"The central inscriptions on the four faces of these obelisks were sculptured by the monarch whom we have just described. The lateral inscriptions were added by a king who was, if possible, even more celebrated, namely, Amunmai Rameses II., commonly known by the name of Sesostris, the monarch under whom Upper Egypt rose to its greatest height in arms, in art, and in wealth. It is unnecessary to do more than allude to the fabled history of this monarch; but confining ourselves to the particulars recorded on imperishable monuments of stone, we find that he finished the palace of the Memnonium or Mamunei at Abydos, and also the temple of Osiris, in the same city; and on one of the walls of the latter he carved that list of his forefathers now in the British Museum, which is known by the name of the Tablet of Abydos. At Thebes, besides adding to the buildings of his predecessors, he erected a new palace, which, like that at Abydos, was by the Greeks called the Memnonium. In the first courtyard was a colossal statue of himself, larger than any other in Egypt, and in the second yard were two smaller ones, from one of which was taken the colossal head now in the British Museum. "The two obelisks of Alexandria likewise have the names and titles of some Pharaoh of later times, by whom they may probably have been removed to Memphis; but subsequently the Ptolemies, to embellish their Greco-Egyptian capital, transferred them to Alexandria. In the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when the Alexandrians completed the beautiful temple to his honor named the Sebaste, or Cæsar's Temple, which stood by the side of the harbor, and was surrounded by a sacred grove, ornamented with porticoes, and fitted up with libraries, paintings, and statues,--it being the most lofty building in the city,--they set up in front of this temple the two obelisks of Thothmosis and Rameses, which, like the other monuments of the Theban kings, have outlived all the temples and palaces of their Greek and Roman successors.