were intended to serve as a support to the soul. The consecration
they received animated them, so to speak, and made them substitutes
for the defunct: the offerings destined for the other world were
served to them. The tomb of a rich man possessed a veritable chapel
to which a special body of priests was attached, formed of _hon-ka_
or _priests of the double_. At the sacramental festivals the _priests
of the double_ performed the necessary rites, they looked after the
upkeep of the edifice and administered its revenues. The statues of the
towns themselves demanded particular care. Indeed, the clergy of the
temple in which they were placed claimed their part in the advantages
derived from ancestor worship: veritable acts of donation were drawn
up in their favour, in which were specified the part they were to
play in the ceremonies, the quantity of the offerings that fell to
their share for the service rendered, the number of days in the year
consecrated to each statue. “Agreement between Prince Hapi-T’aufi and
the _hour-priests_ of the temple of Anubis, master of Siout, in regard
to one white loaf that each must give to the statue of the prince,
under the hand of the _ka-priest_, the 18th Thot, the day of the
festival of _Ouaga_,[17] and also the gifts which every tomb owes to
its lord; afterwards in regard to the ceremony of kindling the flame,
and the procession that they ought to make with the _ka-priest_ while
he celebrates the service in honour of the defunct, and that they march
to the north corner of the temple on the day of kindling the flame. For
that Hapi-T’aufi gives the _hour-priests_ a bushel of corn from each of
the fields belonging to the tomb, the firstfruits of the harvest of
the prince’s domain, as each commoner in Siout is accustomed to do from
the firstfruits of his harvest, for every peasant always makes a gift
from the firstfruits of his harvest to the temple.”[18] The ceremonial
is set out in detail, and the monument tells us how, and under what
conditions, a dead person is fed in Egypt. The loaves, meat and corn
were placed in front of the statue by the priests: thence they reached
the gods, who, after taking their part, transmitted the rest to the
_double_.
We now understand why the statues that do not represent gods are always
and uniquely portraits as exact as the artists could render them. Each
was a stone body; not an ideal body in which only beauty of form or
expression was sought, but a real body in which care should be taken
neither to add nor take away anything. If the body of flesh had been
ugly, the body of stone must be ugly in the same way, otherwise the
_double_ would not find the support it needed. The statue from which
the head preserved in the Louvre was broken off was, undoubtedly, the
faithful portrait of the individual whose name was engraved on it: if
the realism of the expression is somewhat brutal, it is the fault of
the model, who had not taken care to be handsome, and not that of the
sculptor, who would have been guilty of a sort of impiety if he had
altered the physiognomy of his model in the least detail.
IV
SKHEMKA, HIS WIFE AND SON
A GROUP FOUND AT MEMPHIS
(_The Louvre_)
Skhemka lived at Memphis at the end of the Vth Dynasty. He was attached
to the administration of the domains, and was buried in the necropolis
of Saqqarah. His tomb, discovered by Mariette during the excavations of
the Serapeum, furnished three pretty statues to the Louvre.[19] I knew
the group reproduced here at a time when the coating that covered it
had suffered very little; the galleries of Europe possess nothing to be
compared with it for finish of execution.
I shall not say much of the principal personage: he possesses all the
qualities and all the defects to which we are accustomed in the work of
the sculptors of the Ancient Empire. The modelling of the torso, arms,
and legs is excellent, of the foot mediocre, of the hands execrable;
the head lives, alive and intelligent under the large wig, with its
rows of braids one above the other, which frames it. The two accessory
statues are charming in design and composition. On the left Ati, the
dead man’s wife, stands leaning against the back of the seat embracing
her husband’s leg. The face and limbs are painted yellow in accordance
with a convention almost always respected in Egypt.[20] A layer of
bright red denotes the tan that the sun lays on the men’s skin; the
light yellow reproduces the more delicate shade induced by the indoor
life of the women. The hair, parted over the forehead, falls in two
masses alongside the cheeks. The sleeveless dress is open in front, and
the opening extends in a point to between the two breasts: the stuff
exactly follows the lines of the body, and the skirt ends a little
above the ankle. The position of the breasts is indicated by a special
design; all the rest from the waist to the feet is embroidered with
ornaments in colour, imitating the network of glass beads to be seen
in the museums.[21] A necklace with two rows and bracelets complete
the costume. On the right, Knom, son of Skhemka and Ati, serves as a
pendant to his mother: he is naked except for a necklace round the
bottom of his neck and a little square amulet that falls on his chest.
The grace and charm of the figures cannot be too much admired. Although
of small dimensions, the artist has endowed them with the physiognomy
and features suited to their age with as much exactness as if he
had been dealing with a colossus. The firm flesh and rounded but
muscular limbs of the woman in her prime, and the chubby flesh and soft
limbs of the child, are treated equally happily. The mother’s face has
a smiling charm, the son’s a naïve and wondering grace: the Egyptian
chisel did not often work with so much intelligence and lightness.
[Illustration: SKHEMKA WITH HIS WIFE AND SON.
Limestone. The Louvre.]
The gesture with which each of the two small people embraces the leg
of the big one is not an artifice of composition, a simple way of
attaching the subordinate elements of the group to the principal one.
It is often to be found in turning over the plates of Lepsius’s fine
work.[22] The inscriptions repeatedly state of the wife that “she loved
her husband,” and the artists reveal it in action. Seated or standing
by his side, she puts her hand on his shoulder or her arm round his
neck; crouching or kneeling, she leans against him, her breast pressed
against his leg, her cheek leaning against his knee. And it is not only
in the privacy of the home that she treats him with this affectionate
abandon, but in public, before the servants or the assembled vassals,
while he is inspecting his lands and reviewing his possessions.[23]
In the same way it is rare to find a personage without his children,
“who love him,” at his feet or by his side, from the little, naked
long-haired boy, like Knom, to the grown-up sons and married daughters.
To sum up, the sculptor to whom we owe the Louvre monument has carved
in stone a scene of contemporary life. He shows us Skhemka, Ati, and
Knom grouped as they were every day: and what is conventional in his
work is not the grouping of the three people, but the disproportion in
stature between the husband and wife, and between the mother and son.
But here, again, he is only conforming to a prevailing tradition of
his art. In all the tombs of every period, the master of the hypogeum
is generally of the height of the wall, while servants, friends, sons,
and wives are only of the height of one of the rows. The king, in
the warlike paintings of the temples, is of colossal size, while the
others, friends or enemies, beside him, look like a crowd of pigmies.
In that case we might imagine that the difference in size showed only
the difference of rank, but the explanation does not suffice elsewhere.
A slave married for her beauty preserved something of the inferiority
of her former condition; a princess of the blood royal, united in
marriage to a private individual, did not therefore renounce her royal
rank. If inequality of stature corresponded to inequality of rank,
the sculptor would have made the first smaller and the second bigger
than her husband. They did not, however, do that: slave or princess,
they gave the wife a stature sometimes equal but more often lower than
that of the husband.[24] Thus the treatment does not show social
distinction; the woman was legally on the same level as the man. If
the master of the tomb is alone in his height, it is merely because he
alone is at home in the tomb, and it was desired to show in him the one
master, the personage who must be protected against the dangers of the
other world: so he was designed of large size, as we underline a word
in a sentence in order to emphasize it.
In fact, the sculptor, in modelling his work, thought of the
necessities of the life beyond the tomb. Skhemka’s wife living might be
superior to Skhemka by fortune or birth, and so take precedence of him;
before the dead Skhemka she was only a subordinate personage. Egyptian
theology supposed, it would seem, that the wife was as indispensable
to the man after as during life, and that is why she is represented by
his side on the walls of his tomb; but, as she is only an accessory
there, the sculptor and the painter are free to treat her as they
understand the matter. If the husband demanded it, they gave both the
same stature, seated them on the same seat, made no sort of difference
between them. But if he expressed no wish, they could either suppress
her altogether or relegate her to the background and give her the
dimensions of her son, as they did with Ati, in order that she may lean
against the seat on which her husband is enthroned.
V
THE CROUCHING SCRIBE
VTH DYNASTY
(_The Louvre_)
He was found by Mariette in the tomb of Skhemka in 1851, during the
soundings which preceded the discovery of the Serapeum. He is now
in the Louvre, in the centre of the “Salle civile” of the Egyptian
Gallery, surrounded by show-case tables. His attitude, in conjunction
with the unfortunate place assigned him, makes him look like a fellah
dealer in antiquities seated in the midst of his goods, patiently
waiting for customers. The red paint, which was perfect when he was
brought to the Louvre, has worn off in places with the coating on
which it was applied, and so the whity colour of the limestone shows
through here and there; the cross light from the two windows falls on
him in such a way as almost to efface the modelling of the shoulders
and chest: ordinary visitors, for whom there is nothing to mark it,
scarcely look at it, and pass it by in complete indifference to the
fact that one of the masterpieces of Egyptian sculpture is before them.
[Illustration: CROUCHING SCRIBE.
The Louvre.]
Does he represent the great lord in whose tomb he was found? Other
statues that entered the Louvre with his bear the name of Skhemka and
pass for the faithful portrait of that personage.[25] If, as their
careful composition leads us to believe, that claim is justified, the
Crouching Scribe was only one of the numerous relatives or servants
named in the inscriptions of the chapel. The people of the Ancient
Empire had the custom of shutting up in the _Serdâb_,[26] by the side
of the statue of the dead person, those of other individuals belonging
to his family or his household. They are mourners, both men and women
crouching down, one hand hanging or cast on the ground about to pick
up the dust in sign of mourning, the other held in front of the face
and plunged into the hair;[27] women who crush the grain on the stone;
servants who thrust their arm into an amphora, probably to coat it with
pitch before pouring in the beer or wine. Ours is a scribe: his legs
bent under him and placed flat on the ground in one of those positions
familiar to Orientals, but almost impossible for Europeans, the bust
upright and well-balanced on the hips, the head raised; reed in hand,
and the sheet of papyrus spread over his knees, he still waits, at
an interval of 6,000 years, for his master to resume the interrupted
dictation. The paintings in the contemporary tombs tell us a hundred
times rather than once what he is preparing to write. In order to
sustain himself in the other world, the great Egyptian lord received on
appointed days the offerings due to him from the domains attached to
his tomb: one was to bring bread, one meat, others wine, cakes, fruit.
It was quite a big piece of bookkeeping, identical with that usual in
his lifetime. The scribes of flesh and blood entered the real revenues
as they came in; the scribe of stone rendered the same service to the
master of stone whom he attended for ever.
We cannot say that our scribe was handsome in his lifetime, but the
truth and vigour of his portrait compensates largely for what he lacks
in beauty. The face is almost square, and the strongly accentuated
features indicate a man in his prime; the large mouth with thin
lips is slightly raised at the corners and almost disappears in the
prominent muscles that frame it; the cheeks are rather hard and bony;
the ears are thick and heavy, and stand out awkwardly from the head;
and the low brow is crowned with coarse, short hair. The eye is well
opened, and owes its special vivacity to an artifice of the ancient
sculptor. The stone in which it is set has been cut away and the
hollow filled with black and white enamel; a bronze mounting marks
the edges of the eyelids, while a little silver nail[28] fastened
under the crystal at the bottom of the eyeball receives the light,
and reflecting it, simulates the pupil of a real eye. It is difficult
to imagine the striking effect that this combination may produce in
certain circumstances. When Mariette cleared out the tomb of Râhotpou
at Meîdoum, the first ray of light which entered the tomb, that had
been closed for 6,000 years, fell on the forehead of two statues
leaning against the wall of the _Serdâb_, and made the eyes sparkle
so brilliantly that the fellahs threw down their tools and fled in
terror. Recovered from their fear, they wanted to destroy the statues,
persuaded that they contained an evil genius, and were only prevented
from doing so at the point of the pistol. More than one statue of the
Ancient Empire, intact at the moment of its discovery, was mutilated
for the same reason that nearly proved fatal to those of Meîdoum. In
the bad light in which the Crouching Scribe is placed, the eyeball does
not shine with a sufficiently strong sparkle, but it really does seem
to have life in it and to follow the visitor with its look.
The rest of the body is equally full of expression. The flesh hangs a
little, as is fitting with a man of a certain age whose occupations
prevent exercise. The arms and back are good in detail; the lean bony
hands have fingers of a greater length than is usual; the rendering
of the knee is minute and exact in a way rarely found elsewhere in
Egyptian art. The whole body is, so to speak, governed by the animation
of the physiognomy, and under the influence of the same feeling of
expectation that dominates it: the muscles of the arm, bust, and
shoulder are only partly at rest, ready at the first signal to resume
the task that has been begun. No work better refutes the reproach of
stiffness usually made in regard to Egyptian art. Let us add that it
is unique in Europe, and that we must go to Boulaq for pieces fine
enough to sustain comparison without disadvantage. But it is not enough
to possess a masterpiece, it is still more important to preserve it.
In its present position the Crouching Scribe runs more risks than
formerly in Egypt. The thousands of years spent buried beneath the sand
in a hypogeum on the tableland of Saqqarah thoroughly dried up the
limestone of which it is made. Transported to our damp climate, and
submitted to its sudden changes of temperature, it is only too much
exposed to deterioration. It should not have been installed without
protection and naked, so to say, in the centre of a room, between
two large doors always open, round about which there are perpetual
draughts. The curators at Turin have placed the fine limestone statue
of Amenôphis I possessed by the Museum in a tightly closed glass cage,
and to that protection is due the fact that the Pharaoh has preserved
its epidermis and colour intact; the expense is not so great that the
Louvre would be impoverished by authorizing a similar proceeding. The
demotic inscriptions of the Serapeum are carefully placed under glass,
and the precaution is praiseworthy, although it makes the study of them
impossible; it is then high time to take similar precautions with the
Scribe. The damp has already acted on it a little; the red coating has
been loosened and has fallen away in some places. If the mechanical
work of destruction is allowed to proceed it will soon be in the same
condition as the three statues of Sapouî and his wife, and the Louvre
will have lost one of the finest pieces of sculpture Egypt has given us.
In comparing it with the statues of Skhemka that we have already
described,[29] we are led to ask why the statue of a subordinate
person should be so superior to that of his master. The Egyptians
knew nothing of what we term art and the artist’s profession: their
sculptors were persons who cut stone with more or less skill, but whose
work, always subordinated to the plan of a building, or to theological
considerations, did not possess the absolute value belonging to the
least important statue of classical antiquity or of modern times.
The effigy of an individual was placed in his tomb, not because it
was beautiful, but because it represented him and served as a support
to his _double_. The question of skill or artistic feeling was a
subordinate one, and we find twenty statues of the same person, some of
which are of finished workmanship and others coarse sketches: whether a
masterpiece or not, the stone body equally served its purpose. Skhemka
fell into the hands of a merely conscientious workman, his scribe into
those of a highly skilled craftsman. I imagine that they cared little
enough if the sculptor brought more or less talent to his task: so long
as the resemblance was there, they asked for nothing more.
VI
THE NEW SCRIBE OF THE GIZEH MUSEUM[30]
The excavations undertaken by M. de Morgan in the northern part of the
necropolis of Saqqarah have recently brought to light a mastaba in fine
white stone, near the tomb of Sabou, a little to the east of Mariette’s
old house. No architectural façade or chapels accessible to the living
were found, only a narrow corridor that plunges into the masonry from
north to south with 5° deviation to the east. The walls had been
prepared and made smooth to receive the usual decoration, but when the
mason had completed his task, the sculptor, it would seem, had no time
to begin his. None of the sketches with the chisel or brush customarily
found in the unfinished tombs of all periods are to be seen. Two large
stelæ, or, if it is preferred, two niches in the form of doors, had
been prepared in the right-hand wall, and a statue stood in front of
each in the same spot where the Egyptian workmen had placed them on the
day of the funeral. The first represents a man seated squarely on a
stool, wearing the loin-cloth, and on his head a wig with rows of small
curls one above the other.
[Illustration: THE NEW SCRIBE OF THE GIZEH MUSEUM.
Painted limestone.]
The bust and legs are bare; the fore-arms and hands rest on the knees,
the right hand closed with the thumb sticking out, the left flat with
the tips of the fingers reaching beyond the hem of the loin-cloth. So
far as may be judged from a photograph, the general style is somewhat
weak; but the detail of the knee, the structure of the leg and foot,
are carefully rendered, the chest and back stand out by the excellent
modelling, the head, weighted as it is by the coiffure, is attached
to the shoulder with an easy and not ungraceful vivacity. The face is
not in good relief, and has a sheepish expression, but the mouth is
smiling, and the eyes of quartz and crystal have an extraordinarily
gentle expression. Taken altogether it is a very good piece of Egyptian
portraiture, and would be a valuable addition to any museum.[31]
The new scribe was crouching in front of the second stele.[32] He
measures in height almost the same as his colleague in the Louvre, and
sufficiently resembles him to permit both being described in almost
similar terms. The legs are bent under and are flat on the ground,
the bust upright and well balanced on the hips, the head raised, the
hand armed with the reed, and in its place on the open papyrus sheet;
they are both waiting at an interval of 6,000 years for the master
to resume the interrupted dictation.[33] The professional gesture
and attitude are reproduced with a truth that leaves nothing to be
desired: it is not only a scribe whom we have before us, it is the
scribe as the Egyptians knew him from the beginning of their history.
The skill with which the sculptors have brought out and co-ordinated
the general features belonging to each class of society is largely
responsible for the impression of monotony produced by their works on
modern spectators. That impression is lessened and nearly effaced, if
we look a little more closely and see how carefully the sculptors have
noted and reproduced the details of form and bearing that make up the
physiognomy proper to each of the individuals who live in the same
social surroundings or practise the same profession. Our two scribes do
not cross their legs in identical fashion; he of the Louvre puts the
right leg in front, he of Gizeh the left. There is no fixed choice, and
children at first tuck their legs under without thought of preference
for one or the other; soon they acquire a habit which makes them keep
to the position once adopted, and in the East to-day you find people
who put either the left or right leg in front, and just a few who put
either one or the other indifferently. The Louvre scribe flattens out
the hand that holds the reed, the man of Gizeh sinks down, and his back
is slightly bent. This shows the habit of the individual, and is not a
question of age, for a glance at the two statues shows that the Gizeh
scribe is younger than his colleague of the Louvre: he is not out of
the thirties, while the other is certainly over forty.