* See the "Poem of Pentauirit" for the grounds on which
Ramses II. bases his imperative appeal to Araon for help:
"Have I not made thee numerous offerings? I have filled thy
temple with my prisoners. I have built thee an everlasting
temple, and have not spared my wealth in endowing it for
thee; I lay the whole world under contribution in order to
stock thy domain.... I have built thee whole pylons in
stone, and have myself reared the flagstaffs which adorn
them; I have brought thee obelisks from Elephantine."

** The majority of the votive statues were lodged in a
temple "by special favour of a king "--em HOSItu nti KUIr
suton--as a recompense for services rendered. Some only of
the stelae bear an inscription to the above effect, no
authorization from the king was required for the
consecration of a stele in a temple.

*** It was in the encircling passage of the limestone temple
built by the kings of the XIIth dynasty, and now completely
destroyed, that all the Karnak votive statues were
discovered. Some of them still rest on the stone ledge on
which they were placed by the priests of the god at the
moment of consecration.

For this purpose he assigned to them annuities in kind, charges on his
patrimonial estates, or in some cases, if he were a great lord, on the
revenues of his fief,--such as a fixed quantity of loaves and drinks
for each of the celebrants, a fourth part of the sacrificial victim,
a garment, frequently also lands with their cattle, serfs, existing
buildings, farming implements and produce, along with the conditions
of service with which the lands were burdened. These gifts to the
god--"notir hotpuu"--were, it appears, effected by agreements analogous
to those dealing with property in mortmain in modern Egypt; in each
nome they constituted, in addition to the original temporalities of the
temple, a considerable domain, constantly enlarged by fresh endowments.
The gods had no daughters for whom to provide, nor sons among whom to
divide their inheritance; all that fell to them remained theirs for
ever, and in the contracts were inserted imprecations threatening with
terrible ills, in this world and the next, those who should abstract the
smallest portion from them. Such menaces did not always prevent the king
or the lords from laying hands on the temple revenues: had this not been
the case, Egypt woul