* This designation, which is met with at Medinet-Habu and in the Anmtasi Papyrus I., was shown by E. de Rouge to refer to Ramses II.; the various readings Sesu, Sesusu, Sesusturi, explain the different forms Sesosis, Sesoosis, Sesostris. Wiedemann saw in this name the mention of a king of the XVIIIth dynasty not yet classified. According to tradition, he was at first sent to Ethiopia with a fleet of four hundred ships, by which he succeeded in conquering the coasts of the Red Sea as far as the Indus. In later times several stelae in the cinnamon country were ascribed to him. He is credited after this with having led into the east a great army, with which he conquered Syria, Media, Persia, Bactriana, and India as far as the ocean; and with having on his return journey through the deserts of Scythia reached the Don [Tanais], where, on the shore of the Masotic Sea, he left a number of his soldiers, whose descendants afterwards peopled Colchis. It was even alleged that he had ventured into Europe, but that the lack of provisions and the inclemency of the climate had prevented him from advancing further than Thrace. [Illustration: 246.jpg STATUE OF KHAMOISIT] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a statue in the British Museum. He returned to Egypt after an absence of nine years, and after having set up on his homeward journey statues and stelae everywhere in commemoration of his victories. Herodotus asserts that he himself had seen several of these monuments in his travels in Syria and Ionia. Some of these are of genuine Egyptian manufacture, and are to be attributed to our Ramses; they are to be found near Tyre, and on the banks of the Nahr el-Kelb, where they mark the frontier to which his empire extended in this direction. Others have but little resemblance to Egyptian monuments, and were really the work of the Asiatic peoples among whom they were found. The two figures referred to long ago by Herodotus, which have been discovered near Ninfi between Sardis and Smyrna, are instances of the latter. [Illustration: 247.jpg STELE OF THE NAHR EL-KELB] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. The shoes of the figures are turned up at the toe, and the head-dress has more resemblance to the high hats of the people of Asia Minor than to the double crown of Egypt, while the lower garment is striped horizontally in place of vertically. The inscription, moreover, is in an Asiatic form of writing, and has nothing Egyptian about it. Ramses II. in his youth was the handsomest man of his time. He was tall and straight; his figure was well moulded--the shoulders broad, the arms full and vigorous, the legs muscular; the face was oval, with a firm and smiling mouth, a thin aquiline nose, and large open eyes. [Illustration: 248.jpg THE BAS-BELIEF OF NINFI] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. [Illustration: 249.jpg THE COFFIN AND MUMMY OF RAMSES II]