The greatest element in this civilization was its art. Here, almost at the threshold of history, we find an art powerful and mature, superior to that of any modern nation. At first the luxury of isolation and peace, and then, under Thutmose III and Rameses II, the spoils of oppression and war, gave to Egypt the opportunity and the means for massive architecture, masculine statuary, and a hundred minor arts that so early touched perfection. The whole theory of progress hesitates before Egyptian art.