only remains of a Canaanite fortification which can be
assigned to the Egyptian period are those which Professor
F. I. Petrie brought to light in the ruins of Tell el-Hesy,
and in which he rightly recognised the remains of Lachish.

The records of victories graven on the walls of the Theban temples
furnish, it is true, a general conception of their appearance, but the
notions of them which we should obtain from this source would be of
a very confused character had not one of the last of the conquering
Pharaohs, Ramses III., taken it into his head to have one built at
Thebes itself, to contain within it, in addition to his funerary chapel,
accommodation for the attendants assigned to the conduct of his worship.
In the Greek and Roman period a portion of this fortress was demolished,
but the external wall of defence still exists on the eastern side,
together with the gate, which is commanded on the right by a projection
of the enclosing-wall, and flanked by two guard-houses, rectangular in
shape, and having roofs which jut out about a yard beyond the wall of
support. Having passed through these obstacles, we find ourselves face
to face with a _migdol_ of cut stone, nearly square in form, with two
projecting wings, the court between their loop-holed walls being made to
contract gradually from the point of approach by a series of abutments.
A careful examination of the place, indeed, reveals more than one
arrangement which the limited knowledge of the Egyptians would hardly
permit us to expect. We discover, for instance, that the main body of
the building is made to rest upon a sloping sub-structure which rises to
a height of some sixteen feet.

This served two purposes: it increased, in the first place, the strength
of the defence against sapping; and in the second, it caused the
weapons launched by the enemy to rebound with violence from its inclined
surface, thus serving to keep the assailants at a distance. The whole
structure has an imposing look, and it must be admitted that the royal
architects charged with carrying out their sovereign's idea brought to
their task an attention to detail for which the people from whom the
plan was borrowed had no capacity, and at the same time preserved the
arrangements of their model so faithfully that we can readily realise
what it must have been. Transport this migdol of Ramses III. into Asia,
plant it upon one of those hills which the Canaanites were accustomed to