The old history of Siwa gives a detailed description of the court of the king. The following is a rough translation. “At one period Siwa ranked among the important towns of the Egyptian sovereigns. It was ruled by a king called Meneclush who built a town and cultivated the land. He made the men drill and inaugurated a seven days’ feast in commemoration of his succession. The people of King Meneclush dressed richly and wore golden ornaments. The king lived in a stone and granite palace, and assembled his people in a great square which had four different courts, and in each court there was a statue which caught the sun at different times of the day, and when the sun shone upon the statues they spoke. When the people assembled they stood on seven steps. On the highest step sat the king, below, in succession, the king’s family, priests, astrologers and magicians, generals and courtiers, architects, soldiers, and, below, the people. Each step was inscribed with these words, ‘Look down, not towards the step above, lest ye become proud’—thus inculcating the principle of modesty. The king lived in a palace called Kreibein, inside the walls. In those days there were many buildings in Siwa, spreading from Omm Beyda to Gebel Dakrour. King Meneclush was stabbed by a girl and is buried, with his horse, in the Khazeena, underneath Aghourmi. . . . At a later period Siwa was divided into two parts ruled by two princes called Ferik and Ibrik. Afterwards a queen called Khamissa ruled in Siwa and gave her name to the square hill at the end of the Western lake.” Much of the history is missing, and at times it plunges into descriptions of neighbouring countries, but it is interesting to find mention of “statues that speak” when touched by the sun. As recently as 1837 there was a considerable portion of the smaller temple standing. Travellers described the roof, made of massive blocks of stone, the coloured ceilings, and the walls covered with hieroglyphics and sculptured figures. But the depredations of Arab treasure hunters, and a Turkish Governor who committed an unpardonable vandalism by blowing up the temple with gunpowder in order to obtain stone for building an office, have reduced the once imposing building to a single ruined pylon, or gateway, which towers above the surrounding gardens, a pathetic reminder of its former grandeur. This solitary ruin, and two massive stone gateways almost hidden by mud buildings in the middle of the village of Aghourmi, is all that remains of the temple that was once famous throughout the world. In a way the ruins are symbolic of Siwa which was once a powerful dominion, but is now nothing more than a wretched desert station with three or four thousand degenerate inhabitants.