FOOTNOTES:
[1] Fergusson (in vol. i. p. 118, of his History of Architecture in all Countries, etc.) proposes that Karnak should be called a Palace-Temple, or Temple-Palace.
[2] Du Barry de Merval, Études sur l'Architecture Égyptienne (1875), p. 271.
[3] The contrast between the palaces of the East and Versailles is hardly so strong as M. Perrot seems to suggest. The curious assemblage of buildings of different ages and styles which forms the eastern façade of the dwelling of Louis XIV. does not greatly differ in essentials from the confused piles of Delhi or the old Seraglio.—Ed.
[4] Nestor L'Hôte—a fine connoisseur, who often divined facts which were not finally demonstrated until after his visit to Egypt—also received this impression from his examination of the remains at Tell-el-Amarna: "Details no less interesting make us acquainted with the general arrangement ... of the king's palaces, the porticos and propylæa by which they were approached, the inner chambers, the store-houses and offices, the courts, gardens, and artificial lakes; everything, in fact, which went to make up the royal dwelling-place." Lettres écrites d'Égypte (in 1838-9; 8vo, 1840); pp. 64-65.
[5] Lettres écrites d'Égypte, p. 62. In some other plans from Tell-el-Amarna, given by Prisse, several of these altars are given upon a larger scale, showing the offerings with which they are heaped. One of them has a flight of steps leading up to it.
[6] In this we are supported by the opinions of Mariette (Itinéraire, p. 213) and Ebers (L'Égypte, du Caire à Philæ, p. 317).
[7] Itinéraire, p. 213.
[8] See the curious extracts from the Papyrus Anastasi III., given by Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, pp. 267-269.
[9] A careful examination of these tablets has yet to be made; at present we are without any information as to their probable uses. The authors of the Description thought it likely that they were meant to receive metal trophies of some kind. They might have been covered with a painted decoration, or they might have been intended to be cut into barred windows and left unfinished. In the photographs the stone of which they are made seems to be different in grain from the rest of the walls.
[10] Ebers, L'Égypte, du Caire à Philæ, pp. 317-318.
[11] Herodotus, ii. 148; Diodorus Siculus, i. 64; Strabo, xvii. 37.
[12] Description de l'Égypte, vol. iv. p. 478.
[13] Denkmæler, vol. i. plates 46-48. Briefe aus Ægypten, pp. 65-74.
[14] See a remarkable paper on this question contributed by Mr. F. Cope Whitehouse to the Revue Archéologique for June, 1882.—Ed.
[15] Ebers, Ægypten, p. 174.
[16] Diodorus, i. 31, 6.—Josephus (The Jewish War, ii. 16, 4) speaks of a population of seven millions and a half, exclusive of the inhabitants of Alexandria.
[17] Herodotus, ii. 137; Diodorus, i. 57.
[18] Édouard Mariette, Traité pratique et raisonné de la Construction en Égypte, p. 139.
[19] The first elements for the Restoration of an Egyptian House which Mariette exhibited in the Universal Exhibition of 1878, were furnished, however, by some remains at Abydos. These consisted of the bases, to the height of about four feet, of the walls of a house. The general plan and arrangement of rooms was founded upon the indications thus obtained; the remainder of the restoration was founded upon bas-reliefs and paintings. The whole was reproduced in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts of November 1st, 1878, to which M. A. Rhoné (L'Égypte Antique) contributed an analysis of the elements made use of by Mariette in his attempt to reconstruct an Egyptian dwelling.
[20] See Brugsch-Bey's topographical sketch of a part of ancient Thebes in the Revue archéologique of M. E. Revillout, 1880 (plates 12 and 13).
[21] See, in the Revue archéologique, the Données géographiques et topographiques sur Thébes extraites par MM. Brugsch et Revillout des Contrats démotiques et des Pièces corrélatives, p. 177.
[22] E. Revillout, Taricheutes et Choachytes (in the Zeitschrift für Ægyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde, 1879 and 1880).
[23] In the Egyptian language, buildings like the Ramesseum and Medinet-Abou were called Mennou, or buildings designed to preserve some name from oblivion. This word the Greeks turned into μεμνόνια, because they thought that the term mennou was identical with the Homeric hero Memnon, to whom they also attributed the two famous colossi in the plain of Thebes. Ebers, Ægypten, p. 280.
[24] Diodorus (i. 45, 4) talks of a circumference of 140 stades (28,315 yards), without telling us whether his measurement applies to the whole of Thebes, or only to the city on the right bank. Strabo (xvii. 46) says that "an idea of the size of the ancient city may be formed from the fact that its existing monuments cover a space which is not less than 80 stades (16,180 yards) in length (τὸ μῆκος)." This latter statement indicates a circumference much greater than that given by Diodorus. Diodorus (i. 50, 4) gives to Memphis a circumference of 150 stades (30,337 yards, or 17-1/4 miles).
[25] Diodorus, i. 45, 5.
[26] In a tale translated by M. Maspero (Études Égyptiennes, 1879, p. 10), a princess is shut up in a house of which the windows are 70 cubits (about 105 feet) above the ground. She is to be given to him who is bold and skilful enough to scale her windows. Such a height must therefore have seemed quite fabulous to the Egyptians, as did that of the tower which is so common in our popular fairy stories.
[27] In M. Maspero's translated Roman de Satni (Annuaire de l'Association pour l'Encouragement des Études grecques, 1878), the house in Bubastis inhabited by the daughter of a priest of high rank is thus described: "Satni proceeded towards the west of the town until he came to a very high house. It had a wall round it; a garden on the north side; a flight of steps before the door."
[28] Quintus Curtius, v. 1, 127.
[29] Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 377.
[30] We have borrowed this short description from a Review of M. Gailhabaud's Monuments anciens et modernes, Style Égyptien. Maisons. Those who require further details may consult Chapter V. of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians.
[31] Herodotus (ii. 95) says that they did so in the marshy parts of Lower Egypt.
[32] It is difficult to say what the artist meant by the little oblong mark under these windows. Perhaps it represents an outside balcony by which the window could be reached either for the purposes of inspection or in order to add to the store within.
[33] These trees must have been planted in large terra-cotta pots, such as are still used in many places for the same purpose.
[34] Diodorus, i. 45, 6.
[35] Thucydides, i. 104. Cf. Herodotus, iii. 94, and Diodorus, xi. 74. After the Persian conquest it was occupied by the army corps left to ensure the submission of the country.
[36] Plate 55 of the first volume of Lepsius's Denkmæler contains traces of the enceintes of Sais, Heliopolis, and Tanis. See also the Description de l'Égypte, Ant., Ch. 21, 23, 24.
[37] At Heliopolis they were 64 feet thick (Description), at Sais 48 feet (ibid.) while at Tanis they were only 19 feet.
[38] Isambert, Itinéraire de l'Égypte.
[39] Maxime du Camp, Le Nil, p. 64.
[40] Lepsius, Denkmæler, vol. ii. pl. 100.—Ebers, (Ægypten,) makes the enceinte of Nekheb a square.
[41] Mariette, Abydos, Description des Fouilles, vol. ii. pp. 46-49, and plate 68.
[42] We have been able to make use, for this reconstruction, of two plans which only differ in details, and otherwise mutually corroborate each other. One is given by Lepsius, Plate 111, vol. ii. of his Denkmæler; the plans of the two fortresses are in the middle of his map of the valley where they occur. In plate 112 we have a pictorial view of the ruins and the ground about them. In the Bulletin archéologique de l'Athenæum Français (1855, pp. 80-84, and plate 5), M. Vogüé also published a plan of the two forts, accompanied by a section and a description giving valuable details, details which Lepsius, in his Briefe aus Ægypten, passed over in silence.
[43] In this case the inclination is, however, in the lower half of the wall; a device which would be far less efficient in defeating an escalade than that at Semneh.—Ed.
[44] Both the plate in the Description de l'Égypte (Ant. vol. ii. pl. 31), and that in Lepsius (part iii. pl. 166), suggest this interpretation.
[45] Lepsius, Briefe aus Ægypten, p. 259.—See also Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, pp. 111-113.
[46] It is of Mokattam limestone (see vol. i., p. 223). M. Perrot probably meant to refer to the two upper "chambers," both of which are lined with granite.—Ed.
[47] Mariette, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, vol. i. p. 59.
[48] Exodus v. 6-8.
[49] Mariette, Traité pratique et raisonné de la Construction en Égypte, p. 59. All these operations are shown upon the walls of a tomb at Abd-el-Gournah (Lepsius, Denkmæler, p. 111, pl. 40). Labourers are seen drawing water from a basin, digging the earth, carrying it in large jars, mixing it with the water, pressing the clay into the moulds, finally building walls which are being tested with a plumb-line by an overseer or foreman (see also Fig. 16).
[50] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, letter-press, p. 179.
[51] Lepsius (Denkmæler, part iii. plates 7, 25A, 26, 39) has reproduced a certain number of these stamped bricks.
[52] We do not here refer to the kind of maple which is often erroneously called a sycamore with us, but to a tree of quite a different family and appearance, the Ficus Sycomorus of Linnæus.
[53] Ed. Mariette, Traité Pratique, etc., p. 95.
[54] In his Histoire de l'Habitation, Viollet-le-Duc has sought to find the origin of this cornice in an outward curve imparted to the upper extremity of the reeds of which primitive dwellings were made, and maintained by the weight of the roof. He published a drawing in justification of his hypothesis. There are, however, many objections to it. It requires us to admit the general use of the reed as the material for primitive dwellings. Branches which were ever so little rigid and firm could not have been so bent, and yet they are often found in the huts to which we refer. It may even be doubted whether the reeds employed would bear such a curvature as that of the Egyptian cornice without breaking.
[55] This imitation of wooden roofs was noticed by the savants of the Institut d'Égypte. They drew a rock-cut tomb in which the ceiling is carved to look like the trunks of palm trees (Description, Antiquités, vol. v. pl. 6, figs. 3, 4, and 5). See also Baedeker, part i. p. 360.
[56] Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne.
[57] This pylon dates from the Ptolemies, but if there was anything that did not change in Egypt, it was their processes of construction.
[58] This has been well shown by Champollion à propos of one of the Nubian buildings constructed by the Theban kings. He speaks thus of the hemispeos of Wadi-Esseboua: "This is the worst piece of work extant from the reign of Rameses the Great. The stones are ill-cut; their intervals are masked by a layer of cement over which the sculptured decoration, which is poorly executed, is continued.... Most of this decoration is now incomprehensible because the cement upon which a great part of it was carried out, has fallen down and left many and large gaps in the scenes and inscriptions."—Lettres d'Égypte et de Nubie, 121.
[59] Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 437.
[60] Strabo, xvii. 37.—Lepsius, Briefe aus Ægypten, p. 74.
[61] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, p. 364.
[62] The columns at Luxor are constructed in courses. The joints of the stone are worked carefully for only about a third of their whole diameter. Their centres are slightly hollowed out and filled in with a mortar of pounded brick which has become friable. (Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 384.)
[63] See p. 29, vol. i. (Note 1) and p. 170. The engineers who edited the Description make similar remarks with regard to Karnak. (Antiquités, vol. ii. pp. 414 and 500.)
[64] Mariette, Itinéraire, p. 179. The pavement of the great temple is now about six feet below the general level of the surrounding plain.
[65] Mariette, Les Tombes de l'Ancien Empire, p. 10.
[66] Mariette, Abydos, vol. i. p. 8.—Catalogue général des Monuments d'Abydos, p. 585. Similar tenons were found by the members of the Institut d'Égypte in the walls of the great hall at Karnak (Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 442.—See also Plates, vol. ii. pl. 57, figs. 1 and 2). We took this illustration for our guide in compiling our diagram of Egyptian bonding in Fig. 69.
[67] Description de l'Égypte, Ant., vol. v. p. 153. Jomard, Recueil d'Observations et de Mémoires sur l'Égypte Ancienne et Moderne, vol. iv. p. 41.
[68] Mariette, Karnak, p. 18.
[69] This is clearly indicated by Diodorus (i. 63, 66): τὴν κατασκευὴν διὰ χωμάτων γενέσθαι.
[70] Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc., vol. ii. p. 309. In speaking of the pyramids Herodotus mentions what seems to have been a kind of crane, but he gives us no information as to its principle or arrangement (ii. 125).
[71] The painting in question dates from the reign of Ousourtesen II. and was found at El-Bercheh, a short distance above the ruins of Antinoë.
[72] The position of this man and the general probabilities of the case suggest perhaps, that his jar contains oil rather than water.—Ed.
[73] Brugsch, Histoire d'Égypte, vol. i. pp. 74 et seq.
[74] We agree with Wilkinson in taking for the height that which Herodotus calls the length. In all monuments of the kind the height is the largest measurement. Herodotus's phrase is easily explained. The monolith appears to have been lying in front of the temple into which they had failed to introduce it. (κείται παρὰ τὴν ἔσοδον, he says). Its height had thus become its length.
[75] Herodotus, ii. 155.
[76] The text in question is quoted in the notes contributed by Dr. Birch to the last edition of Wilkinson (vol. ii. p. 308, note 2). Pliny's remarks upon the obelisks are intersprinkled with fabulous stories and contain no useful information (H. N., xxxvi. 14).
[77] Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne. (The dates upon which this assertion depends have been disputed. M. Chabas reads the inscription "from the first of Muchir in the year 16, to the last of Mesore in 17," making nineteen months in all, a period which is not quite so impossible as that ordinarily quoted.—Ed.)
[78] Maxime du Camp, Le Nil, pp. 261 and 262.
[79] Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc., vol. i. pp. 357-358: vol. ii. pp. 262, 298-299.
[80] P. 148.
[81] "An arch never sleeps" says the Arab proverb.
[82] Denkmæler, part i. pl. 94.
[83] Ramée, Histoire générale de l'Architecture, vol. i. p. 262.
[84] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, p. 174.—Mariette (Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, vol. ii. pp. 59-60) was struck by a similar arrangement. "Murray's Guide," he says, "tells us, in speaking of Dayr-el-Medineh, that the walls which inclose the courts of this temple present a striking peculiarity of construction. Their bricks are laid in concave-convex courses which rise and fall alternately over the whole length of the walls." This curious arrangement deserved to be noticed, but Dayr-el-Medineh is not the only place where it is to be found. The bounding wall of the temple of Osiris at Abydos affords another instance of it. It should also be noticed that the problem offered to us by such a mode of building is complicated by the fact that, in the quay at Esneh and in some parts of the temple of Philæ, it is combined with the use of very large sandstone blocks.
[85] Viollet-le-Duc, Histoire de l'Habitation humaine, pp. 85-88. Alberti and other Renaissance architects recommended this method of construction for building upon a soft surface. (L'Architettura di Leon Batista Alberti, tradotta in lingua fiorentina da Cosimo Bartoli, Venice, 1565, 4to, p. 70.)
[86] See p. [110], Vol. I., and Figs. [74], [75], [76].
[87] See p. [111], Vol. I., et seq.
[88] See also pp. [385]-392, Vol. I. and Fig. [224].—Our perspective has been compiled from the Description de l'Égypte, from Mariette's work and from photographs.
[89] See Chapter II. vol. i.
[90] These slender columns with lotiform capitals are figured in considerable number in the tomb of Ti. Mariette, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, vol. i. pl. 10.
[91] Ebers, Ægypten, vol. ii., p. 186. All this passage of Ebers is, however, nothing more than an epitome of a paper by Lepsius, entitled: Ueber einige Ægyptische Kunstformen und ihre Entwickelung (in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy, 1871, 4to). This paper contains many just observations and ingenious notions; but, to our mind it is over systematized, and its theories cannot all be accepted.
[92] See Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, pp. 359, 360.
[93] Ibid.
[94] At Dayr-el-Bahari there are some pillars of the same shape but engaged in the wall. They support groups—carved in stone and painted—comprising a hawk, a vulture, cynocephali, and so on. They are in the passage which leads to the north-western speos. Their total height, inclusive of the animals which surmount them, is nearly 18 feet, of which the groups make up nearly a third. The lower part is ornamented by mouldings in the shape of panels. These pilasters should be more carefully studied and reproduced if they still exist: the sketches from which we have described them were made some fifteen years ago. In that monument of Egyptian sculpture which is, perhaps, the oldest of all, namely, the bas-relief engraved by Seneferu upon the rocks of Wadi-Maghara, a hawk crowned with the pschent stands before the conqueror upon a quadrangular pier which has panels marked upon it in the same fashion as at Dayr-el-Bahari.
[95] Ebers, Ægypten, vol. ii., p. 184.
[96] Chipiez, Histoire critique des Origines et de la Formation des Ordres Grecques, p. 44.
[97] Mariette has shown this clearly in his Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte (p. 52). "This light column or shaft was not abandoned, it reappeared in stone ... it reappeared to give birth to the great faggot-shaped column which rivalled the pier in size, solidity, and weight. This column, with its capital in the shape of a lotus-bud or flower, is seen in its full development at Karnak, at Luxor, and in the first temple of the New Empire."
[98] Ebers, L'Égypte, p. 185.
[99] We shall call attention, however, to a hypogeum at Gizeh, which is numbered 81 in Lepsius's map of that tomb-field. As at Beni-Hassan the chamber is preceded by a portico. In Lepsius's drawing (vol. i. pl. 27, fig. 1), the columns of this portico are campaniform.
[100] See also p. 396, Vol. I., and Fig. 230.
[101] There is no pier at Medinet-Abou in so perfect a condition as that figured by us. In order to complete our restoration, for so it is, we had the use of drawings which had been made long ago and of excellent photographs, and by combining one figure with another we obtained all the details necessary.
[102] See Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne.
[103] The slabs of which the roof is formed are grooved on their upper surfaces at their lines of junction (see Fig. [92]), a curious feature which recurs in other Egyptian buildings, but has never been satisfactorily explained.
[104] Lepsius, Denkmæler, part i. pl. 81.
[105] Wilkinson, vol. i. p. 40. In the Description de l'Égypte (Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 474), we find this shape accounted for by opposition of two lotus-flowers, one above another. Such an explanation could only be offered by one who had a theory to serve.
[106] Extract from a letter of M. Brugsch, published by Hittorf in the Athenæum Français, 1854, p. 153.
[107] A good idea of this can be gained from the building known as Pharaoh's bed, at Philæ. It is shown on the right of our sketch at p. 431, Vol. I.
[108] These upstanding flowers and stalks form the distinguishing characteristic of the Nelumbo species.
[109] Herodotus, ii. 92.
[110] For the different species of the lotus and their characteristics see Description de l'Égypte, Hist. Naturelle, vol. ii. pp. 303-313 and Atlas, plates 60 and 61.—In the Recueil de Travaux, etc., vol. i. p. 190, there is a note by M. Victor Loret upon the Egyptian names for the lotus.
[111] Strabo, xvii. 1, 15.—Diodorus, i. 34.
[112] Strabo, xvii. 1, 15.
[113] Strabo only speaks of ten feet, which would agree better with modern experience.
[114] Diodorus, i. 80.
[115] Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne, see Papyrus. Upon the different varieties of papyrus, see also Wilkinson, vol. ii. p. 121; pp. 179-189; and Ebers, Ægypten, pp. 126, 127.
[116] Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, vol. xix. p. 140, with one plate.
[117] Egger, Des Origines de la Prose dans la Littérature Grecque. (Mémoires de Littérature Ancienne, xi.)
[118] Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, p. 8.
[119] Description de l'Égypte; Hist. Naturelle, vol. ii. p. 311. Antiquités, vol. i. Description générale de Thèbes, p. 133: "Who can doubt that they wished to imitate the lotus in its entirety? The shaft of the column is the stem, the capital the flower, and, still more obviously, the lower part of the column seems to us an exact representation of that of the lotus and of plants in general."
[120] Chapter iv. pp. 396-400, Vol. I.
[121] Description de l'Égypte, plates, vol. iii. pl. 5.
[122] This is a mistake. By a reference to Fig. 208, Vol. I., or to Fig. 126 in this volume, it will be seen that the peristyle was not continued along the inner face of the pylon.—Ed.
[123] The arrangement in question is capable of another and, perhaps, more simple explanation. The two rows of columns of which the portico in question is composed, run in an unbroken line round the court with the exception of the side which is filled by the pylon. It was natural enough, therefore, that they should each be stopped against an anta, even if there had not been an additional reason in the inclination of the pylon. The ordonnance as a whole may be compared to a long portico, like that in the second court of the temple at Gournah, bent into two right angles.—Ed.
[124] In this the Greek architects took the same course as those of Egypt.
[125] Description, Antiquités, vol. v. pp. 120, 121. In their Description Générale de Thèbes (ch. ix. section 8, § 2), the same writers add: "We are confirmed in our opinion by the discovery on a bas-relief of four lotus stems with their flowers surmounted by hawks and statues, and placed exactly in the same fashion as the columns which we have just described. They are votive columns. We are also confirmed in this opinion by the fact that we find things like them among those amulets which reproduce the various objects in the temples in small." This bas-relief is figured in the third volume of plates of the Description, pl. 33, Fig. 1.
[126] Mariette, Karnak, p. 19, pl. 4. Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, pp. 13, 21, 22.
[127] This explanation seems to have been accepted by Prof. Ebers; Ægypten im Bild und Wort, vol. ii. p. 331.
[128] Maxime du Camp, Le Nil, p. 251.
[129] The Description de l'Égypte indicates the existence of this pluteus both in the Ramesseum (vol. ii. pl. 29) and at Medinet-Abou (vol. ii. pl. 7, Fig. 2). Photographs do not show a trace of it, but many parts of those buildings had disappeared before the beginning of the present century. There is no reason to suppose that the Ramesseum underwent any modification after the termination of the Theban supremacy. In his restoration of Dayr-el-Bahari, M. Brune has introduced a similar detail, which he would assuredly not have done unless he had found traces of it under the portico. Unfortunately his restoration is on a very small scale. That at Dayr-el-Bahari must have been the earliest example of such an arrangement.
[130] The history and signification of this symbol were treated by Brugsch in a paper entitled: "Die Sage von der geflügelten Sonnenscheibe nach alt Ægyptischen Quellen dargestellt."
[131] In this restricted and comparatively mean form the emblem in question is found at Beni-Hassan. (Lepsius, Denkmæler, part ii. pl. 123.)
[132] Lepsius, Denkmæler, vol. ii. pl. 83, and vol. v. pl. 56.
[133] See Chipiez, Histoire Critique des Ordres Grecques, p. 90.
[134] Lettres, pp. 68, 117.
[135] See the plate in Prisse entitled Details de Colonnettes de Bois.
[136] From Champollion, Grammaire Égyptienne, p. 53.
[137] Ebers, Ægypten, p. 250.
[138] Felix Teynard, Vues d'Égypte et de Nubie, pl. 106.
[139] Monuments de l'Égypte et de la Nubie, Notices Descriptives, p. 504.
[140] Notices Descriptives, p. 431.
[141] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien.
[142] Notices Descriptives, p. 332, fig. 2.
[143] In front of the sphinxes which stand before the great pylon at Karnak there are two small obelisks of sandstone.
[144] The Italians call them guglie, needles, and the Arabs micellet Faraoun, Pharaoh's needles. The obelisks now in London and New York respectively, which were taken by the Romans from the ruins of Heliopolis, in order to be erected in front of the Cæsareum at Alexandria, were known as Cleopatra's Needles. Herodotus only used the expression, ὀβελός. Ἐν τῷ τεμένει ὀβελοὶ ἑστάσι μεγάλοι λίθινοι (ii. 172; also ii. 111).
[145] Diodorus (i. 57, 59), always uses the word ὀβελίσκος. The termination is certainly that of a diminutive. See Ad. Regnier, Traité de la Formation des Mots dans la Langue Grecque, p. 207.
[146] De Rougé, Étude sur les Monuments de Karnak.
[147] Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne.
[148] A small funerary obelisk, about two feet high, is now in the museum of Berlin. It is figured in the Denkmæler, part ii. pl. 88. It was found in a Gizeh tomb dating from the fifth dynasty.
[149] Mariette, Monuments Divers, pl. 50. The obelisks illustrated in this chapter are all drawn to the same scale in order to facilitate comparison.
[150] Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc., p. 396.
[151] Diodorus, i. 57.
[152] Recent measurement has shown that the height given on page 105, Vol. I., is incorrect.—Ed.
[153] In the Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne of M. Pierret, a translation of the hieroglyphics upon one side of the Paris obelisk will be found under the word Obélisque. The Athenæum for October 27, 1877, contains a complete translation of the inscription upon the London obelisk, by Dr. Birch.—Ed.
[154] Monuments Divers, pl. 50.
[155] Description, Antiquites, vol. ii. pp. 371-373. In our view of Luxor on page 345 we have restored the base of the larger obelisk after that belonging to the one now at Paris. We were without any other means of ascertaining its form.
[156] Precis sur les Pyramidions de Bronze doré Employés par les Anciens Égyptiens comme couronnement de quelques-uns de leurs Obélisques, etc. J. J. Hittorf, 8vo, 1836.
[157] Abd-al-latif, Relation de l'Égypte; French translation by Silvestre de Sacy, published in 4to, in 1810, p. 181.—Ed.
[158] Mariette, Itinéraire de la Haute-Égypte, third edition, p. 142.
[159] Description, Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 369.—Charles Blanc, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, p. 150.
[160] For an interesting description of the present state and curious situation of this obelisk, see The Land of Khemi, by Laurence Oliphant, pp. 98-100, (Blackwood. 1882).—Ed.
[161] Denkmæler, part ii. pl. 119.
[162] Description, Antiquités, ch. 23.—M. Edouard Naville has recently (June 16, 1882) published in the Journal de Genève an account of a visit to these ruins, during which he counted the fragments of no less than fourteen obelisks, some of them of extraordinary size.—Ed.
[163] The sculptor who made the two famous colossi of Amenophis III. had the same name as his master, Amenhotep. (Brugsch, History, 1st edition, vol. i. pp. 425-6). Iritesen, who worked for Menthouthotep II. in the time of the first Theban Empire, was a worker in stone, gold, silver, ivory, and ebony. He held a place, he tells us, at the bottom of the king's heart, and was his joy from morning till night. (Maspero, la Stèle C. 14 du Louvre, in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. v. part ii. 1877.)
[164] See Notice des Principaux Monuments exposés dans le Musée de Boulak, 1876, No. 458.
[165] Devéria, Bakenkhonsou (Revue Archéologique, new series, vi. p. 101).
[166] Brugsch, History of Egypt (English edition), vol. i. p. 47. Ti, whose splendid tomb has been so often mentioned, was "First Commissioner of Works" for the whole of Egypt, as well as "Secretary of State" to Pharaoh.
[167] We have here ventured to take a slight liberty with M. Perrot's local tints.—Ed. Paul Pierret ("Stèle de Suti et de Har, architectes de Thèbes," in the Recueil de Travaux, vol. i. p. 70), says, "This is said by him who has charge of the works of Amen in Southern Ap." Suti-Har says in his turn: "I have the direction of the west, he of the east. We are the directors of the great monuments in Ap, in the centre of Thebes, the city of Amen."
[168] Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne, p. 59.
[169] See Brugsch, History of Egypt, 1st edition, vol. i. p. 302.
[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.
[171] Maspero, in Rayet's Monuments de l'Art Antique.
[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.
[173] Notice des Monuments exposés dans la Galerie d'Antiquités Égyptiennes, Salle du Rez-de-chaussé et Palier de l'Escalier, 1875, p. 26.
[174] The Boulak Museum also contains specimens of these figures. See Notice, Nos. 994 and 995.
[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.
[176] MARIETTE, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, p. 47.
[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.
[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.
[181] De Rougé, Notice sommaire des Monuments Égyptiens, 1865, p. 68.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[186] Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions, 1875, p. 345.
[187] Chabas, Sur l'Usage des Bâtons de Main, p. 12. (Lyons, 8vo, 1875.)
[188] Catalogue of the Posno Collection, No. 468.
[189] Ibid., No. 524.
[190] De Longperier, Musée Napoléon III. pl. 1.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[195] Notice du Musée de Boulak, No. 770.
[196] Ibid., No. 769.
[197] Notice, No. 793. These two people were called Nefer-hotep and Tenteta. The latter is also described as related to Pharaoh.
[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.
[202] Gabriel Charmes, Cinq mois au Caire, p. 96.
[203] Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, vol. ii. p. 270.
[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.
[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.)
[206] This is a Coptic word meaning hood.
[207] Journal des Savants, 1851, pp. 53, 54.
[208] Mariette, Notice du Musée, etc. Avant-propos, pp. 38, 39.
[209] See Pierret, Dictionnaire d'Archéologie, under the word Uræus.
[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.
[212] Mariette, Notice du Musée, p. 86.
[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.
[214] Notice du Musée de Boulak, No. 869. Our draughtsman has not thought it necessary to reproduce the hieroglyphs engraved upon the plinth.
[215] Notice du Musée de Boulak, No. 1.
[216] Notice du Musée de Boulak, No. 2.
[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.
[219] Lettres à M. de Rougé sur les Fouilles de Tanis, p. 105. (Revue Archéologique.)
[220] Mariette, Notice du Musée, p. 259.—Ebers, Ægypten, vol. i. p. 108.
[221] Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 182.
[222] Description, Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 105.
[223] Ch. Blanc, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, p. 208. It has been calculated that this colossus weighed about 1220 tons.
[224] Gabriel Charmes, La Réorganisation du Musée de Boulak.
[225] Mariette, Notices du Musée, Nos. 3 and 4.
[226] The head of Amenophis III. may be recognized in the bas-relief reproduced in our Fig. 33, Vol. I. The fine profile and large well-opened eye strongly resemble those of the London statue.
[227] Mariette, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, vol. ii. p. 31.
[228] G. Charmes, De la Réorganisation du Musée de Boulak.
[229] Denkmæler, vol. vi. plates 91-111. The curious ugliness of this king is most clearly shown in plate 109.
[230] Mariette, Bulletin Archéologique de l'Athenæum Français, 1855, p. 57.
[231] Mariette, Notice du Musée, No. 902, and Dayr-el-Bahari, plates.
[232] Mariette, Dayr-el-Bahari, p. 30, believed that Punt was in Africa, probably in the region of the Somali. He quotes various passages from the writings of modern travellers to show that this strange obesity is rather an African than an Arabian characteristic. See Speke's description of the favourite wife of Vouazerou, Discovery of the Source of the Nile, chap. viii., and Schweinfurth's account of the Bongo women, Heart of Africa (3rd edition) pp. 136 and 137.
[233] Mariette, Itinéraire, p. 246.
[234] Ch. Blanc, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, p. 265.
[235] Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 110.
[236] Maspero, Études sur quelques Peintures Funéraires. Mariette, in describing this bas-relief (Notice du Musée, No. 903), observes that these funeral dances are still in vogue in most of the villages of Upper Egypt. The bas-reliefs from Sakkarah could not, however, as he says, render the piercing shrieks with which these dances are accompanied.
[237] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien. Text, p. 418. This bas-relief has also been reproduced by Mariette, Monuments Divers, pl. 68.
[238] Some of our illustrations allow the justice of this observation to be easily verified (Figs. [172], [253], and [254], Vol. I.). In one of these the porters and in another the prisoners of war seem to be multiplied by some mechanical process. A glance through the Denkmæler of Lepsius leaves a similar impression. We may mention especially plates 34, 35, 175, 125, and 135 of the third Part.
[239] So, at Dayr-el-Bahari the decorator has taken pains to give accurate reproductions of the fauna and flora of Punt. See the plates of Mariette (Dayr-el-Bahari) and the remarks of Prof. Ebers (Ægypten, vol. ii. p. 280).
[240] Ch. Blanc, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, p. 74, pl. 31.
[241] Mariette, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, vol. i. p. 72. Plates 23 and 24.
[242] Champollion makes the same remark (Lettres d'Égypte et de Nubie, p. 326).
[243] Ch. Blanc, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, p. 178.
[244] Gab. Charmes, De la Réorganisation du Musée de Boulak.—Mariette, Notice, No. 22.
[245] Louvre. Ground-floor gallery, No. 24.
[246] Ch. Blanc, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, p. 153.
[247] Mariette, Notice, No. 20.
[248] Mariette, Notice, No. 866. There is a cast of this statue in the Louvre, but, like that of the statue of Chephren, which forms a pendant to it, it has been coloured to the hue of fresh butter and the result is most disagreeable. Even when placed upon a cast from an alabaster figure this colour is bad enough, but when the cast is one from a statue in diorite, like that of Chephren, it is quite inexcusable. It would have been better either to have left the natural surface of the plaster or to have given to each cast a colour which should in some degree recall that of the originals and mark the difference between them.
[249] For the meaning of this word see Pierret, Dictionnaire, &c.
[250] For illustrations of this statue and an explanation of the name here given to it, see Birch, Gallery of Antiquities, London, 4to.—Ed.
[251] Mariette, Notice du Musée de Boulak, No. 385.
[252] Notice, Nos. 196-7.
[253] Ibid., Nos. 105-15.
[254] The Boulak Museum possesses a very fine scarab which shows Nechao between Isis and Neith, one of whom hands him a mace and the other a small figure of Mentou-Ra, the God of Battles. Two chained prisoners are prostrate at the base of the scarab. Mariette, Notice, No. 556.
[255] Pierret, Catalogue de la Salle Historique, No. 269.
[256] De Rougé, Notice Sommaire, p. 59.
[257] It would appear that wood-carving was never so popular in Egypt as it was under the Second Theban Empire. The numerous wooden statues which fill our museums date from that period. We have given an example of them in Fig. 50, Vol. I.
[258] Mariette, Notice du Musée, Nos. 386 and 387. Mariette seems to estimate these two statuettes far too highly.
[259] De Rougé, Notice des Monuments Exposés au Rez-de-chaussée, No. 91.
[260] De Rougé, Notice des Monuments Exposés au Rez-de-chaussée, No. 94.
[261] Ibidem, No. 88.
[262] Mariette, Notice du Musée, Nos. 35-6.
[263] Mariette, Notice du Musée, No. 18.
[264] Mariette, Notice du Musée, p. 16. See also his Catalogue Général, c. i.
[265] Mariette (Karnak, p. 15) calculated that this temple, whose major axis from the pylon to the sanctuary hardly exceeded 300 feet in length, must have contained 572 statues, all in black granite, and differing but little in size and execution. If placed in rows against the walls, and here and there in a double row, their elbows would almost have touched one another. The first and second courts, and the two long corridors which bound the temple to the east and west, were full of them. One of these figures is represented in our Fig. 39, Vol. I.
[266] Mariette, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, vol. ii. p. 25.
[267] Maspero, Annuaire de l'Association des Études Grecques, 1877, p. 132.
[268] See the often-quoted story of a voyage taken by a statue of Khons to the country of Bakhtan and its return to Egypt. De Rougé, Étude sur un Stèle Égyptienne appartenant à la Bibliothèque Nationale, 8vo, 1856.
[269] Mariette, Karnak, p. 36. See also his Abydos, Catalogue Général, § 2, p. 27.
[270] Maspero, in the Monuments de l'Art Antique of Rayet.
[271] Description, Antiquités, vol. iii. p. 41.
[272] Mariette, Notice du Musée, No. 1010.
[273] At Tell-el-Amarna we find the lion marching by the side of the king (Lepsius, Denkmæler, vol. vi. pl. 100).
[274] Mariette, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, vol. ii. p. 9.
[275] Upon the significance of the sphinx and its different varieties, see Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc. vol. iii. pp. 308-312. Wilkinson brings together on a single plate (vol. ii. p. 93) all the fantastic animals invented by the Egyptians. See also Maspero, Mémoire sur la Mosaïque de Palestrine (Gazette Archéologique, 1879).
[276] Maspero, Les Peintures des Tombeaux Égyptiens et la Mosaïque de Palestrine, p. 82 (Gazette Archéologique, 1879).
[277] See also Lepsius, Denkmæler, part ii. pl. 11, and a tomb at El Kab (Eilithyia). Mariette (Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, plate 6 and page 37) cites, as a curious example of a bolder relief than usual, the scenes sculptured upon the tomb of Sabou, especially the picture showing the servants of the defunct carrying a gazelle upon their shoulders.
[278] Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités, vol. iii. p. 42.
[279] Belzoni (Narrative of the Operations, etc. pp. 343-365) mentions the presence of this stucco upon the colossi of Rameses at Ipsamboul as well as on the walls of the tombs in the Bab el-Molouk.
[280] This point is very well brought out by Rhind (Thebes, its Tombs and their Tenants, etc., pp. 24-25).
[281] M. Maspero was the first to start this theory in his paper entitled Les Peintures des Tombeaux Égyptiens et la Mosaïque de Palestrine.
[282] Birch, Guide to (British) Museum, pp. 70-74.—Pierret, Catalogue de la Salle Historique, Nos. 457, 559, passim.
[283] M. Soldi remarks, in connection with the Mexicans, that they managed to cut the hardest rocks and to engrave finely upon the emerald with nothing but bronze tools. Prescott and Humboldt bear witness to the same fact. The Peruvians also succeeded in piercing emeralds without iron. Their instrument is said to have been the pointed leaf of a wild plantain, used with fine sand and water. With such a tool the one condition of success was time (Les Arts Méconnus, pp. 352-359).
[284] Pierret, Catalogue de la Salle Historique, No. 457.
[285] A description of it will be found in Champollion, Notice Descriptive des Monuments Égyptiens du Musée Charles X., 2nd edition, 1827, D. No. 14, p. 55.
[286] P. Pierret, Une Pierre Gravée au Nom du Roi d'Égypte Thoutmès II. (Gazette Archéologique, 1878, p. 41). This stone is placed in Case P of the Salle Historique in the Louvre. M. Lenormant has kindly placed at our disposal the clichés of the double engraving which was made for M. Pierret's article.
[287] Pierret, Catalogue de la Salle Historique, No. 481.
[288] Genesis xli. 42.
[289] Birch, History of Ancient Pottery, p. 72. Pierret, Catalogue de la Salle Historique du Louvre, Nos. 499, 500, 505.
[290] In turning over the leaves of Champollion we have found but two exceptions to this rule. In the Temple of Seti, at Gournah, that king is shown, in a bas-relief, in the act of brandishing his mace over the heads of his prisoners. The group is the usual one, but in this case two of the vanquished are shown in full face (pl. 274). At the Ramesseum, also, one man in a long row of prisoners is shown in a similar attitude (pl. 332).
[291] Ch. Blanc, Grammaire des Arts du Dessin, p. 469.
[292] For other conventional methods, of a similar though even more remarkable kind but of less frequent occurrence, see Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc., vol. ii. p. 295. The same ruling idea is found in those groups in the funerary bas-reliefs, which show husband and wife together. The wife's arm, which is passed round the body of the husband, is absurdly long (Lepsius, Denkmæler, part 11, plates 13, 15, 91, 105, etc.; and our Figs. [164] and [165], Vol. I.). This is because the sculptor wished to preserve the loving gesture in question without giving up the full view of both bodies to which his notions committed him. One could not be allowed to cover any part of the other, they could not even be brought too closely together. They were placed, therefore, at such a distance apart that the hand which appears round the husband's body is too far from the shoulder with which it is supposed to be connected.
[293] Our Fig. [217] gives another instance of the employment of this method, and even in the time of the Ancient Empire the idea had occurred to the Egyptian artists (Fig. [201]).
[294] Lepsius, Denkmæler, part ii. pl. 47 and 61.
[295] Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc., vol. ii. p. 88.
[296] M. Émile Soldi (La Sculpture Égyptienne) tells us that during the reign of Napoleon III. such representations of the Emperor as were not taken from the portrait by Winterhalter were forbidden to be recognized officially.
[297] Maspero, Histoire Ancienne, p. 272.
[298] Émile Soldi, La Sculpture Égyptienne, 1 vol. 8vo, 1876, copiously illustrated. (Ernest Leroux.)
[299] See the note of M. Chabas, "Sur le nom du fer chez les Anciens Égyptiens." (Comptes Rendus de L'Académie des Inscriptions, January 23, 1874.)
[300] Certain alloys, however, have recently been discovered which give a hardness far above that of ordinary bronze. The metal of the Uchatius gun, which has been adopted by Austria, is mixed, for instance, with a certain quantity of phosphorus.
[301] Soldi, Les Arts Méconnus, p. 492. (1 vol. 8vo, Leroux, 1881.)
[302] It has escaped M. Perrot's notice that one is left-handed.—Ed.
[303] Upon the different kinds of chisels used by the Egyptian sculptors, see Soldi, La Sculpture Égyptienne, pp. 53 and 111. He includes the toothed chisel and the gouge.
[304] This man's attitude, the shape of the tool in question, and the general significance of the composition, seem rather to suggest that he is giving the final polish to the surface of the statue. Compare him with the pschent-polisher in Fig. 252.—Ed.
[305] E. Soldi, La Sculpture Égyptienne, pp. 41, 42.
[306] M. Ch. Blanc had a glimmering of the great influence exercised over the plastic style of Egypt by the hieroglyphs; see his Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, p. 354.
[307] Dictionnaire de l'Académie des Beaux-Arts, under the word Canon.
[308] These researches are described in the chapter entitled Des Proportions du Corps Humain of M. Ch. Blanc's Grammaire des Arts du Dessin, p. 38.
[309] Diodorus, i. 98, 5-7.
[310] Lepsius, Denkmæler, part iii. plate 12.
[311] Ibid. plate 78. It is in this division into nineteen parts that M. Blanc finds his proof that the medius of the extended hand was the canonical unit. (Grammaire, &c. p. 46.)
[312] At Karnak, in the granite apartments. See Charles Blanc, Voyage de la Haute-Égypte, p. 232. Two figures upon the ceiling of a tomb at Assouan are similarly divided.
[313] Lepsius, Denkmæler, part iii. p. 282.
[314] Ebers, Ægypten, vol. ii. p. 54. Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, pp. 124-128.
[315] Lepsius, Ueber einige Kuntsformen, p. 9. Birch, in Wilkinson's Manners and Customs, vol. ii. Lepsius, Denkmæler, part ii. pl. 9, p. 270, note 3.
[316] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien.
[317] Lepsius, Denkmæler, part iii. pl. 70.
[318] Ibid. plate 152.
[319] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, p. 123. Lepsius, Denkmæler, pl. 65.
[320] Upon the preparation of the bas-relief, see Belzoni, Narrative of the Operations, etc. p. 175.
Prisse gives several interesting examples of these corrected designs, among others a fine portrait of Seti I. (Histoire, etc. vol. ii.)
Examples of these corrections are to be found in sculpture as well as in painting. Our examination of the sculptures at Karnak showed that the artist did not always follow the first sketch traced in red ink, but that as the work progressed he modified it, and allowed himself to be guided, to some extent, by the effects which he saw growing under his hands. The western wall of the hypostyle hall contains many instances of this. It is decorated with sculptures on a large scale, in which the lines traced by the chisel differ more or less from those of the sketch. (Description, Ant. vol. ii. p. 445.)
[321] Mariette, Notice du Musée, Nos. 623-688.
[322] Nos. 652-654 of the Notice du Musée.
[323] In the Boulak catalogue.
[324] Mariette, La Galerie de l'Égypte Ancienne à l'Éxposition du Trocadéro, pp. 69, 70.
[325] Ch. Blanc, Voyage de la Haute-Égypte, p. 99.
[326] E. Melchior de Vogüe, Chez les Pharaons.
[327] Vol. ii. plates 41, 66, and 70.
[328] Description, Antiquités, vol. iii. p. 45.
[329] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, p. 289.
[330] Fuller details as to the composition of these colours are given in Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, pp. 292-295. A paper written by the father of Prosper Mérimée and printed by Passalacqua at the end of his Catalogue (pp. 258, et seq.) may also be consulted with profit; its full title is Dissertation sur l'Emploi des Couleurs, des Vernis, et des Émaux dans l'Ancienne Égypte, by M. Mérimée, Secrétaire Perpétuel de l'École Royale des Beaux-Arts. This paper shows that M. Mérimée added taste and a love for erudition to the talent as a painter which he is said to have possessed. Belzoni shows that the manufacture of indigo must have been practised by the ancient Egyptians by much the same processes as those in use to-day (Narrative of the Operations, etc. p. 175). See also Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc. vol. ii. p. 287.
[331] Champollion, Lettres d'Égypte et de Nubie, p. 130.
[332] Description, Ant. vol. iii. p. 44.
[333] Mérimée, Dissertation sur l'Emploi des Couleurs, p. 130.
[334] Mérimée, Dissertation, etc. Champollion uses the term gouache, body colour, in speaking of these paintings, but as the characteristic of that process is that every tint is mixed with white, there is some inaccuracy in doing so.
[335] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, p. 291.
[336] Prisse, Histoire, etc. text, p. 291.
[337] Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc. vol. ii. p. 294.
[338] Herodotus, ii. 182.
[339] There are other exceptions to the ordinary rule. In a fine bas-relief in the Louvre, representing Seti I. before Hathor, the carnations of the goddess are similar to those of the Pharaoh; they are in each case dark red (basement room, B, 7).
[340] Champollion, Monuments de l'Égypte et de la Nubie, pl. 11. Blue was the regular colour for Amen when represented with a complete human form; when he was ram-headed he was generally painted green (see Champollion, Panthéon Égyptien, No. 1; Pierret, Dictionnaire Archéologique; and pl. 2, vol. i. of the present work).—Ed.
[341] Ibid. pl. 59.
[342] Ibid. plates 71, 76, 78, 91.
[343] Ibid. pl. 154.
[344] We place this portrait of Taia in our chapter on painting because its colour is exceptionally delicate and carefully managed (see Prisse, text, p. 421). The original is, however, in very low relief, so low that it hardly affects the colour values.
[345] Lepsius, Denkmæler, part iii. pl. 40, cf. pl. 116.
[346] Ibid. pl. 117.
[347] See the Ethiopians in the painting from the tomb of Rekmara, which is reproduced in Wilkinson, vol. i. plate 2.
[348] Lepsius, Denkmæler, part iii. pl. 216.
[349] The materials for this plate were borrowed from the Description de l'Égypte. In the complete copies of that work the plates were coloured by hand, with extreme care, after those fine water-colours the most important of which are now in the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliothèque Nationale. The colours thus applied are far nearer the truth than those of the chromo-lithographs in more modern publications.
[350] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, p. 424.
[351] John Kenrick, Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. i. pp. 269, 270.
[352] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, pp. 142, 143.
[353] Ibid. p. 144.
[354] Prisse, Histoire de l'Égypte, text, p. 146.
[355] Semper (G.), Der Stil in den Technischen und Tektonischen Künsten, oder Praktische Æsthetik. Munich, 1860-3, 2 vols. 8vo, with 22 plates, some coloured, and numerous engravings in the text.
[356] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, p. 418.
[357] Dumischen, Resultate der Archæologisch-photographischen Expedition. Berlin, 1869, folio, part i. plate 8.
[358] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, p. 369.
[359] Lepsius, Denkmæler, part iii. plate 62. Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, atlas, plate lettered Frises Fleuronnées.
[360] Description, Antiquités, vol. ii. p. 533.
[361] There is one of these books in the Louvre (Salle Funéraire, case Z); the gold leaf which it contains differs from that now in use only in its greater thickness.
[362] The oldest representation of the potter's wheel yet discovered is in one of the paintings at Beni-Hassan. It is reproduced in Birch's Ancient Pottery, p. 14.
[363] S. Birch, A History of Ancient Pottery, Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, 1 vol. 8vo, 1873. London, Murray.
[364] Lepsius, Denkmæler, part ii. pl. 153.
[365] Birch, Ancient Pottery, p. 37.
[366] Birch, Ancient Pottery, Figs. [23] and [25].
[367] Brongniart, Histoire de la Ceramique, vol. ii. p. 95.
[368] See also Lepsius, Denkmæler, part ii. pl. 2, and the Verzeichniss der Ægyptischen Alterthümer of the Berlin Museum, 1879, p. 25.
[369] We owe our ability to give these curious details to the kindness of M. Conze and the officers of the Egyptian museum at Berlin. One of the original fragments brought home by Lepsius was lent to us.
[370] Birch, Ancient Pottery, p. 50.
[371] I am told that a circular base, like that of a column of a table for offerings, was discovered in the same building. It is entirely covered with this same faience.
[372] Description, Antiquités, vol. v. p. 543, and Atlas, vol. v. plate 87, Fig. 1.
[373] The collection of M. Gustave Posno, which will, we hope, be soon absorbed into that of the Louvre, contains many enamelled bricks from decorative compositions like those in the stepped pyramid and the temple of Rameses III. (Nos. 8, 9, 11, 20, 58, 59, 60, 61 of the Catalogue published at Cairo in 1874). One of these, which has a yellow enamel, bears in relief the oval and the royal banner of Papi, of the sixth dynasty. Another has the name Seti I.; others those of Rameses III. and Sheshonk. The reliefs upon which prisoners' heads appear must have come from Tell-el-Yahoudeh.
[374] Mariette, Notice du Musée de Boulak, p. 69.
[375] Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, vol. ii. p. 140.
[376] Strabo, xvi. ch. ii. § 25.
[377] Prisse, Histoire de l'Art Égyptien, text, p. 313.
[378] Mariette, De la Galerie de l'Égypte Ancienne à l'Exposition Rétrospective du Trocadéro, 1878, pp. 111, 112. Wilkinson, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, etc. vol. ii. p. 261.
[379] Herodotus, ii. 86.
[380] See page 197.
[381] See Birch, notes to Wilkinson's Manners and Customs, vol. ii. p. 232, edition of 1878.
[382] Mariette, Itineraire, p. 210.
[383] Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc. vol. ii. pp. 232 and 401.
[384] Ibid. Vol. II. PP. 250, 251.
[385] Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, vol. ii. pp. 233-237.
[386] Belzoni, Narrative, etc. vol. i. p. 277.
[387] Mariette, Notice du Musée de Boulak, Nos. 810-839. Coloured reproductions of them are published in M. César Daly's Revue de l'Architecture, a sequel to the Histoire d'Égypte d'après les Monuments (published in 1860) of M. Ernest Desjardins.
[388] Pierret, Catalogue de la Salle Historique, Louvre, No. 521. This jewel is reproduced, with many others from the same tomb, in two fine coloured plates in Mariette's unfinished work, Le Sérapéum de Memphis. Folio, 1857.
[389] Pierret, Catalogue de la Salle Historique, Louvre, No. 535.
[390] Ibid. No. 534.
[391] Mariette, Notice du Musée de Boulak, No. 388. Galerie de l'Égypte Ancienne au Trocadéro, pp. 114, 115.
[392] Mariette, Notice du Musée, Nos. 107, 108, 131.
[393] Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, v. part ii. 1877.
[394] See two plates of Prisse entitled: "Art Industriel. Vases en Or Émaillé; Rhytons et autres Vases."
[395] Mariette, Notice du Musée, No. 93.
[396] Lepsius, Denkmæler, part ii. plates 36 and 90.
[397] Among such objects is a table for libations, which was found in a tomb at Sakkarah. It is supported by two lions, whose pendent tails are twisted round a vase. Mariette, Notice du Musée, No. 93.
[398] See the illustration which Ebers calls A Reception in Ancient Egypt. (Ægypten, vol. ii. p. 276.)
[399] This figure is reproduced in Rayet's Monuments de l'Art Antique and described by M. Maspero. (Cuillers de Toilette en Bois.)
[400] Martial, Epigrammata, xiv. 150. Lucan, X. v. 141.
[401] Champollion, Lettres d'Égypte et de Nubie, p. 113.
[402] Rhoné, L'Égypte Antique, extract from L'Art Ancien à l'Exposition de 1878.
[403] Maspero, La trouvaille de Deir-el-Bahari, Cairo, 1882, 4to.
[404] Ibid.
[405] See Miss A. B. Edward'S account of these gentlemen in Harper's Magazine for July, 1882. Her paper is illustrated with woodcuts after some of the more interesting objects found, and a plan of the locale.
[406] See page 29, Vol. I.
[407] For a description of these jewels by Dr. Birch, and reproductions of them in their actual colours, see Facsimile of the Egyptian Relics Discovered in the Tomb of Queen Aah-hotep. London: 1863, 4to. See also above, page 380, footnote [387], of the present volume.
[408] These measurements are taken from The Funeral Canopy of an Egyptian Queen, by the Hon. H. Villiers Stuart: Murray, 1882. 8vo.
[409] Mr. Villiers Stuart gives a facsimile in colour of the canopy, and a fanciful illustration of it in place, upon a boat copied from one in the Tombs of the Queens.
[410] Miss A. B. Edwards, Lying in State in Cairo, in Harper's Magazine for July, 1882.
[411] See Maspero, Une Enquète Judiciare à Thèbes, Paris, 1871, 4to.
Transcriber's Note:
A mouse hover over Greek text will display English transliteration.
Archaic and inconsistent spelling and punctuation retained.
Some of the colour plates were too faded to obtain usable colour.
Some of the figure and plate references appear to be incorrect.
The volume named "Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte" is variously attributed to Auguste Mariette and Charles Blanc. "Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte" was authored by Auguste Mariette and "Voyage de la Haute-Égypte" was authored by Charles Blanc..
In a Handsome Imperial 8vo Volume, 36s.
RAPHAEL: HIS LIFE, WORKS, AND TIMES.
From the French of EUGÈNE MUNTZ.
Edited by W. ARMSTRONG.
Illustrated with 155 Wood Engravings and 41 Full-Page Plates.
"We have already noticed at some length the original French edition of the important work of 'Raphael, his Life, Works, and Times,' of M. Muntz, the Librarian of the École des Beaux-Arts, and we are glad now to welcome an English translation. A translation is never quite the same thing as the original, but for those—and they are many—who prefer an English version of a book to a French one, this volume may be recommended as, on the whole, a sound and adequate rendering of M. Muntz's work. The type and paper are excellent, and the volume appears in a substantial Roxburgh binding, suitable to its bulk and in good taste. M. Muntz is a real authority on the history of Art, and is by no means to be ranked among the bookmakers, who abound in that department of literature; and his volume, while intended for popular reading as well as for students, is an advance on anything that has been done before in the biography of Raphael."—Times.
"This splendid work deserves a cordial welcome. Its paper, type, and engravings leave little to desire. It was a hazardous undertaking to represent the Madonnas of Raphael by wood engravings; and yet it has proved successful in no ordinary degree.... With regard to the literary portion of the work, we can say that it is accurate, catholic in tone, and written with admirable lucidity."—Daily News.
"The compendious and profusely illustrated volume forms a valuable addition to the history of art. Passavant's work on the subject, though excellent in its way, cannot be considered exhaustive, many important facts concerning the great master and those who influenced his career having been brought to light since it was written. The present work, accordingly, is not superfluous, and no man, probably, could have accomplished the task more successfully than M. Muntz, who, it should be mentioned, is the Librarian of the École des Beaux-Arts at Paris. Having diligently studied the documentary records of Italian history, and being familiar with the various Italian schools of painting, he is especially qualified for work of the kind. His book presents consequently a complete, and apparently trustworthy record of Raphael's career, from his birth in Urbino in 1483 to his premature death in Rome, thirty-seven years later, and in it may be clearly traced the progress and development of his art and the influences which modified it. The author's remarks moreover, on the works of Raphael and of the other painters he has occasion to mention are thoroughly critical and appreciative, and never dogmatically expressed. The illustrations, of which there are nearly two hundred, form a very important feature of the work; they include, besides engravings from nearly all Raphael's existing pictures, and views of the localities in which he sojourned, a considerable number of faithful copies of his original studies and drawings. These being accurate reproductions of the master's own handiwork, will be regarded with great interest by students of art, the more so that the originals of many of them are in private collections inaccessible to the public."—Globe.
"A work of such vast importance and interest as this cannot be adequately treated in the short scope of a notice like the present. It is so perfectly and elaborately carried out that a study of its pages can alone do it any degree of justice. M. Muntz has been enabled to correct in many notable particulars the great work of Passavant, and his biography of Raphael Sanzio is unquestionably the best in existence. The illustrations comprise nearly every work of importance by the master."—Whitehall Review.
"Taken altogether the volume is one of great merit, both literary and artistic.... Before we pass from it we must pay a tribute to the general excellence of the translation, which has all the spirit and vigour of an original work ... the vigorous and eloquent language of the original has, as a rule, been rendered with like vigour and eloquence, which make the present beautiful volume as pleasant to read as it is attractive to look at—thus fitting it alike for the library and the drawing-room."—John Bull.
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