The New Student's Reference Work/Thebes (Egypt)

Thebes (thēbz), a celebrated Egyptian city, stands on the Nile, and anciently was the capital of upper Egypt. Its great ruins fill nine townships. The Nile flows through the city and divides it into four quarters. Thebes was at its height from 1500 to 1000 B. C., when it had supplanted Memphis, the ancient capital of the Pharaohs. This City-of-a-Hundred-Gates, as Homer called it, sent out 20,000 war-chariots, was filled with palaces and temples, and contained the cemeteries of the Theban monarchs. Later the capital was moved to Sais and then to Memphis, and Cambyses, the Persian plundered it of $10,000,000. Alexandria was founded, and so its splendor departed. There are now only a few Arab families of fellahin, who gain a living by guiding travelers about the ruins or by selling articles rifled from the tombs. The ruins are the most famous in Egypt. Among them are the temple of Karnak (q. v.), a mass of obelisks, courts and halls; the Ramesseum (q. v.), built by Rameses II, with a broken colossal statue, the largest in Egypt, of that king, weighing 887½ tons; the vocal statue of King Memnon, supposed in early times to make a sound at sunrise; the cemeteries of the sacred apes; and the Valley of the Tombs of the Queens. See Rawlinson's Story of Ancient Egypt.