Phtah-Maî, and more than one lady Naî: but none of them has any claim
to be identified with our two personages. Phtah-Maî is not a noble: he
filled a very humble post, that of a page attached to a noble, or a
subordinate employé of a temple or of a court of justice. But the charm
of the monument he devoted to the memory of his sister is only the more
remarkable.
The personage in the middle is a priest, standing, wearing the short
wig with little locks of hair in rows one above the other. The bust
is bare, and his only garment is a long skirt falling half way down
the leg, spread out in front into a sort of pleated apron. In his two
hands he bears a sacred insignia consisting of a ram’s head surmounted
by the solar disk, and forming an ægis, the whole set into a staff
of fairly large dimensions: the attitude is one of repose. The third
figure, on the contrary, is full of movement and activity. It is an
officer in semi-military costume of the time of Amenôphis III or of
his successors: a small wig, a clinging smock with sleeves, a short
loin-cloth tightly girded over the hips and scarcely descending to the
middle of the thigh, decorated in front with a small piece of stuff
standing out, pleated lengthwise. These two statuettes are painted
dark red with the exception of the wig, which is black, of the cornea
of the eyes, which is white, and the insignia of the priest, which is
yellow. The old pedestal has disappeared, and with it the name. Like
the limestone and wooden statues of large dimensions, these formed
part of the funerary equipment: they were the supports of souls in
miniature, and served as a body for the double of the model and _kept
alive the name_ of a person who had been loved or well known. There
are a large number of them in the museums, and nearly all are of the
same epoch. Neither the Ancient nor the Middle Empire made them--Saïte
art preferred hard stone: the wooden statuettes that I have so far seen
are of the second Theban period, and belong to the XVIIIth, XIXth, and
XXth Dynasties.
Some of them, if not all, were used for purposes that seem strange to
us. Several had little rolls of papyrus fastened to their pedestal or
their body, ordinary letters that the writers sent to one another;
one possessed by the Leyden Museum is an adjuration addressed _to the
perfect soul of the lady Ankhari_ by her still living husband:[80]
“What fault have I committed against thee that I should be reduced
to the miserable condition in which I find myself? What have I done
to justify this attack on me, if no fault has been committed against
thee? From the time I became thy husband until this day, what have I
done against thee that I should conceal? What shall I do when I have
to bear witness to my conduct in regard to thee, and shall appear with
thee before the tribunal of the dead, addressing myself to the cycle of
the infernal gods, and thou wilt be judged after this writing, which
is in words uttering my complaint in regard to what thou hast done.
What wilt thou do?” The general tone of the piece is, as is clear, one
of complaint and accusation. The husband laments about “the miserable
condition to which he is reduced,” three years after he has become a
widower; then he relates the incidents of his conjugal life in order to
show the ingratitude he has received for his trouble and care. “When
thou becamest my wife, I was young, I was with thee, I did not desert
thee, I caused no grief to thy heart. Now so I acted when I was young;
when I was promoted to high dignities by Pharaoh, I did not desert
thee; I said: ‘Let them be mutual between us!’ and as everybody who
came saw me with thee, thou didst not receive those whom thou didst
not know, for I acted according to thy will. Now, here it is, thou
hast not satisfied my heart and I shall plead with thee, and the true
will be distinguished from the false.” He dwells on and reminds her of
his kindnesses: “I have never been found acting brutally to thee like
a peasant who enters other people’s houses.” When she died, during
an eight months’ absence occasioned by his service with Pharaoh, “I
did what was seeming for thee: I lamented thee greatly with my people
opposite my dwelling, I gave stuffs and swathings for thy burial, and
for that purpose had many linen cloths woven, and I omitted no good
offering I could make thee.”[81] The poor man does not state clearly
the nature of the troubles from which he suffered. Perhaps he imagined
that his wife tormented him in the form of a spectre; perhaps, what
after all comes to the same thing in the belief of an Egyptian, he
was attacked by diseases and overwhelmed with infirmities that he
attributed to the malignity of the dead woman. We are reminded of
the strange actions that the Icelanders of the Middle Ages practised
against ghosts. The administration set on foot the whole cortège of
officials and the whole of its legal code to bring the accusation,
judge and condemn the dead who persisted in haunting the house in
which they had lived. The records of the causes are extant and
testify to the gravity that presided over this strange procedure. The
Leyden papyrus certainly relates to an affair of the kind. A husband,
addressing his wife’s soul, summons her to suspend persecutions that
are in no way justified, under pain of answering for her conduct before
the infernal jury. If she did not heed this preliminary advice, the
matter would be brought later before the tribunal of the gods of the
west and pleaded: the papyrus would serve as a piece of convincing
evidence, and then “the true would be distinguished from the false.”
There was one difficulty to be overcome: how was the summons to be sent
to her? The Egyptians were never embarrassed when it was a question of
communicating with the other world. The husband read the letter in the
tomb, then fastened it to a figure of the woman. Thus she could not
fail to receive the adjuration as she received the funerary banquet, or
the effect of the prayers that assured her happiness beyond the tomb.
The preoccupations of art held only a subordinate place in statues like
those of the lady Naî and her two companions: the religious idea was
predominant, and it was religion which gave the monument its meaning.
XIX
A FRAGMENT OF A THEBAN STATUETTE[82]
The excavations undertaken by Mr. Mond on the eastern slope of the
hills of Cheîkh-Abd-el-Gournah, in one of the richest of the Theban
cemeteries of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties, have already given
several valuable monuments to the “Service des Antiquités”; and nothing
surpasses or even equals the fragment illustrated here. The statuette
to which it belongs was broken in the middle. The hips and legs have
disappeared, as well as the right arm, and the plinth against which
the back leaned; Mr. Mond eagerly sought the missing pieces among the
residue of his find, but in vain; they were not forthcoming, and were
doubtless either destroyed in ancient times, or carried off by some
amateur during the nineteenth century. The fragment that remains to
us measures nearly a foot in length and about 4½ inches across the
shoulders; there is nothing in the lines by which one can determine
whether the person it represents was seated or standing. I am inclined
to think that, according to the custom of the time, the attitude
resembled that of the little lady Touî in the Louvre,[83] standing, the
feet nearly on the same level, the right arm hanging down, the head
erect, with the wig of ceremony, and the dress of great holidays.
[Illustration: THE MOND STATUETTE (FRONT VIEW).]
The material employed by the sculptor is limestone of the kind the
inscriptions describe as the _fine white stone of Tourah_, but thick
beds of it extend along the sides of the valley of Egypt from the
environs of Cairo to the defiles of Gebeleîn. It abounds in the Theban
plain, and although it is too split and cracked in every sense to be
of any use for building purposes, it is admirably suited for designs
of restricted dimensions, such as those of our statuette. It was most
probably carved in the stone of Cheîkh-Abd-el-Gournah itself, perhaps
in one of the blocks extracted at the time of hollowing out the tomb
for which it was destined. It forms an excellent substance, supple
and firm at the same time, and subserves with an inimitable docility
the boldest and the most delicate strokes of the chisel; the grain of
marble, crystalline and almost metallic, makes the sensation on the eye
of a rigid envelope in which the subject is, as it were, imprisoned,
while limestone, softer and richer, better reproduces the elasticity
of the surface of flesh and the free play of the muscles under the
skin. Our statuette had been illuminated in accordance with custom,
but it bears only imperceptible traces of painting and has the natural
colour of old limestone, a tone between cream and yellowed ivory, which
recalls the paleness of Egyptian women. The detail of the clothing
and ornaments which was due to the brush has vanished, and is only
indicated on the border of the mantle by faint tooling. It has thus
lost its archæological value, but has gained an aspect of refinement
wanting in works where the colour has been preserved intact.
The young woman who has thus left us her portrait lived under the XIXth
Dynasty, at a time when fashion imposed enormous head-dresses and
scanty clothing on its votaries. An almost transparent linen covers the
left shoulder, then crosses the chest and is knotted under the right
armpit, concealing the rest of the costume; the left hand is freed
from it and clasps a lotus stem, the flower reaching to the hollow
between the breasts. The bust has not yet attained its plenitude, but
the breasts are well shaped and well separated, but so slight that
they scarcely make any impression on the linen; the lines of the arm,
shoulder, and neck indicate thinness. The artist has well understood
the characteristics of the dawn of womanhood, and the discreet fashion
in which he permits us to guess the slender grace beneath the garment
is that of a master craftsman, but it is in the head and face that he
shows the full measure of his talent. The head is fitted into a wig
of complicated structure which yields nothing in size to the majestic
peruke of Louis XIV. A double ribbon running from the forehead to the
back of the neck divides the hair into two equal masses, which are
themselves divided into volutes of little waved locks, each formed of
two thin tresses, twisted together at the extremity. The whole forms
a stiff heavy fabric which, unskilfully interpreted, would make the
piece ugly, no matter how successful in the other parts. Our sculptor
has made no change in the general arrangement--his model would not have
permitted it--but he has adjusted the parts with such happy ingenuity
that the monster wig, instead of overpowering the face, acts as a frame
to it and sets it off.
[Illustration: THE MONO STATUETTE (PROFILE).]
It is of the purest Egyptian type, not the heavy, brutal type which
predominates in the Memphian age and among the fellahs to-day, but
an elegant refined type of which numerous examples are provided by
statuettes of all periods. The forehead appears to be rather low, but
we cannot be sure if it was so by nature, or if it is the wig which
conceals its height. The eyes are long, almond-shaped, slanting towards
the temple, widely opened. The eyelids are drawn clearly, almost
sharply, and meet at an acute angle both at the inner corner and at the
outer commissure. The globe of the eye is rather prominent, the pupil
was added with the brush, and a sort of greyish tone vaguely marks the
place. The eyebrows are a flattened bow, thin and regular. The nose
is attached to the superciliary arcade by a fairly accentuated curve;
it is straight, thin, rounded at the end, with delicate nostrils.
The lower part of the face is thick-set, and of so firm a cut that
with age--if age ever came--it would have become hard. The lips are
full, thick, edged the whole length, split in the middle: they are
pressed together as if to keep back a smile. The whole face changes in
character and almost in century, according to the angle from which it
is looked at. Seen from the front it is round and full, with neither
superabundance nor softness of flesh: it is the little middle-class
girl of Thebes, pretty, but common in form and expression. Seen from
the side between the hanging pieces of the wig, as if between two long
ringlets falling on the shoulders, it assumes a malicious, roguish
expression not ordinarily usual in Egyptian women: it might be one of
our contemporaries who from caprice or coquetry had put on the ancient
coiffure.
Who was she in her lifetime, and what was her name? The fragment
which represents her was found at the bottom of a funerary pit, in
the court-yard of the tomb of Menna, and Menna flourished under the
XIXth Dynasty. Was she one of his wives, or daughters, or sisters? The
inscription which might have told us is heaven knows where, and it will
be a great piece of good fortune if it is ever found.
XX
THE LADY TOUÎ OF THE LOUVRE AND EGYPTIAN INDUSTRIAL SCULPTURE IN
WOOD[84]
The little lady Touî, who entered the Louvre last year, was in her
lifetime a singer in the service of Amon. The title gives rise to doubt
and scarcely permits us to determine to what class of society she
belonged. The singers in the service of Amon were of all ranks, some
married, others free. They were all bound to serve the god; they shook
before him the sistrum that kept off spirits, or wielded the magic
whip, the _monaît_, with which they beat the air to keep off with heavy
blows the evil beings who floated invisible in it. The most humble
were of easy morals, and the series of licentious vignettes in the
Turin Museum leaves no room for doubt regarding the kind of life they
led. They were the servants of the temple; they placed their bodies at
the free disposal of their master Amon, and whoever addressed them in
his name would not meet with refusal. In the Græco-Roman period the
high-priest chose a young girl of rare beauty from among the richest
and noblest families of Thebes and solemnly dedicated her. She became
the chief singer, and shared the life of her companions of lower origin
as long as youth lasted; when she was past the age of child-bearing
she retired, and an honourable marriage allowed her to end her days
amid the respect of all. The lady Touî’s position seems to have been
less curious. The wives of priests or those of citizens affiliated to
the different brotherhoods of Amon formed associations of _singers_ who
appeared in the temples on days of festival or at the hours fixed for
certain ceremonies: they only accepted the duty of playing the sistrum
or of plying the whip, leaving to the others the rest of the function.
Touî doubtless had a husband and children somewhere in Thebes. In
an Egyptian tale[85] the heroine, Tboubouî, daughter of a priest of
Bastît, replies to the lover who is importuning her: “I am pure, I am
no wanton.” Touî might say the same to us if, trusting to her title, we
confused her with the common _singing-girls_, who yielded their bodies
to all.
[Illustration: THE LADY TOUÎ, STATUETTE IN WOOD.
The Louvre.]
The statuette that represents her may deservedly rank as one of the
best works which have recently emerged from Theban soil. She stands
upright in the hieratical attitude of repose, one foot in advance, the
head fixed, the right arm hanging by her side, the left arm across the
chest, holding the sacred whip, the _monaît_, folded up. She wears the
ceremonial costume, a long robe with sleeves, narrow, crossed in front,
edged with a heavy, stiff fringe, a broad necklace round the neck; on
her head the immense wig fashionable among the Thebans in the eleventh
and tenth centuries B.C., numerous little tresses gathered together at
the ends into two or three, and finished off with tassels or little
curls. The effect was fairly ugly: it lent heaviness to the top of the
figure, diminished the size of the face, cramped the neck, concealed
the fall of the shoulders and the rise of the breasts, broke the
equilibrium of the body. But the anonymous artist who made the portrait
of the lady Touî has derived an almost fortunate advantage from this
deplorable head-dress: he has treated it as a sort of background which
sets off the face, neck, and chest. The lateral tufts of hair frame
the features without making them too heavy, and the close-fitting coif
at the top is placed on the skull without appearing to crush it. The
slender, healthy forms of the body are rendered in remarkable fashion,
and the modelling of the belly and legs shows itself under the clinging
stuff with a precision that is in no way brutal. In looking at it we
certainly recognize more than one defect: the figure lacks suppleness
and the face expression; the wood is cut harshly and with an almost
puerile detail. The whole, however, pleases by some indescribable
simple and chaste charm: the Louvre was perfectly right to acquire it,
even if more money was expended than is usual on Egyptian objects of
such small size.
Its use is easy to determine; it is a miniature _statue of the double_
shut up in the tombs of the Memphian period. A statue was not within
the reach of everybody: only the rich could procure one, and people of
moderate means were obliged to content themselves with little figures
of less cost. The population of priests, _servants_, _singing-girls_,
heads of the works who lived round the sanctuary of Amon or in the
temples of the necropolis, had many pretensions to luxury with slender
resources: their tombs are filled with objects which pretend to be
what they are not, and veritably deceive the eye, destined to give
the dead the illusion of opulence; massive wooden vases painted to
represent alabaster or granite vases, rings and jewels in glass or
enamel that appear to be gold rings and jewels, furniture in common
wood, varnished, speckled, veined, to simulate furniture in rare woods.
The lady Touî belonged to that half-needy class, and had to substitute
statuettes of carved and polished wood for limestone or sandstone
statues. All the museums in Europe have similar ones, and through
Champollion, the Louvre possessed the lady Naî,[86] who sustains
comparison very well with her new comrade. Egyptian sculptors had
acquired veritable mastery in this subordinate form of sculpture, and
there are pieces of singular charm among those that have reached us.
Take, for instance, the little girl and the woman I have chosen almost
at hazard in one of the cases of the Turin Museum. The little girl is
standing, one foot in advance, the arms hanging down, naked according
to the custom of Egyptian children, with a necklace, and a belt which
loosely surrounds the loins, short plaited hair with a tress falling
over the ears. The material is less precious than with the lady Touî,
and the work less thorough, but has the slim delicacy of a little
Egyptian girl of eight or ten years old ever been better expressed?
It is an exact portrait, in costume and figure, of the little Nubian
girls of the Cataract before the age of puberty obliges them to wear
clothes; it is their thin chest, slender hips, clearly cut, delicate
thigh, their bearing, hesitating and bold at the same time, the roguish
expression of their features.
[Illustration: STATUETTE IN WOOD.
Turin Museum.]
[Illustration: STATUETTE IN WOOD.
Turin Museum.]
The other statuette represents a well-developed woman standing on a
round pedestal without a scrap of clothing or veil, but very proud of
her head-dress, and especially of her big earrings. She touches the
right one with her hand and makes it stand out a little in order
to show it, or to assure herself that the jewel is very becoming; the
head is big, the shoulders thin, the chest narrow, and the sculptor
was embarrassed to render the movement of the arms; but the eyes are
so wide open, the smile so contented, the expression of the whole so
intelligent, that we can easily excuse that defect.
Men were as well treated as women by this art fostered by persons of
small means. Scribes of subordinate rank, old retired officers, retail
merchants, or men at the head of small industrial concerns, all of
whom swarmed in the poorer quarters, felt as strongly as their wives,
in default of the stone statue, the need of acquiring a wooden image
which would show what they had been like in their lifetime. There
were as many artists as they wished to model them in the attitude
they preferred, in their everyday costume or in that of fête-days,
bearing and likeness guaranteed. Those found in the tombs in the early
years of the nineteenth century form a veritable gallery, most varied
and curious, of the different types prevailing from the thirteenth
to the ninth century B.C. in Thebes and its environs among the lower
middle-class.[87] Some had been soldiers, and wear the light petticoat
bulging at the waist of the Egyptian foot-soldier; others had spent
their lives scribbling in a Government office; the greater number
belonged to one of the funerary professions, guardians of mummies,
decorators of hypogeums, hewers of tombs, sacristans or priests of a
low order employed in the minor offices of burials or commemorative
rites. They proudly exhibit their insignia: they carry long staves
crowned with sacred emblems--the human head of Hathor, the hawk’s
beak of Horus--and everything in their attitude betrays the pride and
satisfaction of knowing themselves so fine and so important. Their
bearing reveals what the inscriptions usually placed on the pedestal
of their statuettes confirm: “It is I, Khâbokhni, the Servant of the
‘True’ Place,” he who poured the libations, or who, at the canonical
hours, distributed a portion of bread, flowers, and fruits to each
of the dead entrusted to his care. The Egyptians were admirable in
observation and full of satirical humour: I would not swear that, in
impressing this character of naïve vanity on their works, the sculptors
were not yielding to the temptation of discreetly amusing themselves at
the expense of their sitters.
Study of these small monuments is too much neglected. By considering
the colossi of granite or sandstone, the heroic statues and the
ceremonial groups, we are inclined to recognize only qualities of
grandeur and immobile majesty in Egyptian art; the wooden statuettes
show how, on occasion, it could display charm and wit. Most of them
are the products of chance, commercial pieces, prepared in advance
for the needs of customers, of which a large assortment was always
kept in reserve. The family desiring to offer one to one of its dead
came to get it at the fairest price, and something was sold, more or
less well done according to the sum that was spent; the choice being
made, the piece was adapted to its definitive destination by engraving
on the pedestal, or on the back, the names which transformed the
anonymous doll into a body for the double of a particular individual.
They were artisans who sculptured these images, or rather manufactured
them for the undertakers of funerals. Their education was so complete
and their hand so practised that they rarely fell very low; their
average productions are of honest composition and sufficiently true in
feeling. When they were given enough time or commissioned to take great
care with a piece of work, those who combined natural talent with the
routine of their craft produced work of real value--the statuettes of
the lady Touî, of the little girl and the woman in the Turin Museum,
and many others hidden from the public in the cupboards of our museums.
XXI
SOME PERFUME LADLES OF THE XVIIITH DYNASTY
(_The Louvre_)