458 Themistocles The ancient city of Thebes lay to the east of the great temple of Karnak As the temple expanded, the city had to move of the Twelfth Dynasty (1985–1795 b.c.e.) made it the capital of Upper Egypt At the end of the Second Intermediate Period (1650– 1550 b.c.e.), the local Theban princely family drove the Hyksos from Egypt and reunited the “Two Lands.” This inaugurated the New Kingdom, the time of Thebes’s greatest glory and that of Amun, its god The Eighteenth Dynasty (1570–1293 b.c.e.) ruled from Thebes, with the brief exception of Akhenaten (1350–44 b.c.e.) The rulers of this dynasty built extensively at Thebes The present temple of Amun at Karnak was begun at this time and endowed, enlarged, and embellished right down to the Greco-Roman period The pharaohs of the Nineteenth Dynasty (1293–1185 b.c.e.) moved their capital to the eastern Delta, but Thebes remained a prestigious religious center and burial site Power inevitably passed into the hands of the high priests of Amun, who controlled a huge clerical corporation that owned land all over Egypt By the end of the New Kingdom (1069 b.c.e.) the priesthood of Amun controlled two-thirds of all temple lands and 90 percent of Nile shipping Thebes was sacked and looted by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in 664 b.c.e By this time the importance of the city even as a religious site had begun to diminish as successive foreign conquests, Persian, Greek and Roman, forced Egypt to look north to the Mediterranean On the east bank of the Nile stand the temples of Amun at Karnak and Luxor The site at Karnak includes the temple of Amun, the temple of Mut (the Mother), his wife, and the temple of their son Khonsu, a moon god To the north of the precinct of Amun sits the temple of Montu, the old falcon war god of Thebes At the south, at the end of an avenue of sphinxes, is the temple at Luxor This is dedicated to Amun in his fertility aspect: It was called the “Place of Seclusion.” It was the destination of the Theban Triad at the “Beautiful Festival of Opet,” celebrated in the second month of the Inundation Statues of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu were placed on their barques, loaded onto barges, and towed amid scenes of great jubilation from Karnak to Luxor Thebes of the dead on the west bank is a rich archaeological site At Deir el-Bahri, the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut preserves the illustrated record of the expedition to the fabled land of Punt that she ordered There are several well-preserved mortuary temples including that of Ramses III at Medinet Habu The Valley of the Kings contains the famous tomb of Tutankhamun, the tomb of Ramses VI with its astronomical ceiling, and that of Thutmose III The Valley of the Queens holds the magnificently restored tomb of Ramses II’s chief wife, Nefertari Any Theban palaces, built of mud brick, have long since vanished Even the grand palace of the opulent Amenophis III at Malqata on the west bank has disappeared However, the site of the craftsmen and artisans’ village at Deir el-Medina and their tombs opens a window into the lives and hopes of ordinary Egyptians See also Egypt, culture and religion; Old Kingdom, Egypt Further reading: Clayton, Peter A Chronicles of the Pharaohs London: Thames and Hudson, 1998; Romer, John Ancient Lives: Daily Life in Egypt of the Pharaohs New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984; Siliotti, Alberto Guide of the Valley of the Kings New York: Barnes and Noble, 1997; Strudwick, Nigel and Helen Thebes in Egypt Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999 John Barclay Burns Themistocles (c 524–459 b.c.e.) statesman and general Themistocles was a great Athenian statesman and general who played an important role in the Second Persian War by leading the Greeks to victory Born to an Athenian father, Neocles, and what seems to have been a foreign mother, Themistocles demonstrated great potential from an early age He is said to have spent his leisure time in youth composing and performing mock speeches, unlike other children who remained idle or engaged in play An early teacher of Themistocles told him the following: “there is going to be nothing insig-