The exact time of the erection of these two obelisks cannot be determined, as they bear no date, but it must have been in the earlier part of the reign of Thothmes III., which extended from 1591 to 1565 B. C. (according to Lepsius). He ordered them at the quarry in Syene and erected them in front of the temple of the sun in Heliopolis or the Egyptian [glyphs], AN. The site of this once prosperous city is now at the village of Matarîyeh near Cairo, which has no antiquities to boast of, except one erect obelisk of Usertesen I., the only vestige of the famous "City of the Sun". Here the obelisks stood for many centuries amid wonderful surroundings, guarding as it were the entrance to the sanctuary of the deity, to whom they were sacred. [Illustration: Cartouche of Ramses II. "The king of Upper and Lower Egypt, User-Ma-Ra-Sotep-en-Ra, the son of Ra, Amen-Mer-Ra-Meses-Su."] [Illustration: King Ramses II.] They were not allowed to remain intact for a very long time, for a century is an insignificant matter when we deal with Egyptian history. Almost three centuries had passed, when a new conqueror arose, who was emulous of his great predecessor's deeds, and who envied him his renown. This was Ramses II., surnamed "the Great", {37}the "Pharaoh of the Oppression", who reigned from 1388 to 1322 B. C. (according to Lepsius). Not only in his monuments but also in his deeds he carries off equal honors with Thothmes the Great. We find the wars of former days fought over again, and always successfully, and we see his exploits recorded not only on impassive monuments of stone but also in the writings on fragile papyrus. A second Iliad by the poet Pentaûr recalls some wonderful hymns addressed amid the din of battle to his guardian deities, in particular to Amen-Râ, and gives us such a vivid picture of war as to surpass in many respects even old Homer. Ramses' most stubborn opponents were the Kheta (Hittites) with whom he negotiated a most favorable treaty after many years of war. But with all his good qualities he had one great fault, vainglory. Not satisfied with erecting obelisks, stelé, and temples with his name inscribed on them in large letters, and seeing {38}his works recorded over all the known world, he even appropriated the monuments of his predecessors and, though not guilty of erasing their names and substituting his own instead, as Thothmes III. had done on his sister's obelisk and monuments, yet he crowded his name and the story of his deeds within all the available space left uninscribed on these monuments. He had the two outside columns on each side of our obelisk inscribed, leaving to Thothmes III. besides the pyramidion only about one third of the obelisk's surface. This, of course, gave him an advantage over his predecessors, and he thereby saved the large expense and the time that would have been required for quarrying and erecting monuments of his own. He died at an advanced age after having ruled over Egypt for 67 years. His