at Gizeh round about the third pyramid, brought to light monuments that
with the best will in the world no one could assign to any other epoch
than that of Mycerinus. It seems that the fame of piety which popular
story ascribed to him was not wholly unmerited, at least as far as
his own divinity is concerned, for with the elements of a voluminous
funerary equipment in all kinds of stones, the workmen brought out
of the ruins of the chapel, fragments of a multitude of statues in
alabaster, schist, limestone, and rare breccia. Among them were some
unfinished or scarcely shaped out, for the sovereign having died while
they were being fashioned, the works, according to Oriental custom, had
been immediately interrupted and the workshops abandoned in confusion.
The statues which were already finished and set up in their places were
overturned at some unknown period, perhaps when Saladin dismantled
the pyramids to build the new ramparts and citadel of Cairo, and the
fragments were so ill-treated that an enormous number of them have
disappeared. Out of a hundred baskets of debris collected by the
Americans, they found at most, besides five or six intact heads, enough
to put together, almost completely, two alabaster statues. The best of
the heads is in the Cairo Museum, and it has sufficient resemblance to
our statuette for us to have no hesitation in recognizing Mycerinus,
even if the place whence it comes did not help us to guess it. The
statue that the find brought us is seated, but the block on which
it is sculptured is not perpendicular to its base, so that it leans
slightly backward. On the other hand, the two arms being cut between
the armpit and the hip, the accident makes it appear at first glance
as if the bust is too narrow for its height. But, and this is the
important point, the head is small, so small that the head-dress, in
spite of its size, is not sufficient to correct the bad effect of this
disproportion between its smallness and the amplitude of the shoulders.
The fault is not to be ascribed to the artist’s ignorance and lack of
skill, as is probably done. He was not, it must be admitted, a man of
talent, but he knew his business, and proved it by the general quality
of his work. The harmony between the trunk and the leg, the muscles
of the chest, the texture of the costume, the modelling of the knee
and calf, conform to the æsthetics of the time; the foot and ankle
are particularized with the virtuosity of a craftsman skilled in all
the subtleties of his calling. So, now, returning to the statuette
of Mît-Rahineh, the technique of which shows it to proceed not from
a different school but from a different studio, we shall find a
difficulty in imagining that two sculptors would each have fallen
into so great an error, if they had not seen it themselves in their
model. Since their statues are microcephalous, Mycerinus must have been
microcephalous almost to deformity.
[Illustration: ALABASTER STATUE OF MYCERINUS.
Cairo Museum.]
The search among the beds of fragments of stone was continued. A few
weeks before it was finished, at the end of May, 1908, it produced
four groups in schist, the testimony of which fully confirmed that
of the alabaster statues. The disposition is the same, with very
slight divergences, which do not sensibly modify the aspect of the
pieces. Three persons stand side by side against a slab 17 to 23
inches high. Mycerinus is in the middle, his left foot advanced, the
waist-cloth fluted on the loins, and on his forehead the white cap of
the kingdom of Upper Egypt. He always has a goddess on his right, a
Hathor moulded in the sleeveless smock open on the chest, and on her
hair the short wig and the _coufieh_. On the top of this head-dress
she wears her two cow’s horns and the solar disk. In one of the groups
she is walking, her arms hanging down and her hands laid flat on her
thighs; in the second, she embraces him with her left arm and presses
against him; in the third she holds his right hand in her left. The
last of the figures is sometimes a woman, sometimes a man: the man, who
is shorter by a third than his companions, walks forward swinging his
arms; the two women are at rest, and one of them puts her right arm
round the king’s waist, in symmetry with the Hathor on the left. They
are geographical entities, nomes, and the standards on their heads tell
us their names: the two women personify the nomes of Sistrum and the
Dog, the man that of Oxyrrhinchus. The fragments of schist under which
they were buried assuredly belong to other groups now destroyed, but
how many of them were there in the beginning? The decorative theme of
which they formed part is one of which the intention is grasped at the
first glance, but if we needed a commentary to explain it, the brief
legends at the base would provide the material. They inform us, in
fact, that our Hathor is the lady of the Canton of the Sycomore, and
that the nome of the Dog, that of the Sistrum, that of Oxyrrhinchus,
bring the sovereign all the good things of their territory. Mycerinus,
in his quality of king of the Saîd and of the delta, had a right to
tribute during his life, and to offerings after his death from the
whole country, and on the other hand, Hathor, lady of the Sycomore, is
the patron of dead Osirians in the Memphian province where the palaces
and tombs of the Pharaohs are. It was natural then that she should
serve as the introducer of the delegates of the nomes when they came to
pay their tribute to the common master. With rich private individuals,
the operation was symbolized on the walls of the funerary chapels by
long processions of men or women in bas-relief, each of whom incarnated
one of the domains charged with the upkeep of the tomb. Here it was
expressed in even a more concrete fashion by two series of groups in
rondo-bosso, which were probably developed on the walls in one of the
court-yards of the temple of the pyramid. The four which have escaped
destruction belonged to the series of the Saîd, as is proved by their
names and the head-dress of the sovereign, but those of the delta could
not have been omitted without causing regrettable privations to the
_double_ in his life beyond the tomb; there were then about forty in
all, as many as there were nomes in the whole of Egypt.
[Illustration: MYCERINUS, HATHOR, AND THE NOME OXYRRHINCHUS
Schist. Cairo Museum.]
[Illustration: MYCERINUS, HATHOR, AND THE NOME CYNOPOLITE
Schist. Cairo Museum.]
The excellence of those that have survived fills us with regret for
those that are lost. At the instant they emerged from the earth, they
preserved something of their primitive colouring, but contact with the
air and light speedily deprived them of it, and only traces remain
on the chest, at the neck, wrists, waist, places protected by the
customary ornaments of people of high rank. The gold-leaf with which
the necklaces and bracelets were decorated was stolen in times of
antiquity, but the thicker layers of paint on which they were placed
preserve their contours fairly exactly. It would be easy for us to
restore to the whole the aspect it had when fresh and new--a light
yellow complexion for the women, and red-brown for the men, black hair,
blue or white head-dresses, white crowns, and garments relieved by
the tawny brilliance of the jewels. In pieces where everything is so
minutely calculated for reality, it is scarcely probable that anything
is the effect of chance or of lack of skill; if then the sovereign’s
head is too small it is because it was so in reality. In fact, the
lack of proportion with the rest of the body is less perceptible here
than in the isolated statues, and it is not perceptible at the first
glance: but it is soon recognized when the sovereign is compared with
his two companions. Not only are their heads larger and more massive
than his, but it would seem that the sculptor desired to accentuate the
inequality between them by a trick of his craft: he has perceptibly
narrowed their shoulders, and the contrast between the small head that
surmounts the vast shoulders of Mycerinus with the two large heads that
weight the narrow shoulders of the acolytes, emphasizes the deformity
that the placing together of three figures on the same level had almost
concealed. Study of the schists leads to the same conclusion as that
formed of the alabasters. It is the real Mycerinus that contemporaries
have bound themselves to transmit to posterity, and they have spared no
details which were naturally calculated to make us better acquainted
with him. We have only to analyse their works to see him stand before
us in his habit as he lived. He was tall, robust, slender, with long
legs, powerful shoulders surmounted by a small face, an athlete with
the head almost of a child. In addition, projecting eyes, big ears, a
short nose, the tip turned up, a sensual mouth with full lips, a chin
receding under the artificial beard; the expression of the face is
benevolent, even weak. In vain has the sculptor stiffened the backbone
and the neck, thrown out the chest, stretched the biceps, clenched
the fist, and immobilized the features into a hieratic gravity: he
has not succeeded in inculcating the sovereign majesty that makes
our Chephrên the ideal Pharaoh, the equal of the gods. He has the
sanctimonious appearance of a private individual of good family, but
his general bearing is below his condition. We could easily point to a
dozen statues, his neighbours in the Cairo Museum, that of Rânafir, for
instance, which have a more exalted appearance and a prouder mien.
[Illustration: MYCERINUS AND HIS WIFE.
Schist. Boston Museum.]
And the new schist group that Reisner discovered during the winter
of 1909 has not made any change in our opinion necessary. This time
Mycerinus is represented with his wife; the lower portions of the two
figures had not received the final polish when death intervened, but
those of the upper part were finished and are admirable. Mycerinus
wears the head-dress of the ordinary _claft_, which squarely frames the
face, and his features are those with which we have become familiar
in the statues described above; eyes starting from his head, a fixed
expression, turned up nose, a large, loose mouth, the lower lip
protruding, the physiognomy of a man of the middle class straining to
appear dignified. The queen does not appear much more noble, but in
looking at her we are disposed to think that she had more intelligence
and vivacity. We should not say that she was exactly smiling, but
a smile has just passed over her face, and traces of it remain on
her lips and in her eyes. She has beautiful round cheeks, a little
turned-up nose, a full chin, full lips cleft from top to bottom by a
strongly marked furrow: a determined expression shows itself between
her narrow, heavy eyelids. She resembles her husband, a fact that is
not surprising, since unions between brothers and sisters were not
only tolerated but commanded by custom; there is thus every chance
that the couple were born of the same father and mother; she has only
a greater appearance of strength than he has. Custom exacted that,
when a husband and wife were associated in a group, they should not
be placed side by side on a level of absolute equality, but that the
woman should be given a posture or merely a gesture implying a state of
more or less affectionate dependence on the husband; she crouched at
his feet, her chest against his knees, or her arm was round his waist
or his neck, as if she had no trust except in his protection. Here the
queen’s gesture is in conformity with convention, but the manner of
its execution contradicts the intention of submission: she leans less
against the Pharaoh than she draws him close to her, and looks as if
she is protecting him at least as much as he is protecting her. She is
his equal in height, and even if she is more slender than he is, as is
proper to her sex, her shoulders are as robust. Does it mean that the
sculptor has attributed to her the massive shoulders of a man? Not at
all: but following the example of his colleagues in the triads, he has
cheated a little in order to dissimulate the defect of his model. As
doubtless he would not have liked to show a deformed Pharaoh, and as he
might not alter features which, after all, were those of a god, he has
made the deformity less visible by taking away from the shoulders what
was wanted in order to establish a sort of apparent equilibrium between
the parts, and so we are brought back by a fresh detour to the point
to which the examination of the alabasters and triads had led us. Let
us once more conclude that the effigies of the Memphian Pharaohs and
their subjects were real portraits of the personages they claimed to
reproduce.
[Illustration: MYCERINUS, HATHOR, AND THE NOME OF THE SISTRUM.
Schist. Cairo Museum.]
[Illustration: MYCERINUS AND HIS WIFE (DETAIL).
Schist. Boston Museum.]
They were real, but not realistic unless there was special necessity.
I have repeatedly attempted to define the two chief schools of
Egyptian sculpture, the Theban and the Memphian. From the beginning
the Theban school tends to copy the model brutally, as it was at the
moment when it was portrayed. Take the statues of Sanouosrît I or of
Sanouosrît III, which lately came to the Cairo Museum. The family
likeness between all of them is indubitable, but, according as they
come from a Theban or Memphian studio, the features which constitute
the complete resemblance are noted in such divergent ways that at the
first glance we are inclined to think that it scarcely exists. The
Thebans scrupulously marked the thinness of the cheeks, the hardness
of the eye, the harshness of the mouth, the heaviness of the jaw, and
have exaggerated rather than diminished those points. The Memphians
do not neglect them, but have treated them in a more merciful manner,
and, from the haggard faces in which the rival school took pleasure,
have brought out the happy smiling expression that its own traditions
ascribed without exception to all the Pharaohs. We cannot institute
comparisons of that kind for the epoch of Mycerinus: the Theban school,
if, as is probable, it was then in existence, still sleeps buried
beneath the ruins, and we know nothing belonging to it to place by the
side of the Memphian. It is sufficient, however, to walk through the
rooms of the Cairo Museum reserved for it to be convinced that if the
Cheîkh-el-Beled, the Chephrên statues, the royal couple of Meîdoum,
the Rânafir statues are portraits and likenesses, they are at the
same time idealized portraits according to the formula, the influence
of which we have seen in the monuments of the XIIth Dynasty. Whatever
the models presented that was too pronounced, was softened in order to
give them the serene bearing fitting the imperishable bodies of such
noble and respectable persons. They only departed from this routine
when there were monstrosities, the entire suppression of which would
have been fraught with danger for the immortality of the subject, as
in the case of the two dwarfs in the Cairo Museum; but it is not quite
certain if even in those cases some modification of the ugliness has
not been contrived. What has happened to Mycerinus renders it probable:
have we not seen, in fact, that the artist exerted his ingenuity to
dissimulate the disturbing exiguity of the head by an artifice? And he
must often have taken similar liberties, although we have no actual
means of proving it. I will venture to assert it of Chephrên, although
almost the half of one of his two statues, that in green serpentine, is
a restoration by Vassalli. For if we compare their profiles, we notice
that that of the serpentine statue is weaker than that of the diorite
statue: the eye is smaller and the chin less authoritative, the tip
of the nose recedes a little, and there is a slight resemblance with
Mycerinus. The lofty dignity which I noted just now as appearing in
the father in contrast to the son may be the result of the Memphians’
determination to idealize their subjects so as to make each of them an
almost abstract type of the class to which they belonged.
As might be expected, the alabasters of Mycerinus are a long way from
equalling the schists. Indeed, whenever we find statues of a person in
different materials, it is seldom that those most difficult to work
in are not also the best. Petrie concluded that in all periods Egypt
had a school of sculpture in limestone and soft stones, and one in
granite and hard stones. But who would think of classifying modern
sculptors in different schools according as they used bronze or marble?
In Egypt, as in later times, the instruction given to learners prepared
them to practise the complete calling, whatever the special branch to
which they later confined themselves might be, but as the handling of
certain stones required a more extended practice, care was taken in the
workshops to entrust them to the most expert. That is evidently what
happened in the case of Mycerinus. His alabasters are certainly very
estimable; but those to whom we owe them were not skilled virtuosi,
and if they acquitted themselves of their task honourably, they only
produced ordinary work. Those who executed the schists were much more
skilled. I will not venture to assert that they entirely triumphed over
their material: the bodies of princes and gods sculptured in matter
so unyielding and of so gloomy a tone present a rigidity of contour
which we feel as keenly as we do the lack of colour which would enliven
them. They almost repel any one who sees them for the first time, but
the repulsion once overcome, they reveal themselves as perfect of
their kind. The artist has done what he wished with the ungrateful
material, and has handled it with the same suppleness as if he had been
kneading the most ductile clay. The women are especially remarkable
with their full round shoulders, their small breasts placed low, the
belly strong and well designed, the thighs full and graceful, the legs
vigorous, one of the most elegant types created by Memphian Egypt. It
does not equal the diorite Chephrên, nor the Cheîkh-el-Beled, nor the
Crouching Scribe, nor the lady of Meîdoum, but it is not so far removed
from them, and few pieces take so high a rank in the work of the old
Memphian school.
[Illustration: MYCERINUS AND HIS WIFE (DETAIL).
Schist. Boston Museum.]
III
A SCRIBE’S HEAD
OF THE IVTH OR VTH DYNASTY
(_The Louvre_)
The inventories give no indication of the origin of this head. So
little was its source suspected that for a long time it was believed to
be of Peruvian work: M. de Longpérier with his usual tact restored it
to its rightful place in the Egyptian series.[12] At the first glance
the style is seen to be that of the ancient Memphian Empire: it has
evidently been detached from a statue found in one of the necropolises
of Saqqarah. The absence of the plinth and the parts which usually bear
the inscription prevents us from knowing the name of the individual it
represents, a scribe contemporary, or very nearly, with the celebrated
Crouching Scribe. A narrow and somewhat receding forehead, a long
prominent eye slightly drawn up towards the temples, snub-nose, thin
nostrils, accentuated cheekbones, thin cheeks, large mouth with full
lips, a firm rounded chin, do not make a flattering portrait but
certainly an exact one. The material is the excellent limestone of
Tourah painted bright red: the technique shows delicacy and skill rare
even at that period of admirable artists.
Almost all the statues of mere private individuals come from temples
or tombs. The right of setting up a statue in the temples belonged
exclusively to the king; so the greater number of those we have offer
a special formula: “_Granted as a favour_ on the part of the king to a
son of so and so,”[13] sometimes too the favour is qualified as _great_
or _very great_. It was then by some exceptional title, in reward of
services rendered, or by a caprice of royalty, that an Egyptian was
authorized to place his portrait in a temple, whether of his native
city or of some other town, to the god for whom he professed a special
devotion. The great feudal lords, who all more or less aspired to
possess royal rights, sometimes took the liberty of setting up a statue
of themselves without the preliminary permission of Pharaoh; but in
spite of these usurpations of the royal prerogative, the number is
relatively small. Civil wars, foreign invasions, the ruin of towns, the
destruction of idols by the Christians, contributed to make private
statues coming from temples rare in our museums.[14]
[Illustration: SCRIBE’S HEAD.
The Louvre.]
But, on the other hand, those that come from cemeteries are very
numerous. Every tomb that was somewhat cared for in the ancient or
new empire contained several which represented the defunct alone, or
accompanied by the principal members of his family. They were not
always placed in the same spot: in the IVth Dynasty they were sometimes
placed in the outer court, in the open air, sometimes also in the
chapel, where on certain days the family celebrated the worship of the
ancestor. Most often they were imprisoned in a narrow chamber, with a
lofty ceiling, something like a corridor, and for that reason called
_Serdâb_ by the Arabs. Sometimes the _Serdâb_ is lost in the masonry
and does not communicate with any of the other chambers. Sometimes it
is connected with the funerary chapel by a sort of quadrangular pipe,
so small that a hand can scarcely be inserted.[15] The priests would
burn incense near the orifice, pour libations, present offerings,
murmur prayers, and everything was supposed to penetrate to the little
apartment. Some of these _Serdâb_ contained one or two statues at
most, others would contain twenty. Some are in wood or hard stone,
but the greater number are in painted limestone. Seated or standing,
crouching or in the attitude of walking, they all claim to be
portraits--portraits of the dead man, of his wife, of his children, of
his servants. If they were more often found in places where they would
have been visible, their presence would be explained by the pleasure
members of a family would feel in seeing the features of those they
had loved. But they are generally walled up for all eternity in hidden
corners where no one would ever penetrate: we must seek other reasons.
The Egyptians formed a somewhat coarse idea of the human soul. They
regarded it as an exact reproduction of the body of each individual,
formed of a substance less dense than flesh and bones, but susceptible
to the sight, feeling, and touch. The _double_, or to call it by the
name they gave it, the _ka_, was subject, though in a lesser degree
than its terrestrial type, to all the infirmities of our life: it
drank, ate, clothed itself, anointed itself with perfumes, came and
went in its tomb, required furniture, a house, servants, an income. A
man must be assured beyond the tomb of the possession of all the wealth
he had enjoyed in the world, under penalty of being condemned to an
eternity of unspeakable misery. His family’s first obligation towards
him was to provide him with a durable body; they therefore mummified
his mortal remains to the best of their ability, and buried the mummy
at the bottom of a pit where it could only be reached with the greatest
difficulty. The body, however, in spite of the care taken in preparing
it, only very remotely recalled the form of the living person. It was,
besides, unique and easily destroyed: it could be broken, methodically
dismembered, and the pieces scattered or burnt. If it disappeared, what
would become of the _double_? For its support statues were provided,
representing the exact form of the individual. Effigies in wood,
limestone, hard stone, bronze, were more solid than the mummy, and
there was nothing to prevent the manufacture of any number of them
desired. One body was a single chance of durability for the _double_:
twenty gave it twenty chances. And that is the explanation of the
astonishing number of statues sometimes found in one tomb. The piety of
the relatives multiplied the images, and consequently the supports, the
imperishable bodies, of the _double_ would, by themselves alone, almost
assure him immortality.[16]