Behind the Libyan hills, which encircle the plain of Western Thebes, is a wild and desolate valley. At its entrance stood a beautiful temple, begun by Seti I. in memory of his father, and completed by Rameses. In the hills surrounding this lonely valley (called by the Arabs _Biban-el-Moluk_, Tombs of the Kings) were the burial-places of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties. In another and an equally dreary valley were the tombs of the queens and princesses of the royal house. Their fate has been a sad one, for the graves have been ruthlessly searched and the mummies torn to pieces in hopes of plunder, and when all of value had been taken, the dishonoured remains of the queens and princesses appear to have been replaced, without care or ceremony, in their rock-hewn tombs, and burned in heaps. The fire thus kindled has calcined the walls of the tombs and sorely damaged the paintings and inscriptions. A few only have escaped; amongst them is a very perfectly preserved portrait of Tai-ti, the beautiful wife of Amenhotep III.[53] The care taken in inspecting, and from time to time removing, the bodies of the kings prevented such wholesale destruction; but little could Thothmes or Rameses have dreamt of the destiny that should befall them. Discovered at last in their final hiding-place, their mummies, together with others of earlier and later date, were conveyed down the sacred stream, and, by a strange irony of fate, are now exhibited amongst other curiosities in a museum. [Illustration: Discovery of Mummies at Deir el Bahari, near Thebes.] FOOTNOTES: [46] See on p. 162. [47] Or Meri-en-Ptah, Seti’s crown name, meaning ‘Beloved of Ptah.’ [48] The Good Being, _i.e._ Osiris. [49] The identification of the name is but doubtful. [50] The ‘Divine Mother,’—worshipped at Thebes with Amen-Ra. [51] Crown name, meaning ‘beloved of Amen.’ [52] For the substance of this and of the foregoing paragraphs, I have been much indebted to _Nile Gleanings_ and to its very interesting illustrations. [53] See _Nile Gleanings_. CHAPTER XI. Thebes; its People, Temples, and Tombs—Close of the Nineteenth Dynasty.