has never been occupied by a population sufficiently great to necessitate the destruction of its remains. The soil is still covered by the ruins of its buildings. These are always of brick. The plans of a few houses have been roughly ascertained, and the direction of the streets can now be laid down with some accuracy. There is a street parallel to the river, and nearly 100 feet wide; from this, narrower streets branch off at right angles, some of them being hardly broad enough to allow of two chariots passing each other between the houses. The most important quarter of the city was that to the north, in the neighbourhood of the vast quadrangular inclosure which contained the temple of the Solar Disc. In this part of the city the ruins of large houses with spacious courts are to be found. There is, moreover, on the western side of the main street a building which Prisse calls the palace, in which a forest of brick piers, set closely together, may, perhaps, have been constructed in order to raise the higher floors above the damp soil. This question cannot, however, be decided in the present state of our information. The southern quarter of the city was inhabited by the poor. It contains only small houses, crowded together, of which nothing but the outer walls and a few heaps of rubbish remain. [19] The first elements for the _Restoration of an Egyptian House_ which Mariette exhibited in the Universal Exhibition of 1878, were furnished, however, by some remains at Abydos. These consisted of the bases, to the height of about four feet, of the walls of a house. The general plan and arrangement of rooms was founded upon the indications thus obtained; the remainder of the restoration was founded upon bas-reliefs and paintings. The whole was reproduced in the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ of November 1st, 1878, to which M. A. RHONÉ (_L'Égypte Antique_) contributed an analysis of the elements made use of by Mariette in his attempt to reconstruct an Egyptian dwelling. [Illustration: FIG. 11.--Plan of a part of the city at Tell-el-Amarna; from Prisse.]