Medinet-Habu. Artist: John Beasley Greene (American, active France, 1832-1856). Dimensions: 23.4 x 30.1 cm (9 3/16 x 11 7/8 in.). Date: 1854.From 1852 to 1855 Greene, the first photographer-archaeologist to work and travel in Egypt, concentrated his studies and excavations at Thebes and Deir el-Bahri. At Medinet-Habu (Thebes) he cleaned important inscriptions. This photograph represents a corner of a second courtyard of the temple and depicts the last eighteen lines of the inscription of the year 5 of the reign of the Ramesses III, recounting with effusive praise the king's victories over the peoples to the north.<p>Whether or not we can decipher the writing upon the wall, the message of Greene's picture is clear. In the penumbra behind the massive pylon is the story of a perished people preserved in stone. The velvet shadows of this eggplant-colored print make tangible the millennia between Ramesses' glory and that less distant moment when the young archaeologist contemplated the c