The fragments of wall and shattered pylon that yet remain standing at the Ramesseum face northwest and southwest. Hence, it follows that some of the most interesting of the surface sculpture (being cut in very low relief) is so placed with regard to the light as to be actually invisible after midday. It was not till the occasion of my last visit, when I came early in the morning to make a certain sketch by a certain light, that I succeeded in distinguishing a single figure of that celebrated tableau,[198] on the south wall of the great hall, in which the Egyptians are seen to be making use of the testudo and scaling-ladder to assault a Syrian fortress. The wall sculptures of the second hall are on a bolder scale and can be seen at any hour. Here Thoth writes the name of Rameses on the egg-shaped fruit of the persea tree and processions of shaven priests carry on their shoulders the sacred boats of various gods. In the center of each boat is a shrine supported by winged genii, or cherubim. The veils over these shrines, the rings through which the bearing-poles were passed and all the appointments and ornaments of the _bari_ are distinctly shown. One seems here, indeed, to be admitted to a glimpse of those original shrines upon which Moses--learned in the sacred lore of the Egyptians--modeled, with but little alteration, his ark of the covenant. Next in importance to Karnak, and second in interest to none of the Theban ruins, is the vast group of buildings known by the collective name of Medinet Habu. To attempt to describe these would be to undertake a task as hopeless as the description of Karnak. Such an attempt lies, at all events, beyond the compass of these pages, so many of which have already been given to similar subjects. For it is of the temples as of the mountains--no two are alike, yet all sound so much alike when described that it is scarcely possible to write about them without becoming monotonous. In the present instance, therefore, I will note only a few points of special interest, referring those who wish for fuller particulars to the elaborate account of Medinet Habu in Murray’s “Hand-book of Egypt.” In the second name of Medinet Habu--Medinet being the common Arabic for city, and Habu, Aboo, or Taboo being variously spelled--there survives almost beyond doubt the ancient name of that famous city which the Greeks called Thebes. It is the name for which many derivations[199] have been suggested, but upon which the learned are not yet agreed. The ruins of Medinet Habu consist of a smaller temple founded by Queen Hatohepsu of the eighteenth dynasty, a large and magnificent temple entirely built by Rameses III of the twentieth dynasty, and an extremely curious and interesting building, part palace, part fortress, which is popularly known as the pavilion.