The Ramesseum at Thebes, Sunset

Of all the monuments that he saw in Egypt, it was the Ramesseum, the ruined mortuary temple build by Ramesses II, that impressed William James Müller the most. He saw it in a storm when the ‘lightening lit up the immense statues which are as pilasters to the building. They became for a second visible and then vanished… like spirits of the desert’. On the right are the shattered remains of a colossal granite statue of Ramesses II which stood over 50 feet high.