these were opened by Belzoni, and were found in great preservation, with
mummies in the sarcophagi, as well as dispersed through the chambers.

Such was ancient Thebes--a city so populous that, according to ancient
writers, in times of war 10,000 soldiers issued from each of her hundred
gates, forming an army of 1,000,000 men. That these magnificent ruins
are the remains of "the city of an hundred gates,"--"the earliest
capital in the world," cannot be doubted. According to the measurements
made by the French, their distance from the sea on the north, is 680,000
metres (850 miles), and from Elephantine on the south, 180,000 metres
(225 miles)--corresponding exactly with the 6,800 and 1,800 stadia of
Herodotus. The circumference of the ruins is about 15,000 metres (17½
miles), agreeing with the 140 stadia given by Diodorus as the
circumference of Thebes. The origin of the name of this celebrated city,
as well as the date of its foundation, is unknown. According to
Champollion, who deciphered many of the inscriptions on these ruins, the
Egyptian name was _Thbaki-antepi-Amoun_ (City of the Most High), of
which the _No-Ammon_ of the Hebrews and _Diospolis_ of the Greeks are
mere translations; _Thebæ_, of the Greeks is also perhaps derived from
the Egyptian _Thbaki_ (the city).




THE TEMPLE OF CARNAC.


The largest of the temples of Thebes, and of any in Egypt, is that of
Carnac, on the site of the ancient Diospolis. Diodorus describes it as
thirteen stadia, or about a mile and a half in circumference, which