CHAPTER III.

SCULPTURE.

§ 1. _The Origin of Statue-making._

The art of imitating living forms by means of sculpture was no less

ancient in Egypt than architecture. We do not mean to say that it

already existed in those remote ages when the first ancestors of the

Egyptian people built their mud cabins upon the banks of the Nile; but

as soon as their dwellings became something more than mere shelters

and began to be affected by the desire for beauty, the figures of men

and animals took a considerable place in their decoration. The oldest

mastabas that have been discovered have bas-reliefs upon their walls

and statues in their mummy-pits.

The existence of these statues and their relative perfection show that

sculpture had advanced with strides no less rapid than those of the

sister art. It may even be said that its progress had been greater

than that of architecture. Given the particular kind of expressive

beauty which formed the ambition of the Egyptian sculptor, he produced

masterpieces as early as the time of the Pyramid builders. We cannot

say as much of the architect. The latter showed himself, indeed, a

master in the mechanical processes of dressing and fixing stone, but

the arrangement of his buildings was simple, we might say elementary,

and many centuries had to pass before he had become capable of

imagining and creating the sumptuous temples of the New Empire, with

those ample porticos and great hypostyle halls which were the

culminating achievements of Egyptian architecture.

In order to explain this curious inequality we need not inquire which

of the two arts presents the fewest difficulties. It is with nations

as with individuals. Some among them succeed with ease in matters

which embarrass their neighbours. It is a question of circumstances,

of natural qualifications, and of surroundings. Among the Egyptians

the progress of sculpture was accelerated by that national belief in a

posthumous life for the body which we have described in connection

with their funerary architecture. By the existence of this constant

and singular belief we may explain both the early maturity of Egyptian

sculpture and the great originality of their most ancient style.

We have already described the arrangements which were necessary to

enable the inhabitant of the tomb to resist annihilation. Those

arrangements were of two kinds, a provision of food and drink, which

had to be constantly renewed, either in fact or by the magic

multiplication which followed prayer, and a permanent support for the

_ka_ or double, a support that should fill the place of the living

body of which it had been deprived by dissolution. This support was

afforded to some extent by the mummy; but the mummy was liable to be

destroyed or to perish by the action of time. The Egyptians were led

to provide against such a catastrophe by the invention of the funerary

statue. In the climate of Egypt, stone, and even wood, had far better

chances of duration than the most carefully embalmed body. Statues had

the additional advantage that they could be multiplied at will. There

was nothing to prevent ten, twenty, any number of them, being placed

in a tomb.[170] If but one of these images survived all the accidents

of time, the _double_ would be saved from that annihilation to which

it would otherwise be condemned.

[170] The _serdabs_ of the tomb of Ti contained twenty, only one

of which was recovered uninjured. MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée de

Boulak_, No. 24.

Working under the impulse of such an idea, the sculptor could not fail

to do his best to endow his statue with the characteristic features of

the original. "It is easy, then, to understand why those Egyptian

statues which do not represent gods are always portraits of some

individual, executed with all the precision of which the artists were

capable. They were not ideal figures to which the desire for beauty of

line and expression had much to say, they were stone bodies, bodies

which had to reproduce all the individual contours of their

flesh-and-blood originals. When the latter was ugly, its reproduction

had to be ugly also, and ugly in the same way. If these principles

were disregarded the double would be unable to find the support which

was necessary to it."[171]

[171] MASPERO, in Rayet's _Monuments de l'Art Antique_.

The first Egyptian statue was not so much a work of art as a cast from

nature. If photography had been invented in the time of Menes,

photographers would have made their fortunes in Egypt. Those

sun-portraits, which are supposed to present a perfect resemblance,

would have been put in the tomb of a deceased man in hundreds. Wanting

such things, they were contented to copy his figure faithfully in

stone or wood. His ordinary attitude, his features and costume, were

imitated with such scrupulous sincerity that the serdabs were filled

with faithful duplicates of himself. To obtain such a likeness the

artist cannot have trusted to his memory. His employer must have sat

before him, the stone body must have been executed in presence of him

whose immortality it had to ensure. In no other way could those

effigies have been produced whose iconic character is obvious at first

sight, effigies to which a contemporary would have put a name without

the slightest hesitation.

This individuality is not, however, equally well preserved in all

Egyptian sculpture, a remark which applies to the early dynasties as

well as to the later ones, though not in the same degree. In those

early ages the beliefs which led the Egyptian to inclose duplicates of

his own body in his last resting-place were more powerful over his

spirit, and the artist had to exert himself to satisfy the

requirements of his employers in the matter of fidelity. Again, those

centuries had not to struggle against such an accumulation of

precedents and fixed habits, in a word, against so much

conventionality as those which came after. There were no formulæ,

sanctioned by long custom, to relieve the artist from the necessity

for original thought and continual reference to nature; he was

compelled to make himself acquainted both with the general features of

his race and those of his individual employers. This necessity gave

him the best possible training. Portraiture taken up with intelligence

and practised with a passionate desire for truth has always been the

best school for the formation of masters in the plastic arts.

In those early centuries, then, Egypt produced a few statues which

were masterpieces of artistic expression, which were admirable

portraits. In all countries, however, great works are rare. The

sepulchral statues were far from being all equal in value to those of

the Sheik-el-Beled, of Ra-Hotep from Meidoum, or of the scribe in the

Louvre. This intelligent and scientific interpretation of nature was

not reached at a bound; Egyptian sculpture had its archaic period as

well as that of Greece.

Moreover, even when the art had come to maturity, there was, as in

other countries a crowd of mediocre artists whose work was to be

obtained at a cost smaller than that of the eminent men whom they

surrounded. The leading sculptors were fully employed by the kings and

great lords, by ministers and functionaries of high rank: their less

able brethren worked for that great class of functionaries of the

second order, who composed what may be called the Egyptian middle

class. It is probable too, that, although his work was to be hidden in

the darkness of the serdab, the artist took more care in reproducing

the features of a great personage whose appearance might be known from

one end of the Nile valley to the other, than when employed by some

comparatively humble individual. Before descending into the tomb, the

statue must for a time have been open to inspection, and its creator

must have had the chance of receiving those praises which neither poet

nor artist has been able to do without, from the days of Memphis to

those of Modern Europe.

In most cases, however, he had to reproduce the features and contours

of some obscure but honest scribe, some insignificant unit among the

thousands who served Cheops or Chephren; and his conscience was more

easily satisfied. If we pass in review those limestone figures which

are beginning to be comparatively common in our museums, we receive

the impression that many among them bear only a general resemblance to

their originals; they preserve the Egyptian type of feature, the

individual marks of sex and age, the costume, the familiar attitude,

and the attributes and accessories required by custom, and that is

all. It may even be that, like a certain category of funerary steles

among the Greeks of a later age, these inferior works were bought in

shops ready carved and painted, and that the mere inscription of a

name was supposed to give them that iconic character upon which so

much depended. A name indeed is not always found upon these images,

but it is always carved upon the tombs in which they were placed, and

its appearance there was sufficient to consecrate the statues and all

other contents of the sepulchre to the support of the double to which

it belonged. Whether it was copied from a sitter or bought ready-made,

the statue became from the moment of its consecration an auxiliary

body for the double. It preserved more of the appearance of life than

the corpse saturated with mineral essences and hidden under countless

bandages; the half-open smiling lips seemed about to speak, and the

eyes, to which the employment of enamel and polished metal give a

singular brilliance, seemed instinct with life.

The first statues produced by the Egyptians were sepulchral in

character, and in the intentions both of those who made them and of

those who gave the commissions, they were portraits, executed with

such fidelity that the double should confidingly attach himself to

them and not feel that he had been despoiled of his corporeal support.

As the power and wealth of the Egyptians grew, their artistic

aspirations grew also. They rose by degrees to the conception of an

ideal, but even when they are most visibly aiming at grandeur of style

the origin of their art may still be divined; in their happiest and

most noble creations the persistent effect of their early habits of

thought and belief is still to be surely traced.

§ 2. _Sculpture under the Ancient Empire._

The most ancient monument of sculpture to which we can assign, if not

a date, at least a chronological place in the list of Egyptian kings,

is a rock-cut monument in the peninsula of Sinai. This is in the

Wadi-maghara, and represents Snefrou, the last monarch of the third

dynasty, destroying a crouching barbarian with his mace. In spite of

its historic importance, we refrain from producing this bas-relief

because its dilapidated state takes away its interest from an artistic

point of view.[172]

[172] All the monuments in the Wadi-maghara are figured in the

_Denkmæler_ of LEPSIUS (part ii. plates 2, 39, and 61); casts of

them have also been made.

There are, besides, other statues in existence to which egyptologists

ascribe a still greater age. The Louvre contains three before which

the historian of art must halt for a moment.

Two of these are very much alike, and bear the name of a personage

called Sepa, who enjoyed the style and dignity of _prophet and priest

of the white bull_. The third is the presentment of Nesa, who is

called a relation of the king, and was, in all probability, the wife

of Sepa (Fig. 172). These statues were of soft limestone. Both man and

woman have black wigs with squared ends, which descend, in the case of

the former, to the shoulders, in that of the latter, to the breasts.

Sepa holds a long staff in his left hand, and in his right the sceptre

called _pat_, a sign of authority. His only robe is a plain _schenti_,

a kind of cotton breeches fastened round his waist by a band. His

trunk and legs are bare, and the latter are only half freed from the

stone in which they are carved. Nesa is dressed in a long chemise with

a triangular opening between the breasts. Upon her arms she has

bracelets composed of twelve rings. In each figure the wig, the

pupils, eyelids, and eyebrows, are painted black, while there is a

green stripe under the eyes. The bracelets are also green.

De Rougé asserted boldly that these were the oldest statues in the

world.[173] He believed them to date from the third dynasty, and his

successors do not think he exaggerated; they would perhaps give the

works in question an even more venerable age.

[173] _Notice des Monuments exposés dans la Galerie d'Antiquités

Égyptiennes, Salle du Rez-de-chaussé et Palier de l'Escalier_,

1875, p. 26.

This impression of great antiquity is not caused by the short

inscriptions on the plinths. The well-carved hieroglyphs which compose

them are in relief, but this peculiarity is found in monuments of the

fourth and fifth dynasties. The physiognomies and general style of the

figures are much more significant. They betray an art whose aims and

instincts are well developed, although it has not yet mastered its

mechanical processes. The sculptor knows thoroughly what he wants, but

his hand still lacks assurance and decision. He has set out upon the

way which will be trodden with ever-increasing firmness by his

successors. He follows nature faithfully. Observe how frankly the

breadth of Sepa's shoulders is insisted upon, how clearly the

collar-bones and the articulations of the knees are marked. The

rounded contours of Nesa's thighs betray the same sincerity. And yet

there is a certain timidity and awkwardness in the group which becomes

clearly perceptible when we compare it with works in its neighbourhood

which date from the fifth dynasty. The workmanship lacks freedom, and

the modelling is over-simplified. The arms, which elsewhere are laid

upon the knees, or, in the case of the woman, passed round the neck

of her husband, are too rigid. One is held straight down by the body,

the other is bent at a right angle across the stomach. The pose is

stiff, the placid features lack expression and will.

[Illustration: FIG. 172.--Sepa and Nesa, Louvre. Four feet eight

inches high.]

The induction to which we have been led by the style of these figures

is confirmed by an observation made during recent explorations in the

necropolis of Memphis. The patch of green paint under the eyes has, as

yet, only been found in statues from a certain peculiar class of tombs

at Gizeh and Sakkarah. These are chambers cut in the rock, in which

the roofs are carved into imitations of timber ceilings of palm wood.

Some of the texts which have been found in them contain the name of a

king whose chronological place has not yet been satisfactorily

determined, but who seems to have been anterior to Snefrou. The

figures upon which the adornment in question occurs would appear

therefore to be contemporary with the oldest tombs in the

neighbourhood of the pyramids.[174]

[174] The Boulak Museum also contains specimens of these

figures. See _Notice_, Nos. 994 and 995.

[Illustration: RA-HOTEP AND NEFERT

BOULAK MUSEUM

Imp. Ch. Chardon]

Progress was rapid between the end of the third dynasty and that of

the fourth. It was during the latter dynasty that the art of the

Ancient Empire produced its masterpieces. Mariette attributes the two

famous statues found in a tomb near the pyramid of Meidoum to the

reign of Snefrou, the predecessor of Cheops. They are exhibited, under

glass, in the Boulak Museum (Plate IX).[175]

[175] _Notice des principaux Monuments exposés à Boulak_, No.

973. These figures were discovered in January, 1872. They had a

narrow escape of being destroyed by the pickaxes of the

superstitious fellaheen. Mariette fortunately arrived just in

time to prevent the outrage. _Recueil de Travaux_, vol. i. p.

160.

"One of them represents Ra-hotep, a prince of the blood, who enjoyed

the dignity of general of infantry, a very rare title under the

Ancient Empire; the other is a woman, Nefert, _the beauty_; her statue

also informs us that she was related to the king. We do not know

whether she was the wife or sister of Ra-hotep. The interest excited

by the extreme beauty of these figures is increased by our certainty

of their prodigious antiquity. In the mastaba where they were found

everything is frankly archaic, everything is as old as the oldest of

the tombs at Sakkarah, and those date from before the fourth dynasty.

A neighbouring tomb which, as is proved by the connection between

their structures, dates from the same period as that of Ra-hotep, is

that of a functionary attached to the person of Snefrou I. We may,

therefore, fairly assign the two statues from Meidoum to the last

reign of the third dynasty."[176]

[176] MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, p. 47.

Each of these figures, with its chair-shaped seat, is carved from a

single block of limestone about four feet high. The man is almost

nude; his only dress is a ribbon about his neck, and white breeches

like those to which we have already alluded. The woman is robed in the

long chemise, open between the breasts, which we have seen upon Nesa.

Besides this a wide and richly designed necklace spreads over her

chest. Upon her head she has a square-cut black wig, which, however,

allows her natural hair to be visible in front. Over the wig she has a

low flat cap with a decorated border. The carnations of the man are

brownish red, those of the woman light yellow.

These statues betray an art much more advanced than that of Sepa and

Nesa. The pose is much easier and more natural, but the right arm of

Ra-hotep is stiff and held in a fashion which would soon cause cramp

in a living man. The modelling of the body is free and true, though

without much knowledge or subtlety. The breasts, arms, and legs of

Nefert are skilfully suggested under her robe. But the care of the

sculptor has been mainly given to the heads. By means of chisel and

paint-brush he has given them an individuality which is not readily

forgotten. The arched eyebrows surmount large well-opened eyes; the

eyelids seem to be edged with heavy lashes and to stand out well from

the eyeball. In the case of the latter the limestone has retained its

primitive whiteness, giving a strong contrast with the pupil and iris

(Fig. 173). The noses, especially that of Ra-hotep are fine and

pointed; the thick but well-drawn lips seem about to speak. Her smooth

cheeks and soft dark eyes, eyes which are still common among the women

of the East, give Nefert a very attractive look. Her smiling and

restful countenance is in strong contrast to that of Ra-hotep, which

is full of life and animation not unmingled with a little hardness.

[Illustration: FIG. 173.--Ra-hotep. Drawn by Bourgoin.]

The longer we look at these figures the less ready are we to turn away

from them. They are portraits, and portraits of marvellous sincerity.

If they could be gifted with life to-morrow, if we could encounter

Ra-hotep and Nefert working under the sun of Egypt, the man semi-nude,

sowing the grain or helping to make an embankment, his companion robed

in the long blue chemise of the fellah women and balancing a pitcher

upon her head, we should know them at once and salute them by name as

old acquaintances. We find none of the marks of inexperience and

archaism which are so conspicuous in the statues of Sepa and Nesa. A

few later figures may seem to us more delicately modelled and more

full of detail, but taking them all in all, we cannot look upon these

statues as other than the creations of a mature art, of an art which

was already in full command of its resources, and of a sculptor who

had a well-marked personal and original style of his own.

We find the same qualities in another group of monuments ascribed by

Mariette to no less remote a period.[177] The same eye for proportion,

the same life-like expression, the same frankness and confidence of

hand are to be found in those sculptured wooden panels of which the

museum at Boulak possesses four fine examples. They were found at

Sakkarah in the tomb of a personage called Hosi, where they were

enframed in four blind doorways. They are on the average about 3 feet

10 inches high and 1 foot 8 inches wide. The drawings which we

reproduce give a good idea of the peculiarities of style and execution

by which they are distinguished (Figs. 174-176).[178]

[177] "According to all appearance these panels date from before

the reign of Cheops." _Notices des principaux Monuments_, etc.

Nos. 987-92.

[178] There is a panel of the same kind in the Louvre (_Salle

Historique_, No. 1 of Pierret's _Catalogue_), but it is neither

so firm, nor in such good preservation as those at Cairo.

At first sight these carvings are a little embarrassing to the eye

accustomed to works in stone. The type of figure presented is less

thickset. The body, instead of being muscular, is nervous and wiry.

The arms and legs are thin and long. In the head especially do we find

unaccustomed features; the nose, instead of being round, is strongly

aquiline; the lips, instead of being thick and fleshy, as in almost

all other Egyptian heads, are thin and compressed. The profile is

strongly marked and rather severe. The general type is Semitic rather

than Egyptian. And yet the inscriptions which surround them prove that

the originals were pure Egyptians of the highest class. One of them,

he who is represented standing in two different attitudes, is Ra-hesi;

the other, who is sitting before a table of offerings, bears the name

of Pekh-hesi. The decipherable part of the inscription tells us that

he was a scribe, highly placed, and in great favour with the king.

The tomb in which these panels were found was not built on the usual

plan of the mastaba. Mariette alludes to certain peculiarities which

are to be found in it, but he does not describe them in detail. The

hieroglyphs are grouped in a peculiar fashion; many of them are of a

very uncommon form. The arrangement of the objects borne in the left

hand of Ra-hesi is quite unique. Struck by these singularities,

Mariette asserts that "the style of these panels is to Egyptian art

what the style called archaic is to that of Greece."[179] This

assertion seems to us inaccurate. Not that we mean to contest the

validity of the reasons which Mariette gives for ascribing these

panels to an epoch anterior to the great pyramids; but, whatever may

be their age, it seems to be impossible, in view of the style in which

they are executed, to call them archaic. They show no more archaism

than the statues of Meidoum. The Egyptian artist never carved wood

with greater decision or with more subtlety and finesse than are to be

seen in these panels. As for the differences of execution which have

been noticed between these figures and the stone statues of the same

epoch, they may easily be explained by the change of material and by

the Egyptian love for fidelity of imitation. Wood is not attacked in

the same fashion as soft stone. Its constitution does not lend itself

to the ample and rounded forms of lapidary sculpture. It demands,

especially when a low relief is used, a more delicate and subtle

modelling. Again, these were portraits; all the Egyptians were not

like one another, especially in that primitive Egypt in which perhaps

various races had not yet been blended into a homogeneous population.

Among the contemporaries of Cheops, as in our day, there were fat

people and thin people. Men who were tall and slender, and men who

were short and thickset. Countenances varied both in features and

expression.[180] In time art succeeded in evolving from all these

diversities a type of Egyptian manhood and beauty. As the ages passed

away the influence of that type became more and more despotic. It

became almost universal, except in those cases where there was a rigid

obligation to reproduce the personal characteristics of an individual

with fidelity. But at the end of the third dynasty that consummation

was still far off. And we need feel no surprise that the higher we

mount in the stream of Egyptian civilization the more particular are

the concrete images which it offers to us, and the more striking the

variation between one work of art and another.

[179] MARIETTE, _La Galerie de l'Égypte Ancienne au Trocadéro_,

1878, p. 122.

[180] Thus we find in a tomb which, according to Lepsius, dates

from the fourth dynasty, certain thickset sculptured forms,

which contrast strongly with figures taken from mastabas in the

same neighbourhood, at Gizeh. The body is short, the legs heavy

and massive. LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part ii. pl. 9.

It must not be supposed, however, that the features which we have

mentioned as peculiar in the cases of Ra-hesi and Pekh-hesi are not to

be found elsewhere. If we examine the profile of Nefert, still more

that of Ra-hotep, we shall find that they also have the sloping

forehead and aquiline nose. The body of Ra-hotep is rounder and fatter

than those in the wooden reliefs, but the lines of his countenance

have a strong resemblance to those which have excited remark in the

figures on the panels.

[Illustration: FIG. 174.--Wooden panel from the Tomb of Hosi. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

In the case of a limestone head, covered with red paint, which stands

in the _Salle Civile_, in the Louvre, the cranium is no less

elongated, the cheekbones are no less large, the cheeks themselves are

as hollow, the chin as protuberant, and the whole head as bony and

fleshless. We do not know whence it came, but we have no hesitation in

agreeing with De Rougé, Mariette, and Maspero, that this head is a

masterpiece from one of the early dynasties. It may be put by the side

of the Meidoum couple for its vitality and individual expression. The

unknown original must have been ugly almost to vulgarity, but it

rouses in the spectator the same kind of admiration as a Tuscan bust

of the fifteenth century, and a pleasure which is not diminished by

the knowledge that the man whose faithful image is under his eyes

passed from the world some five or six thousand years ago (Fig. 177).

The little figure which occupies the place of honour in this same

saloon (Plate X.), though more famous, is hardly superior to the

fragment just described. It was found by Mariette in the tomb of

Sekhem-ka, during his excavation of the Serapeum. Other figures of the

same kind were found with it, but are hardly equal to it in merit.

They are believed to date from the fifth or sixth dynasty.

This scribe is seated, cross-legged, in an attitude still familiar to

those who have visited the East. The most superficial visitor to the

Levant must have seen, in the audience-hall of the _cadi_ or _pacha_,

the _kiatib_ crouching exactly in the same fashion before the chair or

divan, registering sentences with his rapid _kalem_, or writing out

despatches. Our scribe is listening; his thin and bony features are

vibrating with intelligence; his black eye-balls positively sparkle;

his mouth is only closed because respect keeps him silent. His

shoulders are high and, square, his chest ample, his pectoral muscles

very large. People who follow a very sedentary occupation generally

put on much fat on the front of their bodies, and this scribe is no

exception to the rule. His arms are free of his sides; their position

is easy and natural. One hand holds a strip of papyrus upon which he

writes with the other, his pen being a reed. The lower parts of the

body and the thighs are covered with a pair of drawers, whose

white colour contrasts with the brownish red of the carnations. The

breadth and truth with which the knee-joints are indicated should be

remarked. The only details that have, to a certain extent, been

"scamped," are the feet. Trusting to their being half hidden by the

folded legs, the sculptor has left them in a very rudimentary

condition.

[Illustration: THE SCRIBE

(LOUVRE)

Imp. Dufrenoy]

[Illustration: FIG. 175.--Wooden panel from the Tomb of Hosi. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

The eyes form the most striking feature in this figure. "They consist

of an iris of rock crystal surrounding a metal pupil, and set in an

eyeball of opaque white quartz. The whole is framed in continuous

eyelids of bronze."[181]

[181] DE ROUGÉ, _Notice sommaire des Monuments Égyptiens_, 1865,

p. 68.

This clever contrivance gives singular vitality and animation to the

face. Even the Grecian sculptor never produced anything so vivacious.

The latter, indeed began by renouncing all attempts to imitate the

depth and brilliancy of the human eye. His point of departure differed

entirely from that of his Memphite predecessor; his conception of his

art led him, where the Egyptian would have used colour, to be content

with the general characteristics of form and with its elevation to the

highest pitch of nobility of which it was capable. This is not the

place for a comparison of the two systems, but accepting the

principles of art which prevailed in early Egypt, we must do justice

to those masters who were contemporary with the Pyramids. It must be

acknowledged that they produced works which are not to be surpassed in

their way by the greatest portraits of modern Europe. In later years

the Egyptian sculptor ceased to paint the eyes. Even in the time of

the Ancient Empire the Egyptian custom in this particular was the same

as the Greek, so far as statues in hard stone were concerned. The

great statue of Chephren is an instance. In it the chisel has merely

reproduced the contours of the eyelids and the salience of the

eyeball. No attempt has been made to imitate the iris or to give

brightness to the pupil. In none of the royal statues that have come

down to our time do we find any effort to produce this kind of

illusion, either by the use of paint or by the insertion of naturally

coloured substances.

There is a statue at Boulak which may, perhaps, be preferred even to

the scribe of the Louvre. We have already alluded to it as the

_Sheik-el-Beled_ (Fig. 7, Vol. I.). In its present state (it is

without either feet or base) it has no inscription but it is sometimes

called Ra-em-ké, because that was the name of the person in whose

tomb it was found. It is of wood, and, with the exception of its lower

members, is in marvellous preservation. The eyes are similar to those

of the scribe, and seem to be fixed upon the spectator while their

owner advances upon him. The type is very different from those we have

hitherto been describing. The face is round and flat, and so is the

trunk. The smiling good humour of the expression and the _embonpoint_

of the person indicate a man well nourished and comfortably off, a man

content both with himself and his neighbours.[182]

[182] Another wooden statue of equal merit as a work of art was

found in the same tomb. It represents a woman, standing.

Unfortunately there is nothing left of it but the head and the

torso. _Notice des principaux Monuments du Musée de Boulak_, No.

493.

[Illustration: FIG. 176.--Wooden panel from the Tomb of Hosi. Drawn by

Bourgoin]

[Illustration: FIG. 177.--Limestone head, in the Louvre. Drawn by

Saint-Elme Gautier.]

This statue is dressed in a different fashion from those we have

hitherto encountered. The sheik has his hips covered with a kind of

petticoat gathered into pleats in front. His legs, torso, and arms are

bare. The last named are of separate pieces of wood, and one of them,

the bent one, is made in two parts. When the statue was first finished

the joints were invisible. The whole body was covered with fine linen,

like a skin. Upon this linen a thin layer of plaster was spread, by

means of which, when wet, refinement could be added to the contours by

the modelling stick; the colours of nature were afterwards added by

the brush. Such figures as these have therefore come down to us in a

condition which resembles their primitive state much less than that of

the works in stone. They have, so to speak, lost their epidermis, and

with it the colours which served to distinguish the flesh from the

drapery.[183]

[183] The _Description de l'Égypte_ (_Antiquités_, vol. v. p.

33) gives the details of a mummy-mask in sycamore wood, of

fairly good workmanship, which was found at Sakkarah. The

eyebrows and edges of the eyelids were outlined with red copper;

a fine linen was stretched over the wood; over this there was a

thin layer of stucco, upon which the face was painted in green.

It would seem that the sculptor in wood often counted upon this final

coat of stucco to perfect his modelling. There are in fact wooden

statues which seem to have been but roughly blocked out by the chisel.

There are three figures in the Louvre in which this character is very

conspicuous. The largest of the three is reproduced in our Fig.

178.[184] Acacia and sycamore wood is used for this kind of work.[185]

[184] The figure in the Louvre is split deeply in several

places, one of the fissures being down the middle of the face.

This latter our artist has suppressed, so as to give the figure

something of its ancient aspect. These fissures are sure to

appear in our humid climate. The warm and dry air of Egypt is

absolutely necessary for the preservation of such works, which

seem doomed to rapid destruction in our European museums.

[185] MASPERO (_Journal Asiatique_, March-April, 1880), _Sur

quelques Peintures Funéraires_, p. 137. See also BRUGSCH, _Die

Egyptische Græberwelt_, No. 87.

Finally, in this epoch or perhaps a little later, under the fifth and

sixth dynasties, funerary statues were cast in bronze. This notable

fact was first proclaimed by M. de Longperier. We quote the

observations which he addressed to the Academy of Inscriptions.[186]

[186] _Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions_, 1875, p.

345.

"The fact that bronze was employed in Egypt in very ancient times has

long been ascertained. The knob from the Sceptre of Papi, a Pharaoh of

the sixth dynasty, which exists in the British Museum, is enough to

prove this fact. M. Chabas has called our attention to the fact that

bronze is mentioned in texts which date from a period anterior to the

construction of the great Pyramids.[187]

[187] CHABAS, _Sur l'Usage des Bâtons de Main_, p. 12. (Lyons,

8vo, 1875.)

[Illustration: FIG. 178.--Wooden statue in the Louvre. Three feet

eight inches high. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

"That the earliest Egyptian bronzes representing the human figure

are much older than was formerly thought, is proved by two statuettes

belonging to M. Gustave Posno. One of these is twenty-six inches high,

the other nineteen. They merit a short description: 'No 1: A man

standing; left foot forward, the left hand closed and raised to a

level with the breast. This hand, doubtless, held a spear. The right

hand which hangs straight down by the thigh formerly clasped, in all

probability, the small sceptre which is represented in many

bas-reliefs. The loins are girt with the garment called the _schenti_,

the band of which supports a dagger. The hair is arranged into regular

rows of small square knobs. The eyes and eyebrows, which were inlaid,

have disappeared (Fig. 179).'[188]

[188] Catalogue of the Posno Collection, No. 468.

[Illustration: FIG. 179.--Bronze statuette. Two feet two inches high.

Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

"'No 2: A man standing; his loins girt with the _schenti_, his left

foot forward, his right hand raised to the level of his breast, the

left hanging by his left thigh. The inlaid eyes and eyebrows have been

abstracted. His hair, which is less abundant than that of his

companion and allows the contour of his head to be easily seen, is

arranged into very small knobs. A vertical inscription on the left

side of his chest gives the name of the personage, in or after which

appears the ethnic _Schasou_, which seems to indicate an Oriental

origin.' The Schasous are mentioned in several Egyptian texts and seem

to have occupied the country which bordered Egypt on the North-East

(Fig. 180)."[189]

[189] _Ibid._, No. 524.

"In these two statuettes the muscles of the arms and legs, and the

articulation of the knees, are expressed with a care and truth which

denote a very remote age. We cannot fail to recognize a phase of art

earlier than the Second Empire. But if the first mentioned figure

recalls, by its features and the management of the hair, the

sculptures in stone of the fifth and sixth dynasties, the second

cannot, perhaps, be referred to quite such an early period. In the

latter the vertical line of the back and right leg slopes slightly

forward, betraying an attempt to express movement; the dorsal line of

the first figure is, on the other hand, quite perpendicular.

"Even in the photographs certain details are visible, such as the form

of the hair, the features, the rendering of the anatomical contours,

which denote a school anterior to that of the eighteenth dynasty.

[Illustration: FIG. 180.--Bronze statuette. One foot seven inches

high. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

"Egypt, then, was first in the field in bronze casting, as she was in

stone and wood carving. One at least of the Posno statuettes carries

us so far back in the history of humanity that it is difficult to see

where we can look for earlier works of art, especially of so advanced

a style. We have already ascertained that the first named of these two

figures is far superior, both in style and modelling, to the Asiatic

canephorus of Afadj,[190] a work which was dedicated to a goddess by a

king, and must therefore be considered a good example of the art of

Western Asia."

[190] DE LONGPERIER, _Musée Napoléon III._ pl. 1.

We agree with M. de Longperier in all but one point, and that one as

to which he is careful not to commit himself. According to him the

second figure is later than the sixth dynasty and earlier than the

eighteenth, so that it would belong to the first Theban Empire. But we

do not see why, supposing the Egyptians of the Ancient Empire capable

of making the first figure, they should not have made the second.

Between the two statuettes there are but slight differences of

handling, differences much the same as those to be found in the wooden

and stone statues which we have already mentioned. Neither the artists

nor their sitters had quite the same capabilities.

The technical skill shown in these bronzes is extraordinary. The most

ancient Etruscan and Greek bronzes are solid castings, on the base of

which are rough protuberances, sometimes of considerable length,

resulting from the fact that the metal was allowed to solidify in the

orifice by which it was poured into the mould. Here there is nothing

of the kind. No imperfection in the mechanical part of the work is

allowed to interfere with its artistic effect. The casting is light,

hollow, and in one piece; the method employed must have been excellent

in itself and thoroughly understood.[191] They also understood how to

add finish by chasing the metal after its relief from the mould. The

small circular ornaments on the chest of the second figure, ornaments

which are so delicate in execution that they could not be reproduced

in our engraving without giving them too much importance, and the

hieroglyphs cut in the same figure, are instances of this.

[191] M. Pisani, who mounted the numerous bronzes in M. Posno's

collection, assures me that their insides are still filled with

the core of sand around which they were cast. The outward

details of the casting are repeated inside, showing that the

method used was what we call _fonte au carton_.

That so few bronze statuettes have come down to us seems to show that

the use of the metal by sculptors was quite exceptional. They used

wood far more than bronze, and stone more than wood. Most of the

sepulchral statues are cut in soft limestone (see Figs. 6, 49, 88, 89,

Vol. I., and Fig. 172, Vol. II.). Sometimes these statues are

isolated, sometimes they form family groups, often consisting of

father, mother, and children.

Statues of men are the most numerous. Differences between one and

another are many and frequent, but they are, on the whole, less

striking than the points of resemblance. Here we find a head bare,

there enveloped in either a square or rounded wig. The bodies are

never completely nude, and the garment which covers their middles is

arranged in a variety of ways. Fashions, both for men and women, seem

to have changed in Egypt as elsewhere. In the statues ascribed to the

last dynasties of the Ancient Empire the national type seems more

fixed and accentuated than in earlier works. These funerary statues

are the portraits of vigorous and powerful men, with broad shoulders,

well-developed pectoral muscles, thin flanks and muscular legs.

Ra-nefer, priest of Ptah and Sokar, stands upright, his arms by his

sides, and each hand grasping a roll of papyrus (Fig 181).[192] A

dagger is passed through the belt of his drawers.

[192] A sketch of this statue also appears on page 10, Vol. I.

Fig. 6; but as, according to Mariette, it is one of the best

statues in the Boulak Museum, we have thought well to give it a

second illustration, which, in spite of its smaller scale, shows

the modelling better than the first.

The person represented in Fig. 182 is distinguished from Ra-nefer by

the fashion in which he wears his hair and by his costume. His loose

skirt is arranged in front so as to form a kind of triangular apron.

This peculiar fall of the garment was obtained by the use of starch

and an instrument similar to our flat-iron. It is better seen in the

statue of Ti, the great personage to whose gorgeous tomb we have so

often referred.[193] The Albanians obtain the curious folds of their

kilts in the same fashion.[194] Ti wears a periwig of a different kind

from that of Ra-nefer. The Egyptians shaved their heads from motives

of cleanliness. The priests were compelled to do so by the rules of

their religion, which made purity of person even more imperative upon

them than upon the laymen. It was necessary, however, that the head

should be thoroughly protected from the sun, hence the wig. The shaved

Mohammedans of our day replace the periwig with the turban.

[193] _Notice des principaux Monuments du Musée de Boulak_, No.

24.

[194] Wooden instruments have been found which were used for the

pleating of linen stuffs. One of these, which is now in the

museum of Florence, is figured in WILKINSON (_Manners and

Customs_, vol. i. p. 185). The heavy and symmetrical folds which

are thus obtained are found, as we shall see, in the drapery of

Greek statues of the archaic period.

[Illustration: FIG. 181.--Ra-nefer. Boulak. Drawn by Bourgoin.]

One wooden statue at Boulak offers a variety of costume which is at

present unique among the remains of Egyptian civilization. It is,

unfortunately, in very bad preservation. It represents a man,

standing, and draped in an ample robe which covers him from head to

foot. His right arm is free; it is held across the body, and meets the

left hand, which is thrust through an opening in the robe. The place

where this statue was found, the material of which it consists, and

the character of the workmanship, all combine to prove that it is a

production of the early dynasties (Fig. 184).[195]

[195] _Notice du Musée de Boulak_, No. 770.

[Illustration: FIG. 182.--Statue in the Boulak Museum. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

[Illustration: FIG. 183.--Statue of Ti. Boulak. Drawn by Bourgoin.]

A few kneeling statues have also been found. The anonymous personage

whose portrait is reproduced in Fig. 185 is upon his knees. His

clasped hands rest upon his thighs. His eyes are inlaid; they are

formed of numerous small pieces skilfully put together.[196]

[196] _Ibid._, No. 769.

There is no less variety in those groups where the sculptor has been

charged to represent a whole family reunited in the tomb. Sometimes

the husband is sitting and the wife standing. She has her left arm

round his neck, the left hand resting on his left shoulder, while with

her right hand she holds his right arm (Fig. 88, Vol. I.). Sometimes a

father and mother are seated upon the same bench, but here too the

woman confesses her dependence on, and shows her confidence in, her

master by the same affectionate gesture (Fig. 186). Both are of the

same height, but between them, and leaning against the bench upon

which they are seated, appears their child, quite small. His gesture

is that to which the Egyptian artist has recourse when he wishes to

express early childhood (Fig. 187). We also find the husband and wife

standing erect in front of a slab; the relation which they bear to

each other is here also indicated by the position of the woman's arms

(Fig. 188).[197] Sometimes the woman is altogether absent (Fig. 89,

Vol. I.). The head of the family is placed by himself, on a raised

seat. In front of this seat, and hardly reaching to their father's

knees, are two children, boy and girl, the boy holding the right leg,

the girl the left. The boy has the lock of hair pendent over the right

ear, which, like the finger in the mouth, is a sign of tender years.

He is nude; the girl is dressed in an ornamental robe reaching to her

ankles. There is a piquant contrast between these two tender little

bodies with their childish heads, and the virile power of the father

and protector who towers so high above them.

[197] _Notice_, No. 793. These two people were called

Nefer-hotep and Tenteta. The latter is also described as

_related to Pharaoh_.

[Illustration: FIG. 184.--Wooden statue, Boulak. Drawn by Bourgoin.]

[Illustration: FIG. 185.--Statue in limestone, Boulak. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

[Illustration: FIG. 186.--Limestone group in the Louvre. Height

twenty-eight inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

[Illustration: FIG. 187.--Wooden statuette, Boulak. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

[Illustration: FIG. 188.--Nefer-hotep and Tenteta. Boulak.]

These limestone groups do not, as a rule, appear to have been executed

with any great care. Their makers do not seem to have taken much pains

to give them an individuality of their own; but in spite of this

feebleness of execution, they please by their composition. They are

well arranged, their attitudes are simple and their gestures

expressive. As a whole they have an air of calmness and repose which

is thoroughly in accord with the ideas of the Egyptians on the

question of life and death.

[Illustration: FIG. 189.--Limestone statue, Boulak. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

[Illustration: FIG. 190.--Limestone statue, Boulak. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

From the same memphite tombs many limestone statues have been

recovered, representing, not the defunct himself, but those who mourn

his decease and the crowd of retainers attached to his person. All

these are expected to carry on their labours for his benefit and to be

ready to satisfy his wants through all eternity. Here we find one

seated upon the ground, his hand upon his head in sign of grief (Fig.

189).[198] There a young man, completely naked, advancing with a sack

upon his left shoulder which falls down to the centre of his back. He

carries a bouquet of flowers in his right hand (Fig. 190).[199] A man

seated upon the ground holds a vase between his knees, into which he

has plunged his right hand (Fig. 191).[200] Another bends over a

wide-mouthed jar of mortar in which he is mixing flour and water (Fig.

192). A young woman, in a similar attitude, is occupied over the same

task (Fig. 193). Other women are rolling the paste thus obtained on a

plank, or rather upon a stone slab, before which they kneel upon the

ground. The muscular exertion necessary for the operation is rendered

with great skill (Figs. 193 and 194).[201] Women are still to be

encountered at Elephantiné and in Nubia, wearing the same head-dress

and carrying out the same operation in the same attitude and with

exactly similar utensils. We reproduce two sketches by M. Bourgoin,

which show the details of this head-covering, which, among the women

of the lower orders, supplied the piece of the wig; it consists of a

piece of stuff held upon the head by a ribbon knotted at the back of

the neck (Figs. 196 and 197).

[198] _Notice du Musée de Boulak_, No. 768.

[199] _Notice_, No. 771. This is the person represented in

profile in Fig. 47, Vol. I.

[200] _Notice_, No. 766.

[201] The four last quoted figures belong to the series noticed

in the Boulak Catalogue under numbers 757 to 764. The statue

reproduced in Fig. 197 has been already shown in profile in Fig.

48, Vol. I.

[Illustration: FIG. 191.--Limestone statue, Boulak. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

[Illustration: FIG. 192.--Limestone statue, Boulak. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

[Illustration: FIG. 193.--Woman kneading dough, Boulak. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

Mariette brought all these figures to Paris in 1878, where they

excited the greatest interest among artists and archæologists. They

were eminently well fitted to enlighten those who are able to see and

to do away with many rooted prejudices. What an abyss of difference

they showed between Egyptian art as it used to be defined some thirty

years ago and the reality. The stiffness and rigidity which used to be

so universally attributed to the productions of the sculptors of

Memphis and Thebes, were forgotten before their varied motives and

free natural attitudes. The whole of these works, in fact, are imbued

with a spirit which is diametrically opposed to the unchanging

inflexibility which used to be considered the chief characteristic of

Egyptian art. They are distinguished by an extraordinary ease of

attitude, and by that curious elasticity of body which still remains

one of the most conspicuous physical qualities of the race.

"The suppleness of body which distinguished the female fellah is

marvellous. She rarely sits down. When she requires rest she crouches

with her knees in the air in an attitude which we should find

singularly fatiguing. So too with the men. Their habitual posture

corresponds to that shown on the steles: the knees drawn up in front

of the face to the height of the nose, or on each side of the head and

level with the ears. These attitudes are not graceful, but when the

bodies thus drawn together are raised to their full height they are

superb. They are, to borrow a happy expression of Fromentin, 'at once

awkward and magnificent; when crouching and at rest they look like

monkeys; when they stand up they are living statues.'"[202]

[202] GABRIEL CHARMES, _Cinq mois au Caire_, p. 96.

[Illustration: FIG. 194.--Woman making bread, Boulak. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

This early art never carried its powers of observation and its

exactitude of reproduction farther than in the statue of Nem-hotep,

which we show in full-face and profile in Figs. 198 and 199. Whether

we call him, with Mariette, a cook, or, with Maspero, a master of the

wardrobe or keeper of perfumes, it cannot be doubted that. Nem-hotep

was a person of importance. One of the fine tombs at Sakkarah was his.

He certainly did not make his way at court by the graces of his

person. He was a dwarf with all the characteristics that distinguish

those unlucky beings. His head was too large, his torso very long, his

arms and legs very short; besides which he was marvellously

_dolichocephalic_.

[Illustration: FIG. 195.--Bread maker, Boulak. Drawn by Bourgoin.]

[Illustration: FIGS. 196, 197.--Details of head-dresses.]

The sincerity of Egyptian art is conspicuously shown in its treatment

of the foot. Winckelmann noticed that the feet in Egyptian statues

were larger and fatter than in those of Greece. The great toes are

straight, no articulations being shown. The second toe is always the

longest, and the little toe is not bent in the middle but straight

like the others. These peculiarities spring from the Egyptian habit of

walking bare-foot on the Nile mud; they are very strongly marked in

the feet of the modern fellah.[203]

[203] WILKINSON, _Manners and Customs_, vol. ii. p. 270.

The general characteristics of these works in the round are repeated

in the bas-reliefs of the mastabas at Gizeh and Sakkarah. Of these we

have already given numerous illustrations; we shall therefore be

content with reproducing one or two which are more than usually

conspicuous for their artistic merit.

[Illustration: FIGS. 198, 199.--Nem-hotep; limestone statue at

Boulak.]

The sculptures of Wadi-maghara and the wooden panels from the Tomb of

Hosi are enough to prove that work in relief was as old in Egypt as

work in the round. In the mastabas sculptures in low-relief served to

multiply the images of the defunct. He is figured upon the steles

which occupy the principal wall, as well as in various other parts of

the tomb. Sometimes he is shown seated before the table of

offerings (Fig. 200), sometimes standing upright (Figs. 57 and 120,

Vol. I.). But the sculptor did not restrict himself to these two

motives. In the preparation and presentation of the funeral gifts he

found many themes, to which he was able to give more or less

development according to the space at his command.

[Illustration: FIG. 200.--Funerary bas-relief; Sakkarah. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

[Illustration: FIG. 201.--Bas-relief from the Tomb of Ti, Sakkarah.]

Even in the earliest attempts that have come down to us, the Egyptian

sculptor shows a complete grasp of the peculiar features of the

domesticated animals of the country. Men accustomed to the careful

study of the human figure could make light of rendering those of

beasts, with their more striking distinctions between one species and

another. In the time when the oldest existing tombs were constructed,

the ass was already domesticated in Egypt. Then as now, he was the

most indispensable of the servants of mankind. There were, in all

probability, as many donkeys in the streets of Memphis under Cheops as

there are now in Cairo under Tewfik. Upon the walls of the mastabas we

see them trotting in droves under the cries and sticks of their

drivers (Fig. 201), we see the foals, with their awkward gait and long

pricked ears, walking by the sides of their mothers (Fig. 202), the

latter are heavily laden and drag their steps; the drivers brandish

their heavy sticks, but threaten their patient brutes much oftener

than they strike them. This is still the habit of those donkey boys,

who, upon the _Esbekieh_, naïvely offer you "M. de Lesseps' donkey."

The bas-relief to which we are alluding consists only of a slight

outline, but that outline is so accurate and full of character, that

we have no difficulty in identifying the ass of Egypt, with his

graceful carriage of the head and easy, brisk, and dainty motion.

The same artists have figured another of the companions of man with

equal fidelity; namely, the deep-sided, long-tailed, long-horned,

Egyptian ox. Sometimes he lies upon the earth, ruminating (Fig. 29,

Vol. I.); sometimes he is driven between two peasants, the one leading

him by a rope, the other bringing up the rear with a stick held in

readiness against any outburst of self-will (Fig. 203). In another

relief we see a drove advancing by the side of a canal, upon which a

boat with three men is making way by means of pole and paddle. One

herdsman walks in front of the oxen, another marches behind and urges

them on by voice and gesture (Fig. 204). In another place we find a

cow being milked by a crouching herdsman. She seems to lend herself to

the operation in the most docile manner in the world, and we are

inclined to wonder what need there is of a second herdsman who sits

before her nose and holds one of her legs in both his hands. The

precaution, however, may not be superfluous, an ox-fly might sting her

into sudden movement, and then if there was no one at hand to restrain

her, the milk, which already nears the summit of the pail, might be

lost (Fig. 30, Vol. I.).

[Illustration: FIG. 202.--Bas-relief from the Tomb of Ti, Sakkarah.]

By careful selection from the sepulchral bas-reliefs, we might, if we

chose, present to our readers reproductions of the whole fauna of

Ancient Egypt, the lion, hyena, leopard, jackal, fox, wolf, ibex,

gazelle, the hare, the porcupine, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the

different fishes in the Nile, the birds in the marshes, the flamingo,

the ibis, duck, stork, crane, and goose, the dog and the cat, the goat

and the pig. Everywhere we find the same aptitude for summarizing the

distinctive characteristics of a species. This accuracy of observation

has been recognized by every connoisseur who has treated the subject.

"In the Boulak Museum," says M. Gabriel Charmes, "there is a row of

Nile geese painted with such precision, that I have seen a naturalist

stand amazed at their truth to nature and the fidelity with which they

reproduce the features of the race. Their colours, too, are as bright

and uninjured as upon the day when they were last touched by the brush

of the artist."[204]

[204] GABRIEL CHARMES, _La Réorganisation du Musée de Boulak_

(_Revue des Deux Mondes_, September 1, 1880). He is speaking of

the fragment which is numbered 988 in the _Notice du Musée_.

According to Mariette it dates from a period anterior to Cheops.

It was found near the statues of Ra-hotep and Nefert.

[Illustration: FIG. 203.--Sepulchral bas-relief, Boulak.]

[Illustration: FIG. 204.--Bas-relief from the Tomb of Ra-ka-pou,

Boulak.]

The figures of men and animals to which our attention has been given

all belong to the domain of portraiture. The artist imitates the forms

of those who sit to him and of the animals of the country; he copies

the incidents of the daily life about him, but his ambition goes no

farther. All art is a translation, an interpretation, and, of course,

the sculptors of the mastabas had their own individual ways of looking

at their models. But they made no conscious effort to add anything to

them, they did not attempt to select, to give one feature predominance

over another, or to combine various features in different proportions

from those found in ordinary life, and by such means to produce

something better than mere repetitions of their accidental models.

They tried neither to invent nor to create.

And yet the Egyptians must have begun at this period to give concrete

forms to their gods. In view of the hieroglyphs of which Egyptian

writing consisted, we have some difficulty in imagining a time when

the names of their deities were not each attached to a material image

with well marked features of its own. To write the name of a god was

to give his portrait, a portrait whose sketchy outlines only required

to be filled in by the sculptor to be complete. Egypt, therefore, must

have possessed images of her gods at a very early date, but as they

were not placed in the tombs they have disappeared long before our

day, and we are thus unable to decide how far the necessity for their

production may have stimulated the imaginative faculties of the early

sculptors. In presence, however, of the Great Sphinx at Gizeh, in

which we find one of those composite forms so often repeated in later

centuries, we may fairly suspect that many more of the divine types

with which we are familiar had been established. The Sphinx proves

that the primitive Egyptians were already bitten with the mania for

colossal statues. Even the Theban kings never carved any figure more

huge than that which keeps watch over the necropolis of Gizeh (Fig.

157, Vol. I.). But Egypt had other gods than these first-fruits of her

reflective powers, than those mysterious beings who personified for

her the forces which had created the world and preserved its

equilibrium. She had her kings, children of the sun, present and

visible deities who maintained upon the earth, and especially in the

valley of the Nile, the ever-threatened order established by their

divine progenitors. Until quite recently it was impossible to say for

certain whether or no the Egyptians of the Ancient Empire had

attempted to impress upon the images of their kings the national

belief in their divine origin and almost supernatural power. But

Mariette--again Mariette--recovered from the well in the Temple of the

Sphinx at Gizeh, nine statues or statuettes of Chephren. The

inscriptions upon the plinths of these statues enable us to recognize

for certain the founder of the second pyramid.

Most of these figures were broken beyond recovery, but two have been

successfully restored. One of these, which is but little mutilated, is

of diorite (Fig. 205); the other, in a much worse condition, is of

green basalt (Fig. 56, Vol. I.).[205]

[205] _Notice du Musée de Boulak_, Nos. 578 and 792. The

discovery was made in 1860; MARIETTE gives an account of it in

his _Lettres à M. de Rougé sur les Résultats des Fouilles

entreprises par ordre du Vice-roi d'Égypte_. (_Revue

Archéologique_, No. 5, vol. ii. pp. 19, 20.)

An initial distinction between these royal statues and the portraits

of private individuals is found in the materials employed. For

subjects even of high rank, wood or limestone was good enough, but

when the august person of the monarch had to be immortalized a

substance which was at once harder and more beautiful was employed.

The Egyptians had no marble, and when they wished to do particular

honour to their models they made use of those volcanic rocks, whose

close grain and dusky brilliance of tone make them resemble metal. The

slowness and difficulty with which these dense rocks yielded to the

tools of the sculptor increased the value of the result, while their

hardness added immensely to their chances of duration. It would seem

that figures which only took form under the tools of skilful and

patient workmen after years of persevering labour might defy the

attacks of time or of human enemies. Look at the statue on the next

page. It is very different from the figures we have been noticing,

although it resembles them in many details. Like many of his subjects

the king is seated. His head, instead of being either bare or covered

with the heavy wig, is enframed in that royal head-dress which has

been known, ever since the days of Champollion, as the _klaft_.[206]

It consists of an ample band of linen covering the upper part of the

forehead, the cranium, and the nape of the neck. It stands out boldly

on each side of the face, and hangs down in two pleated lappets upon

the chest. The king's chin is not shaved like those of his subjects.

It is adorned like that of a god with the long and narrow tuft of hair

which we call _the Osiride beard_. At the back of Chephren's head,

which is invisible in our illustration, there is a hawk, the symbol of

protection. His trunk and legs are bare; his only garment is, in fact,

the _schenti_ about his middle. His left hand lies upon his knee, his

right hand holds a rod of some kind. The details of the chair are

interesting. The arms end in lions' heads, and the feet are paws of

the same animal. Upon the sides are figured in high relief the two

plants which symbolize the upper and lower country respectively; they

are arranged around the hieroglyph _sam_, signifying _union_.

[206] This is a Coptic word meaning _hood_.

[Illustration: FIG. 205.--Statue of Chephren. Height five feet seven

inches. Boulak. Drawn by G. Bénédite.]

The other statue, which now consists of little more than the head and

trunk, differs from the first only in a few details. The chair is

without a back, and, curiously enough, the head is that of a much

older man than the Chephren of the diorite statue. This difference

makes it pretty certain that both heads were modelled directly from

nature.

These royal statues are, then, portraits like the rest, but when in

their presence we feel that they are more than portraits, that there

is something in their individuality which could not have been rendered

by photography or by casts from nature, had such processes been

understood by their authors. In spite of the unkindly material the

execution is as free as that of the stone figures. The face, the

shoulders, the pectoral muscles, and especially the knees, betray a

hand no less firm and confident than those which carved the softer

rocks. The diorite Chephren excels ordinary statues in size--for it is

larger than nature--in the richness of its throne, in the arrangement

of the linen hood which gives such dignity to the head, in the

existence of the beard which gives length and importance to the face.

The artist has never lost sight of nature; he has never forgotten that

it was his business to portray Chephren and not Cheops or Snefrou; and

yet he has succeeded in giving to his work the significance of a type.

He has made it the embodiment of the Egyptian belief in the

semi-divine nature of their Pharaohs. By its size, its pose, its

expression and arrangement he has given it a certain ideality. We may

see in these two statues, for similar qualities are to be found in the

basalt figure, the first effort made by the genius of Egyptian art to

escape from mere realism and to bring the higher powers of the

imagination into play.

The reign of those traditional forms which were to be so despotic in

Egypt began at the same time. The type created by the sculptors of the

fourth dynasty, or perhaps earlier, for the representation of the

Pharaoh in all the mysterious dignity of his position, was thought

satisfactory. The calm majesty of these figures, their expression of

force in repose and of illimitable power, left so little to be desired

that they were accepted there and thereafter. Centuries rolled away,

the royal power fell again and again before foreign enemies and

internal dissensions, but with every restoration of the national

independence and of the national rulers, the old form was revived.

There are variants upon it; some royal statues show Pharaoh standing,

others show him sitting and endowed with the attributes of Osiris,

but, speaking generally, the favourite model of the kings and of the

sculptors whom they employed was that which is first made known to us

by the statue of him to whom we owe the second pyramid. The only

differences between it and the colossi of Amenophis III. at Thebes are

to be found in their respective sizes, in their original condition,

and in the details of their features.

The moulds in which the thoughts of the Egyptians were to receive

concrete expression through so many centuries were formed, then, by

their ancestors of the Ancient Empire. All the later revivals of

artistic activity consisted in attempts to compose variations upon

these early themes, to remodel them, with more or less felicity,

according to the fashion of the day. Style and technical methods were

modified with time, but types, that is the attitudes and motives

employed to characterise the age, the mental power, and the social

condition of the different persons represented, underwent little or no

change.

This period of single-minded and devoted study of nature ought also to

have transmitted to later times its care and skill in portraiture, and

its realistic powers generally, to use a very modern phrase. Egyptian

painters and sculptors never lost those qualities entirely; they

always remained fully alive to the differences of conformation and

physiognomy which distinguished one individual, or one class, from

another; but as the models furnished by the past increased in number,

their execution became more facile and superficial, and their

reference to nature became less direct and continual. Neither the art

of Thebes nor that of Sais seems to have produced anything so

original and expressive as the two statues from Meidoum or the

_Sheik-el-beled_, at Boulak, or the _scribe_ in the Louvre.

We may easily understand what surprise and admiration the discovery of

this early phase of Egyptian art excited among archæologists. When the

exploration of the Memphite necropolis revealed what had up to that

time been an unknown world, Nestor L'Hôte, one of the companions of

Champollion, was the first to comprehend its full importance. He was

not a savant; he was an intelligent and faithful draughtsman and his

artistic nature enabled him to appreciate, even better than the

illustrious founder of egyptology, the singular charm of an art free

from convention and routine. In his letters from Egypt, Champollion

showed himself impressed mainly by the grandeur and nobility of the

Theban remains; L'Hôte, on the other hand, only gave vent to his

enthusiasm when he had had a glimpse of one or two of those mastabas

which were afterwards to be explored by Lepsius and Mariette. Writing

of the tomb of Menofré, barber to one of the earliest Memphite kings,

he says: "The sculptures of this tomb are remarkable for their

elegance and the finesse of their execution. Their relief is so slight

that it may be compared to that of a five-franc piece. Such consummate

workmanship in a structure so ancient confirms the assertion that the

higher we mount upon the stream of Egyptian civilization the more

perfect do her works of art become. By this it would appear that the

genius of the Egyptian people, unlike that of other races, was born in

a state of maturity."[207]

[207] _Journal des Savants_, 1851, pp. 53, 54.

"Of Egyptian art," he says elsewhere, "we know only the decadence."

Such an assertion must have appeared paradoxical at a time when the

Turin Museum already possessed, and exhibited, so many fine statues of

the Theban kings. And yet Nestor L'Hôte was right, as the discoveries

made since his time have abundantly proved, and that fact must be our

excuse for devoting so large a part of our examination of Egyptian

sculpture to the productions of the Ancient Empire.

§ 3. _Sculpture under the First Theban Empire._

After the sixth dynasty comes an obscure and barren period, whose

duration and general character are still unknown to egyptologists.

Order began to be re-established in the eleventh dynasty, under the

Entefs and Menthouthoteps, but the monuments found in more ancient

Theban tombs are rude and awkward in an extreme degree, as Mariette

has shown.[208] It was not until the twelfth dynasty, when all Egypt

was again united under the sceptre of the Ousourtesens and Amenemhats,

that art made good its revival. It made use of the same

materials--limestone, wood, and the harder rocks--but their

proportions were changed. In Fig. 206 a wooden statue attributed to

this period is reproduced. The legs are longer, the torso more

flexible, than in the statue of Chephren and other productions of the

early centuries.

[208] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée_, etc. _Avant-propos_, pp. 38,

39.

Compared with their predecessors other statues of this period will be

found to have the same characteristics. It has been asserted that the

Egyptians, as a race, had become more slender from the effects of

their warm and dry climate. It is impossible now to decide how much of

the change may fairly be attributed to such a cause, and how much to a

revolution in taste. Even among the figures of the Ancient Empire

there are examples to be found of these slender proportions, but they

certainly appear to have been in peculiar favour with the sculptors of

the later epoch. Except in this particular, the differences are not

very great. The attitudes are the same. See, for instance, the statue

in grey sandstone of the scribe Menthouthotep, which was found by

Mariette at Karnak and attributed by him to this epoch. Both by its

pose and by the folds of fat which cross the front of the trunk, it

reminds us of the figures of scribes left to us by the Ancient Empire.

The nobler types also reappear. There is in the Louvre a statue in red

granite representing a Sebek-hotep of the thirteenth dynasty (Fig.

207). He sits in the same attitude, with the same head-dress and the

same costume, as the Chephren of Boulak. There is one difference,

however, his forehead is decorated with the _uræus_, the symbol of

royal dignity, which Chephren lacks.[209] The dimensions, too, are

different. We do not know whether the Ancient Empire made colossal

statues of its kings or not, but this Sebek-hotep exceeds the stature

of mankind sufficiently to make it worthy of the name.

[209] See PIERRET, _Dictionnaire d'Archéologie_, under the word

_Uræus_.

[Illustration: FIG. 206.--Wooden statue, Boulak. Drawn by Bénédite.]

The Louvre possesses another monument giving a high idea of the taste

of the sculptors belonging to this period, we mean the red-granite

sphinx (Fig. 41, Vol. I.), which was successively appropriated by one

of the shepherd kings and by a Theban Pharaoh of the nineteenth

dynasty: the ovals of both are to be found upon it. Like so many other

things from Tanis, this sphinx must date from a Pharaoh of the

thirteenth dynasty. This De Rougé has clearly shown.[210] Tanis seems

to have been a favoured residence of those princes, and most of their

statues have been found in it. A leg in black granite, now in the

Berlin Museum, is considered the masterpiece of these centuries. It is

all that remains of a colossal statue of Ousourtesen.[211]

[210] _Notice des Monuments exposés dans la Galerie d'Antiquités

Égyptiennes, Salle du Rez-de-chaussée_, No. 23.

[211] DE ROUGÉ, _Notice_, etc. _Avant-propos_, p. 6.

According to Mariette, many of those fine statues in the Turin Museum

which bear the names of princes belonging to the eighteenth dynasty,

Amenhoteps and Thothmeses, must have been made by order of the princes

of the twelfth and thirteenth dynasties. In later years they were

appropriated, in the fashion well known in Egypt, by the Pharaohs of

the Second Theban Empire, who substituted their cartouches for those

of the original owners. On more than one of the statues signs of the

operation may still be traced, and in other cases the usurpation may

be divined by carefully studying the style and workmanship.[212]

[212] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée_, p. 86.

It was in the ruins of the same city that Mariette discovered a group

of now famous remains in which he himself, De Rougé, Devéria, and

others, recognised works carried out by Egyptian artists for the

shepherd kings. These works have an individual character which is

peculiar to themselves.[213] They differ greatly from the ordinary

type of Egyptian statues, and must have preserved the features of

those foreign invaders whose memory was so long held in detestation in

Egypt. This supposition is founded upon the presumed identity of Tanis

with Avaris, the strong place which formed the centre of the Hyksos

power for so many generations.

[213] MARIETTE, _Lettre de M. Aug. Mariette à M. de Rougé sur

les Fouilles de Tanis_ (_Revue Archéologique_, vol. iii. 1861,

p. 97). DE ROUGÉ, _Lettre à M. Guigniaut sur les Nouvelles

Explorations en Égypte_ (_Revue Archéologique_, vol. ix., 1864,

p. 128).--DEVÉRIA, _Lettre à M. Aug. Mariette sur quelques

Monuments Relatifs aux Hyqsos ou Antérieurs à leur Domination_

(_Revue Archéologique_, vol. iv. 1861, p. 251).--EBERS,

_Ægypten_, vol. ii. p. 108.

[Illustration: FIG. 207.--Sebek-hotep III. Colossal statue in red

granite. Height nine feet. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

Confirmation of this theory is found in the existence of an oval

bearing the name of Apepi, one of the shepherd kings, upon the

shoulder of a sphinx from Tanis. The aspect of this sphinx, and the

features and costume of certain figures discovered upon the same site

and dispersed among the museums of Europe, are said to have much in

common with the ethnic peculiarities of the Syrian tribe by which

Middle and Lower Egypt was occupied. M. Maspero, however, who has

recently devoted fresh attention to these curious monuments, is

inclined to doubt the justness of this conclusion. The position of the

cartouche of Apepi suggests that it may be due to one of those

usurpations which we have mentioned. For the present, therefore, it

may be as well to class these monuments simply among the Tanite

remains. Tanis, like some other Egyptian cities, had a style of its

own, but we are without the knowledge required for a determination of

its origin. We shall be content with describing its most important

works and with calling attention to their remarkable originality.

The most important and the best preserved of all these monuments is a

sphinx of black granite which was recovered, in a fragmentary

condition, from the ruins of the principal temple at Tanis (Fig. 208).

Three more were found at the same time, but they were in a still worse

state of preservation. The fore-part of one of them is figured in the

adjoining woodcut.

"There is a great gulf," says Mariette, "between the energetic power

which distinguishes the head of this sphinx and the tranquil majesty

with which most of these colossi are endowed. The face is round and

rugged, the eyes small, the nose flat, the mouth loftily contemptuous.

A thick lion-like mane enframes the countenance and adds to its

energetic expression. It is certain that the work before us comes from

the hands of an Egyptian artist, and, on the other hand, that his

sitter was not of Egyptian blood."[214]

[214] _Notice du Musée de Boulak_, No. 869. Our draughtsman has

not thought it necessary to reproduce the hieroglyphs engraved

upon the plinth.

The group of two figures upon a common base, which is such a

conspicuous object in the Hyksos chamber at Boulak, seems to have had

a similar origin. We give a front and a side view of it (Figs. 210

and 211), and borrow the following description from Mariette.[215]

[215] _Notice du Musée de Boulak_, No. 1.

[Illustration: FIG. 208.--Sphinx in black granite; from Tanis. Drawn

by G. Bénédite.]

"Huge full-bottomed wigs, arranged into thick tresses, cover the heads

of the two figures. Their hard and strongly-marked features

(unfortunately much broken) bear a great resemblance to those of the

lion-maned sphinxes. The upper lips are shaven but the cheeks and

chins are covered with long wavy beards. Each of them sustains on his

outstretched arms an ingenious arrangement of fishes, aquatic birds,

and lotus flowers.

"No monument can be referred with greater certainty than this to the

disturbed period when the Shepherds were masters of Egypt. It is

difficult to decide upon its exact meaning. In spite of the mutilation

which prevents us from ascertaining whether they bore the _uræus_ upon

their foreheads, it cannot be doubted that the originals of the two

statues were kings. In after years Psousennes put his cartouche upon

the group, which assuredly he would never have done if he believed it

to represent two private individuals. But who could the two kings have

been who were thus associated in one act and must therefore have been

contemporaries?"

[Illustration: FIG. 209.--Head and shoulders of a Tanite Sphinx in

black granite. Drawn by G. Bénédite.]

This explanation seems to carry with it certain grave objections. It

is not, in the first place, so necessary as Mariette seems to think

that we should believe them to be kings. Similar objects--fishes, and

aquatic flowers and birds--are grouped in the same fashion upon works

which, to our certain knowledge, neither come from Tanism or date from

the Shepherd supremacy. Their appearance indicates an offering to the

Nile, and we can readily understand how Psousennes claimed the merit

of the offering by inscribing his name upon it, even although he were

not the real donor.

Mariette does not hesitate to ascribe to the same series a figure

discovered in the Fayoum, upon the site of the city which the Greeks

called Crocodilopolis (Fig. 212). He describes it thus:--[216]

[216] _Notice du Musée de Boulak_, No. 2.

"Upper part of a broken colossal statue, representing a king standing

erect. No inscription.

"The general form of the head, the high cheek-bones, the thick lips,

the wavy beard that covers the lower part of the cheeks, the curious

wig, with its heavy tresses, are all worthy of remark; they give a

peculiar and even unique expression to the face. The curious ornaments

which lie upon the chest should also be noticed. The king is covered

with panther skins; the heads of two of those animals appear over his

shoulders.

[Illustration: FIG. 210.--Group from Tanis; grey sandstone. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

"The origin of this statue, which was found at Mit-fares in the

Fayoum, admits of no doubt. The kings who decorated the temple at

Tanis with the fine sphinxes and groups of fishermen which I found

among its ruins, must also have transported the vigorous fragments

which we have before our eyes to the other side of Egypt."

[Illustration: FIG. 211.--Side view of the same group. Drawn by

Bourgoin.]

Finally, Devéria and De Rougé have suggested that a work of the same

school is to be recognized in the fragment of a statuette of green

basalt, which belongs to the Louvre and is figured upon page 237.[217]

They point to similarities of feature and of race characteristics. The

face of the Louvre statuette has a truculence of expression not unlike

that of the Tanite monuments, while the workmanship is purely Egyptian

and of the best quality; the flexibility of body, which is one of the

most constant qualities in the productions of the first Theban

Empire, being especially characteristic. The king represented wears

the _klaft_ with the _uræus_ in front of it; his _schenti_ is finely

pleated and a dagger with its handle carved into the shape of a hawk's

head is thrust into his girdle. The support at the back has,

unfortunately, been left without the usual inscription and we have no

means of ascertaining the age of the fragment beyond the style, the

workmanship, and the very peculiar physiognomy. Devéria suggests that

it preserves the features of one of the shepherd kings, some of whose

images Mariette thought he had discovered at Tanis and in the

Fayoum.[218]

[217] DEVÉRIA, _Lettre à M. Aug. Mariette_, p. 258.--PIERRET,

_Catalogue de la Salle Historique_, No. 6.

[218] M. FR. LENORMANT (_Bulletino della Commissione

Archeologica di Roma_, fifth year, January to June, 1877)

believes that he has discovered in one of the Roman museums

another monument belonging to the same period and to the same

artistic group.

[Illustration: FIG. 212.--Upper part of a royal statue. Grey granite.

Boulak. Drawn by G. Bénédite.]

It cannot be denied that there are many striking points of

resemblance between the different works which we have here brought

together. Mariette laid great stress upon what he regarded as one of

his most important discoveries. This is his definition of the type

which the Egyptian artist set himself to reproduce with his habitual

exactness: "The eyes are small, the nose vigorous, arched, and flat at

the end, the cheeks are large and bony, and the mouth is remarkable

for the way in which its extremities are drawn down. The face as a

whole is in harmony with the harshness of its separate features, and

the matted hair in which the head seems to be sunk adds to the

singularity of its appearance."[219]

[219] _Lettres à M. de Rougé sur les Fouilles de Tanis_, p. 105.

(_Revue Archéologique._)

[Illustration: FIG. 213.--Fragmentary statuette of a king; height

seven inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

Both Mariette and Ebers declare that this type has been preserved to

our day with astonishing persistence. In the very district in which

the power of the shepherds was greatest, in the neighbourhood of that

Lake Menzaleh which almost bathes the ruins of Tanis, the poor and

half savage fishermen who form the population of the district possess

the strongly marked features which are so easily distinguished from

the rounder and softer physiognomies of the true Egyptian fellah.

Ahmes must have been content with the expulsion of the chiefs only of

those Semitic tribes who had occupied this region for so many

centuries. The mass of the people must have been too strongly attached

to the fertile lands where they dwelt to refuse obedience to the

conqueror, and more than one immigration, like that of the Hebrews,

may have come in later times to renew the Arab and Syrian

characteristics of the race.[220]