The greatest monarch of this, or perhaps of any, age of Egypt’s history
was Rameses the Great (called by the Greeks, Sesostris). To him have
been attributed many of the monuments and pictures which represent
triumphal processions and captives. Rameses the Great reigned for nearly
seventy years in the fourteenth century before Christ. Among his many
monuments two are chiefly remarkable, the Memnonium or palace-temple at
Thebes, and the great rock-cut temple of Abu-Simbel in Nubia. These
architectural works possess an interest more historical than that of the
pyramids. He is said to have subdued Ethiopia, carried his arms beyond
the Euphrates eastward, and among the Thracians in southeast Europe. The
monumental sculptures and paintings tell us of war-galleys of Egypt in
the Indian seas, and of Ethiopian tribute paid in ebony and ivory and
gold, in apes and birds of prey, and even in giraffes from inner Africa.
Other sculptures display the Egyptians fighting with success against
Asiatic foes. To this monarch was due a vast system of irrigation by
canals for conveying the waters of the Nile to every part of the
country.
The next sovereign of note was Sheshanq (_Shi´shak_), who, in the latter
part of the tenth century before Christ, took and plundered Jerusalem.
The empire continued to decline, and was entirely reduced by Esarhaddon
and Ashurbanipal, and became for a time tributary to the Assyrian
monarchs. In the early part of the reign of the king Psametik I.
(653-610 B. C.)