Amenhotep III., successor of Thothmes IV., maintained with vigour the supremacy of Egypt both in the north and in the south. He must have been no ordinary sportsman if he speared, as he is said to have done, 102 lions with his own hand in the forest lands of Mesopotamia. His conquests were principally achieved in the south; for the sake of gold quite as much as for increase of territory he carried his arms into the Soudan, and subdued the negro peoples who dwelt beneath its burning sun. But the chief glory of Amenhotep III. was not won by spearing lions in Asia or conquering negroes in Africa; his name is remembered chiefly through his architectural achievements at Thebes. He erected a splendid gate-tower before the great temple at Karnak, and planned the avenue of sphinxes which connected it with another temple which he began at Luxor. To the north and south of the great temple he also built two smaller ones. On the western bank he constructed another and a magnificent temple. [Illustration: AMENHOTEP III. FROM A SCULPTURE IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.] [Illustration: The Colossi at Thebes.] His architect and namesake, Amenhotep, has left some notices of his own life and labours. ‘The king appointed me under secretary. I studied the holy book and beheld the glories of the god Thoth. I was acquainted with the sacred mysteries, and was a master in the art of speech.’ Amenhotep was besides intrusted with the charge of the royal household and the collection of the revenue, and he was commander-in-chief of the king’s forces. All his varied services, however, might have sunk into oblivion for later ages had it not been that in his capacity of chief architect he devised a scheme for immortalising the memory of his royal master by the execution of two portrait statues ‘in noble hard stone for his great building,’ in Western Thebes. These colossal statues were about 60 feet high, and each was cut out of a single block of stone. Amenhotep caused eight ships to be built to convey them down the river; he tells us that all the masons under his direction were full of ardour in the work, and that the safe arrival and landing of the statues at Thebes was a ‘joyful event.’ ‘Every heart,’ he says, ‘was filled with joy, and the people shouted in praise of the king.’ They were raised in their appointed place some little distance in front of the new temple the king had founded on the western side of the river. And he tells us that ‘they made the gate-towers look small. They were wonderful for size and height, and they will last as long as heaven.’