As the new kingdom surpassed the old in power, so did the new capital Thebes eclipse the older Memphis. None of these princes neglected to offer his booty to Ammon of Thebes; from the time of Tuthmosis I. to Ramses III. no king omitted to adorn Thebes with new buildings. The city must have presented a most marvellous appearance when the works of the Tuthmosis and Amenophis, of Sethos, of Ramses II. and III. stood erect and rose up from the earth solid and massive as rocks on either bank of the Nile, while the multitude of obelisks and colossi towered up like a forest of stone. Fancy might imagine that she looked upon a city built by giants. The houses of the people also, though built of brick only, as Diodorus tells us, were three or four stories high. Diodorus fixes the circuit of the city at more than fifteen miles; for us it is still marked by the remains of the temples of Karnak, Luxor, Gurnah, and Medinet Habu.[234] We have spoken above of the buildings erected by Tuthmosis I. and III. at Karnak, and Amenophis III. at Luxor and Medinet Habu. It was Sethos I. who on the west of the oblong court, the gateway, and obelisks of Tuthmosis I. at Karnak, added a hall on the most magnificent scale, the entrance to which is also formed by a gateway. This hall, the most splendid monument of Egyptian architecture, is 320 feet long, and over 160 feet broad; the roof rests on 134 pillars, which on each side towards the north and south form seven naves, each of nine pillars. The central space, supported on either side by six pillars of 12 feet in diameter and 68 feet in height, rises higher than the naves at the side. On the external wall of this hall are displayed the triumphs of Sethos over the Schasu, the Cheta, and the Retennu; there are recorded the campaigns already mentioned against the tribes of Cush, the Punt, and the Naharina. Opposite Karnak, on the left bank of the Nile, north east from the colossi of Amenophis III., at the village of Gurnah, he built a temple to Ammon, and at Abydus a large sanctuary to Osiris.[235]