Principal city of Upper Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile, which was the capital of the fourth nome of Upper Egypt and, during much of the Middle and New Kingdoms, of the whole country. Its importance lay in its being the seat of Amon (Amun) and the surviving remains include the impressive temples at Karnak and Luxor as well as the tombs and temples of the cemeteries on the west bank, including the Valley of the Kings, Deir El-Bahri, and the Valley of the Queens. Those mortuary temples and tombs were for kings and high officials from the Middle Kingdom to the end of the Pharaonic period (c 2055-332 BC). In contrast with the practice of earlier times, the pharaohs of this time were buried in carefully concealed rock-cut tombs. The only one surviving looters fairly intact was that of Tutankamun, a comparatively minor ruler of the 18th Dynasty. The height of Theban prosperity was reached in the 14th century BC in the reign of Amenhotep III, much of whose vast wealth from foreign tribute was poured into the temples of Amon. Thebes is also the name of a site in Greece, principal city of Boeotia in the classical and pre-classical periods, with a legendary history that predates the Trojan expedition. The ruined 15th-century-BC Minoan-style palace at Cadmea had frescoes of Theban women in Minoan dress; some Cretan vases also suggest contacts between Thebes and Knossos in the period 1450-1400 BC. Clay tablets confirmed Mycenaean-Minoan links and the discovery of Mesopotamian cylinder seals reinforced the theory that Cadmus introduced writing to Greece. Thebes rivaled Argolís as a center of Mycenaean power until its palace and walls were destroyed shortly before the Trojan War (c 1200 BC). According to tradition, the city was destroyed by the sons of the Seven about whom Aeschylus wrote.