The monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty continued the pious work of the Hyksos whom they had expelled. But the civil disturbances which attended the fall of the dynasty caused injury to the temple, and we find Seti I. and Ramses II. once more restoring it. The kings of the twentieth dynasty have also left memorials in it, but it was under the twenty-second dynasty—the successors of Shishak—that Bubastis reached the highest point of its prosperity. The princes who followed Shishak made the city their capital and its temple their royal chapel. The great festival hall was built by Osorkon II. between the entrance hall and the main court, and the worship of Bast was exclusively installed in it. Temple and city alike underwent but little change down to the days of Herodotos. It was after his visit that the last addition was made to the sacred buildings. With the recovery of Egyptian independence after the successful revolt from Persia came a new era of architectural activity, and Nektanebo I., the first king of the thirtieth dynasty, erected a great hall in the rear of the shrine. After this the history of the temple fades out of view.
Herodotos was told that the height of the mound on which the city of Bubastis stood was an indication of the evil deeds of its inhabitants. Sabako, the Ethiopian conqueror, it was said, had caused the sites of the Egyptian cities to be raised by convict labour, just as they had been previously raised by those who cut the canals under Sesostris. But the whole story was an invention of the dragomen. The disintegration of the crude brick of which the houses of Egypt are built makes them quickly decay and give place to other buildings, which are erected on the mound they have formed. As the city grows in age, so does the _tel_ or mound whereon it stands grow in height, and had Herodotos travelled in Upper Egypt he would have seen the process going on under his eyes. In the Delta, moreover, there was a special cause for the great height of the city-mounds. The water of the inundation percolated through the ground, and in order that the lower floor of a house should be dry, it was necessary to build it on a series of vaults or cellars. A few years ago these vaults were very visible in some of the old houses of Tel-Bast. They had no outlet, either by door or window, and were consequently never employed as store-rooms. Their sole use was to keep the rest of the house dry.