There can be little doubt that the waste of life upon distant battle-fields, the employment of foreign slave labour, and the luxury born of immense accession of wealth, all combined to produce a demoralisation and a weakening of the Egyptian people in due course of time. For the present, however, all was joy and exultation. The king was never weary of extolling the gods who had shown him such distinguished favour, and their goodwill and his devotion are depicted in every possible way. On one obelisk (the obelisk of the Lateran), we see, _e.g._ the king kneeling and offering wine to Amen-Ra seated on a throne, or adoring the sacred hawk, symbol of Horus, to which he offers flowers, incense, and cakes of white bread. Again, Amen-Ra is seen taking him by the hand in token of his favour and protection, and at a memorial chapel in Nubia, the goddess Isis is represented as about to kiss the Egyptian monarch, whilst in another picture he is seen standing face to face with Sefek, the ‘Lady of Writings.’[37] It is evident, therefore, that it had become customary and familiar to represent the deities, who are but seldom delineated in the pictures and sculptures belonging to the earlier dynasties. They are depicted in various ways. Sometimes it is in human form with some symbol or emblem attached or held in the hand, but very often the head of the deity is represented by that of the animal which, for some reason or other, was his symbol. Thus Horus is seen with a hawk’s head, Thoth with that of an ibis. Isis is delineated not only as a woman, but as a cow, and sometimes as a woman with a cow’s head. The Egyptians never appear to have even attempted to embody the divine majesty or beauty in any statue or picture. But certain objects, animate and inanimate, were regarded as symbolic, and as such were attached to the figures of the gods.[38] Of course they were not intended to be in any sense works of art, which such strange unnatural objects could never be; nor were they regarded as actually representative of the deities, which would have been simply absurd and profane, but they were emblematic signs of the divine attributes and nature, and were understood and recognised as such. In one tablet at Karnak, Thothmes III. is depicted offering wine and incense to his father Amen-Ra, and the accompanying inscription is an heroic poem or hymn which must have been composed towards the close of his victorious reign. In it the god himself recounts all that he has brought to pass on behalf of his ‘son.’ ‘Come to me,’ he says, ‘and rejoice in beholding my favour towards thee, O my son Men-kheper-Ra,[39] thou who livest for evermore! I am glorified by the vows thou renderest; my heart is glad when thou drawest near to my temple; dear unto me is the piety that has set up mine image within my sanctuary.