Thebes, whose influence and population had meanwhile never lessened, resumed her supremacy undisturbed. If, out of respect for the past, Tutankhamon continued the decoration of the temple of Atonu at Karnak, he placed in every other locality the name and figure of Amon; a little stucco spread over the parts which had been mutilated, enabled the outlines to be restored to their original purity, and the alteration was rendered invisible by a few coats of colour. Tutankhamon was succeeded by the divine father Ai, whom Khuniatonu had assigned as husband to one of his relatives named Tii, so called after the widow of Amenothes III. Ai laboured no less diligently than his predecessor to keep up the traditions which had been temporarily interrupted. He had been a faithful worshipper of the Disk, and had given orders for the construction of two funerary chapels for himself in the mountain-side above Tel el-Amarna, the paintings in which indicate a complete adherence to the faith of the reigning king. But on becoming Pharaoh, he was proportionally zealous in his submission to the gods of Thebes, and in order to mark more fully his return to the ancient belief, he chose for his royal burying-place a site close to that in which rested the body of Amenothes III.* * The first tomb seems to have been dug before his marriage, at the time when he had no definite ambitions; the second was prepared for him and his wife Tii. His sarcophagus, a large oblong of carved rose granite, still lies open and broken on the spot. [Illustration: 111.jpg SARCOPHAGUS OF THE PHARAOH AI] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after the drawing of Prisse d'Avenues. Figures of goddesses stand at the four angles and extend their winged arms along its sides, as if to embrace the mummy of the sovereign. Tutankhamon and Ai were obeyed from one end of Egypt to the other, from Napata to the shores of the Mediterranean. The peoples of Syria raised no disturbances during their reigns, and paid their accustomed tribute regularly;* if their rule was short, it was at least happy. It would appear, however, that after their deaths, troubles arose in the state. The lists of Manetho give two or three princes--Rathotis, Khebres, and Akherres--whose names are not found on the monuments.** It is possible that we ought not to regard them as historical personages, but merely as heroes of popular romance, of the same type as those introduced so freely into the history of the preceding dynasties by the chroniclers of the Saite and Greek periods. They were, perhaps, merely short-lived pretenders who were overthrown one by the other before either had succeeded in establishing himself on the seat of Horus. Be that as it may, the XVIIIth dynasty drew to its close amid strife and quarreling, without our being able to discover the cause of its overthrow, or the name of the last of its sovereigns.***