It also preserved from destruction the very wall upon which it was depicted.

At the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty, it was thought that two or three such amulets sufficed to compass the desired effect; but at a later period it was believed that their number could not be too freely multiplied, and the walls were covered with as many as the surface would contain.

An average chamber of Edfu or Denderah yields more material for study than the hypostyle hall of Karnak; and the chapel of Antoninus Pius at Philae, had it been finished, would have contained more scenes than the sanctuary of Luxor and the passages by which it is surrounded.
Observing the variety of subjects treated on the walls of any one temple, one might at first be tempted to think that the decoration does not form a connected whole, and that, although many series of scenes must undoubtedly contain the development of an historic idea or a religious dogma, yet that others are merely strung together without any necessary link.

At Luxor, and again at the Ramesseum, each face of the pylon is a battle-field on which may be studied, almost day for day, the campaign of Rameses II.

against the Kheta, which took place in the fifth year of his reign.