GLASS
There has been much misunderstanding about the age of glass in Egypt. Figures of smiths blowing a fire with reeds tipped with clay have been quoted as figures blowing glass, though no blown glass is known in Egypt before Roman times. A cylinder of glass of King Pepy has been quoted; but this is really of clear iceland-spar or selenite lined with coloured paste. A panther’s head with the name of Antef V has been called glass, but it is really of blue paste. Various pieces of inlaid stone jewellery have been mistaken for glass, but none such is known till late times.
There does not seem to have been any working of glassy material by itself, apart from a base of stone or pottery, until after 1600 B.C. The earliest dated pieces are an eye of blue glass imitating turquoise, with the name of Amenhotep I (1550 B.C.), and a piece of a glass vase with an inlaid name of Tahutmes III. Beads of this age are plain black with a white spot on opposite sides; black and white glass cups probably belong to the same date. The variety of colours quickly increased, and by the time of Amenhotep III and IV, about 1400 B.C., there were violet, deep Prussian blue, light blue, green, yellow, orange, red (rare), clear white, milky white, and black.
GLASS
120, 121. Vases (XVIIIth dynasty)
122. Mosaic (late)
The designs were entirely ruled by the method of manufacture. The glass was never cast, but was worked as a pasty mass, and all the decoration was made by inlaying threads of glass drawn out to various thicknesses. The actual production of the glass we deal with below. The patterns on a vase or bead were produced by winding threads around the body, and then dragging the surface at regular intervals (figs. [120], [121]). If dragged always in one direction, it made a series of loops or U pattern; if dragged alternately each way it made an ogee pattern. Around the neck and foot a thick thread was often put on, with a thin thread spirally round it, usually white with black spiral. The forms of the vases are those usual in other materials at this period, such as
This system of winding threads of glass was usual for beads also. A mere chip of a glass bead can be distinguished, whether Egyptian or Roman, by the direction of the streaks and bubbles in it. The early glass is all wound, with lines running around; the Roman glass is all drawn out and nicked off, with lines running along; the medieval and modern Venetian beads are again wound, and some of the recent ones closely imitate Egyptian dragged patterns, but can be distinguished by the opacity of most of the colours.
The XVIIIth dynasty workers also cut and engraved glass, though but rarely. They sometimes produced a clear glass entirely free of colouring, even in a thickness of half an inch. About the XXIIIrd dynasty (750 B.C.) a clear, greenish Prussian blue glass was usual for beads, and continued to Persian times for scarabs (500 B.C.). Rather later, about 400-200 B.C., there appears a large development of opaque glass figures of hieroglyphs, cut and polished, to inlay in wooden caskets and coffins. Opaque red and blue to imitate jasper and lazuli were the most usual colours. Figures of the four genii of the dead and other usual amulets were commonly made by pressing the glass into moulds while heated. A favourite colouring for such was a deep, clear, true blue, backed with opaque white to show up the colour.
About the later Ptolemaic time and through the Roman age the main work in glass is that of minute mosaics ([fig. 122]). They were built up with glass rods, heated until they half fused together, and then drawn out so as to produce a great length of much reduced section. Thus patterns of extreme delicacy were produced; and one single piece of construction could be cut across into a hundred slices, each repeating the whole design. The patterns are sometimes purely Egyptian, as ankh and uas alternately, but more usually Roman, such as heads and flower patterns. Such mosaics were mounted in jewellery, or, on a coarser scale, set in large designs for caskets and temple furniture.
The characteristic of Roman times is the use of blown glass. The cups, bottles, and vases were nearly all blown, often with threads woven around, dabs attached and impressed, or patterns stamped while soft. The feet of cups were modelled into form while pasty, the tool marks showing plainly upon them. Ornamental stamps were pressed on soft lumps put on the sides of vases. Such stamps became used for official marks, and in early Arab times they registered the substance for which the glass measure was intended, also the amount of the capacity, and the maker’s name in many cases. Another main development of Byzantine and Arab glass was for weights, usually to test gold and silver coins, but also for larger amounts up to a pound. These weights bear the stamps of the Byzantine epochs in a few cases, but are found by the hundred of the VIIIth to Xth centuries, and by the thousand of the Xth to XIth centuries, dying out at the early crusading age.
We now turn to the purely technical side, to describe the process of manufacture in the time of Amenhotep IV, about 1370 B.C., when it is best known to us, from the remains of the factory at Tell-el-Amarna. A clear glass could be produced, which was usually not quite colourless, but sufficiently so to take up various colours. It was free of lead and borates, and consisted of pure silica from crushed quartz pebbles, and alkali doubtless from wood ashes. It was fused in pans of earthenware. This glass was coloured by dissolving the blue or green frit in it, or mixing other opaque colours. Samples were taken out by pincers to test the colour at different stages. The whole mass was fairly fused, and then left to get cold in the earthen pan, which was about four or five inches across, and held half an inch to an inch deep of the glass. When cold the pan was chipped away, the frothy top of the glass was chipped off, and lumps of pure glass were obtained free from sediment and scum. A lump of glass thus purified was heated to a pasty state, and patted into a cylindrical form, then rolled under a bar of metal, which was run diagonally across it, until it was reduced to a rod about the size of a lead pencil, or rather less. Such a rod was then heated, and drawn out into “cane” about ⅛ inch thick. Every vase was built up from such cane.
For making a vase a copper mandril was taken, slightly tapering, of the size of the interior of the neck. Upon the end of this was built a body of soft siliceous paste, tied up in rag, and baked upon it, of the size of the interior of the intended vase. The marks of the string and cloth can still be seen inside the vases. On this body of powdery material glass cane was wound hot until it was uniformly coated. It was re-heated by sticking the end of the mandril into the oven as often as needful; glass threads of various colours were wound round it; and the whole was rolled to and fro so as to bed in the threads and make a smooth surface. A brim, a foot, and handles were attached. Finally, on cooling, the copper mandril contracted, and could be taken out of the neck, the soft paste could be rubbed out of the interior, and the vase was finished. The final face is always a fused surface, and was never ground or polished.
A similar mode was followed for the glass beads. The thread of glass was wound upon a hot copper wire of the size of the hole required; and after piling on enough, and completing the pattern of colour the wire contracted in cooling and could be withdrawn. The little point where the thread of glass broke off can be seen at each end of the beads.
CHAPTER XI
THE POTTERY
The varieties of pottery are so extensive that from the prehistoric age alone a thousand are figured, and the later ages give at least thrice that number. We cannot attempt to give even an outline of a subject which alone would far outrun this volume. A single most typical form of each main period is here shown, to illustrate the entirely different ideas which prevailed.
Forms.—In the prehistoric age many of the forms have no marked brim. The bowls, conical cups, and jars simply end at a plain edge, like this marked Pre. Brims were more usual in the later prehistoric age. A great variety of fancy forms appeared—double vases, square bottles, fish, birds, or women were modelled; and as the whole pottery was handmade, such were no more difficult to make than circular forms. On coming to the Ist dynasty the forms were more clumsy, such as that marked I; and some of the earlier forms were continued in a very degraded state. The main feature is the class of very large jars, two to three feet high, which were used for storing food and drink. This class rapidly deteriorated and became almost extinct by the IIIrd dynasty. In the pyramid age some neatly-made pottery is found; thin sharp-brimmed bowls were usual, and the form marked V, with a sharply pointed base, was peculiar to this time. By the XIIth dynasty the globular or drop-shaped pot was the prevalent type, and varies in size from a couple of inches to a couple of feet. Drinking-cups of a hemispherical form, very thin, without any brim, are also of this age. The XVIIIth dynasty was begun with long graceful forms, such as XVIII; and later some beautiful long-necked vases are found. All of these forms rapidly degraded in the XIXth dynasty, and ugly small handles come into use, probably influenced by Greek design. In the XXVIth dynasty, lids with knob handles became common, and accordingly the brim disappeared, and a plain edge was used which could be easily capped. The large jars of this age are of Greek origin. During the Ptolemaic time debasement went on; and the most ugly, smug, commonplace forms belong to the Roman age. They are mostly ribbed, as in this marked Ro. The big amphorae begin with ribbing in the latter part of the second century, in broad fluting curves. These became narrower and sharper, until in the sixth and seventh centuries the ribbing had become almost a mere combed pattern around the jar. The jars also decreased in size, were thicker, softer, and coarser, until the type vanished with the Arab times.
Decoration.—The earliest painting on prehistoric vases was of white slip, in line patterns, copied from basket-work, and rarely in figures, such as [fig. 65]. This white paint was put over a bright red facing of haematite; and such red and white pottery is still made with closely similar patterns by the mountain tribes of Algeria, where the style seems never to have died out. The black tops of the early red vases we shall deal with under Materials. The later prehistoric painting was in dull red on a buff body, such as [fig. 66]. In the pyramid age there was only a polished red haematite facing, and in the XIIth dynasty even this was not used. About the XVIIth dynasty a fine red polish was common, which ceased early in the XVIIIth dynasty; white on the brims, or dabbed in finger-spots over the inside of saucers, was also of the XVIIth dynasty. Black or red edges to pottery next appeared, and by Tahutmes III there was a style of narrow black and red stripes alternating. The use of blue paint, of copper frit, began under Amenhotep II, but it was not usual until Amenhotep III, and it was common until the close of the XIXth dynasty, though much flatter and poorer than at first. After this there was no decoration on pottery until the late Roman time. About the age of Constantine a hard, fine pottery came into use, with a thin red wash on it, and often of a pale salmon colour throughout. When the southern tribes pushed down into Egypt, the brown and red patterns which were usual in Nubia were carried with the invaders, and such painting was the main influence in the painted Coptic pottery.
Materials.—The prehistoric pottery of the earlier period is all of a soft body, faced with red haematite. As the pots were usually baked mouth downward, the brim was covered with the ashes; and these not being burnt through, reduced the red peroxide of iron to the black magnetic sesqui-oxide, such as is familiar to us in the black scale on sheet steel. The interior of the pots is likewise black, owing to the reducing gases from the ashes below; rarely the heat after the combustion has lasted long enough for the oxygen to pass through the pottery, and so redden the inside. Open dishes were also haematite-faced inside, and the iron is reduced to a brilliant mirror-like coat of black all over. The reason of the polish being smoother on the black than on the red parts is that carbonyl gas—which is the result of imperfect combustion—is a solvent of magnetic oxide of iron, and so dissolves and re-composes the surface facing. On once understanding the chemistry of this, it is needless to discuss the old idea that smoke blackened this pottery. Smoke—or fine carbon dust—could not possibly penetrate through close-grained pottery, and the black extends all through the mass, naturally owing to the action of reducing gases to which the pottery is quite pervious. There may perhaps be some other kinds of black pottery influenced by smoke; but it is far more probable that all black pottery is due to black oxide of iron produced by imperfect combustion, which is accompanied by smoke.
In the later prehistoric age the pottery has a hard reddish buff body with white specks. In the pyramid period a smooth soft brown body is usual. Hard drab pottery also appears in the Vth and VIth dynasties. In the XIIth dynasty the common soft brown body is general, and extends to the XVIIIth. By the middle of the XVIIIth dynasty a hard drab ware with white specks and faced with a drab polish is very characteristic, and continues into the XIXth. Thence onward the brown body reasserts itself, with some inferior greenish drab ware about the XXIInd dynasty. Greek clays appear during the XXVIth, but probably all imported from Greece. Soft red pottery belongs to the Ptolemaic age. But the old soft brown rules in the Roman time, being at its worst in the early Coptic. The thin hard ware of the Constantine age is apparently not native, and may be due either to Nubian or Roman influence.
Modelling.—A constant use of pottery for modelling should be mentioned, although we cannot illustrate such a large subject here, as it is only subsidiary to stone-work in each age. In the prehistoric time rude figures are often found, both of men and women. Little is known of pottery modelling in the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Rough figures of cows are placed upon the brims of bowls about the XIth and XIIth dynasties. In the XVIIIth-XXVth dynasties a large use of roughly modelled ushabti figures of servants prevailed. But it is rarely that the other modelling is apart from foreign influence. A class of exquisitely formed figure-bottles, of women and animals, was made of fine foreign clay, probably by Greeks, at this age. Also rude solid figures of men and horses extend from this time onwards. The great age of pottery figures begins with the modelled heads of foreigners from the foreign quarter of Memphis, certainly due to Greek admixture. These are admirably done, and each hand-modelled singly. They begin about 500 B.C., and by about 300 B.C. moulded figures come into use. At first these are solid, but from about 200 B.C. down to 300 A.D. they are moulded hollow, being made of a front and back half united. The enormous number of these figures, and of figure-lamps made similarly, is very familiar from the Roman period. It is remarkable what good work is shown in some figures even as late as 250 A.D. The late dating of the figures and the varieties of the lamps are illustrated in Roman Ehnasya from my own excavations.
CHAPTER XII
IVORY-WORKING
In prehistoric times ivory was much used, doubtless owing to the elephant being still abundant in southern Egypt. The natural form of the tusk was often left, and the surface worked in low relief; but the earlier work was on small pieces, as in figs. [3], [15], [17]. Not only elephant ivory was used, but also that of the hippopotamus. At the beginning of the Ist dynasty ivory was largely used for statuettes and carvings. One of the best examples of this school is the figure of the aged king ([fig. 21]). Many other carvings of girls, boys, apes, lions and dogs were found with this at Abydos. At Hierakonpolis a great mass of ivories was found in a trench six feet long, and many of them have been preserved. They are figures of men and women, carved tusks, wands, and cylinders. In the tomb of Mena’s queen at Naqadeh were ivory lions and dogs, and such were also found in the tomb of King Zer at Abydos, used for gaming pieces. All of this early ivory-work is vigorous, and has the character and spirit of the early art.
The finest work known in ivory is the portrait of Khufu, the builder of the great pyramid ([fig. 123]). It is here much magnified, as the face is only a quarter of an inch high. Yet in this minute space one of the most striking portraits has been given. The far-seeing determination, the energy and will expressed in this compass, would animate a life-size figure; indeed, it would be hard in the illustration to distinguish it from a work on a large scale. The correct position of the ear should be noted, as it is always put too high up in later sculpture. Quite apart from the marvellous minuteness of the work, we must estimate this as one of the finest character-sculptures that remain to us.
A piece of open work, of a girl standing, is probably of the Old Kingdom ([fig. 124]). It is not of the style of hair or treatment of the Middle or New Kingdom; and in the Saitic age, when the older style was copied, the work is worse in pose and much more detailed and punctilious. There are some beautiful pieces of architectural models in ivory, from the inlaying of a casket, and, also, a figure of the Vth dynasty.
Of the Middle Kingdom an ivory baboon is perhaps the finest work; it has disappeared from the museum when at Bulak, and its place is unknown. A broken figure of a boy carrying a calf shows great truth and spirit. Ivory was also used for lion-head draughtsmen in the XVIIIth dynasty, but there are no fine works of that time.
Of the XXVIth dynasty two fine pieces have been found at Memphis, a lotus flower ([fig. 125]) and a man bearing offerings ([fig. 126]). These had been applied to the sides of caskets or other small woodwork. The figure of the man is but a stiff and coarse copy of the Old Kingdom work, lacking the truth and freedom of the early time.
There does not seem to have been any distinctive school of ivory-work in Egypt. The methods and nature of the objects are just what might have been done in stone or in wood at the same period. There is no sign of a special development due to the material, as there is in the Chinese ivory-carving.
IVORY
123. King Khufu
124. Girl, Old Kingdom
125. Lotus (XXVIth dynasty)
126. Bearer of offerings
CHAPTER XIII
WOODWORK
FURNITURE
127, 128, 129, 130, 131. Chair, caskets, and bed of Amenhotep III
Wood was by no means so rare in early times as it is now in Egypt. Floyer has shown how much the desert has been stripped by the introduction of the tree-feeding camel. We see in the royal tombs of the Ist dynasty a large use of wood. The funeral chamber sunk in the ground was entirely built of massive beams and planks. The area of this room was 900 square feet in the largest tomb, varying down to 300 in the lesser. The framing of the floor, the supports, and the roof beams were about 10 × 7 inches in section and up to 21 feet in length. The planking of the floor still remains 2 to 2½ inches thick; and probably that of the roof was equal to it, as it had to bear about three feet of sand over it. The great scale of this timber work agrees with the “royal axe-man” being one of the high officials; before stone came into use, this title was the equivalent of chief architect. Such a free use of wood shows that the elaborate framing of façades, which is represented as a usual pattern in early stone-work, was actually copied from wooden mansions, just as the Greek architecture was an elaborate copy of woodwork. At the close of the IIIrd dynasty we have a glimpse of the large use of wood for shipbuilding, when Senoferu built in one year sixty ships, and imported forty ships of cedar. The great gates of the temple enclosures and palaces must also have been massive works; the outer and inner pylon at Karnak had gates fifteen feet wide on either side, and over sixty feet high.
The wooden coffins of the Old Kingdom are heavy boxes with sides two to three inches thick. They are fastened together by bolts of wood; and such wooden pegs are run diagonally in different directions so as to prevent the parts being separated. Coffins hollowed out of a single block, to fit the outline of the mummy, were also used in all the earlier periods. In late times such forms were built up of boards.
For securing the joints of furniture from racking, two correct systems were used. For chairs, angle-pieces were cut from wood with bent grain, and fitted on inside the angles. There must have been a constant demand for such bent pieces, and probably they were grown into shape. In other cases forms of wood have been found which had clearly been grown for many years into the shape required. The angle-pieces can be seen under the front of the seat in [fig. 128]. Another system for stands was to put in diagonal bars, as in [fig. 130]. Sometimes merely the stiffness of deep panelling was trusted, as in [fig. 129]. For the backs of chairs an excellent triangular stay was made, as in [fig. 127].
The light and skilful forms of the woodwork are well shown in the furniture ([figs. 127-131]) from the tomb of Yuaa and Thuiu, the parents of Queen Thyi, in the XVIIIth dynasty. The reliefs on the chair are carved in wood and gilded. The decoration on the casket ([fig. 129]) is of blue glazed hieroglyphs and inlays.
Wood was also much used for statuettes. The ebony negress and other figures ([figs. 40-42]) show it on a small scale; larger figures were also made, such as several in the Turin Museum, and some of life-size, but the latter are coarser in work, as the figure of Sety I in the British Museum. A fine figure almost life-size remains from the XIIIth dynasty, King Hor, in the Cairo Museum.
A system of inlaying coloured stones, glazes or glass, in wood as a basis, is found as early as the Vth dynasty, in the model vases of Nofer-ar-ka-ra. In the XVIIIth dynasty this method of decoration is seen on the gigantic mummy-cases of the Queens Aah-hotep and Aahmes, which were inlaid, probably with lazuli. The inlay was so valuable that soon after it was all prised out with the corner of an adze, and blue paint substituted for it. In the XXIIIrd dynasty decorative figures were wrought in wood, with the whole detail in inlay, as in the group of Pedubast. And in the Greek period large wooden coffins were encrusted with inlay of coloured glass, and the sides of wooden shrines were similarly the basis for brilliant polychrome adornment.
Regarding the methods of woodworking, certainly the axe was the primitive tool, as shown by the royal architect being designated by the axe. In the scenes of the pyramid age we find the saw about three feet long worked with both hands, the mallet and chisel for cutting mortise-holes, and the adze in constant use for shaping and for smoothing wood. To this day the small adze is a favourite tool of the Egyptian carpenter and boat-builder. For smoothing down the caulking inside a boat, heavy pounders of stone were used, held by a handle worked out on each side of the block. Drills were also commonly used both on wood and stone, worked by a bow. The subject of tools and their variations is a very wide one, which cannot be entered upon here.
CHAPTER XIV
PLASTER AND STUCCO
In the masonry of the pyramids, plaster is constantly used, both to fill joints as a bedding, and to level up hollows in a face. The plaster used is a mixture of ordinary lime and plaster of Paris, the carbonate and sulphate of lime. How it was introduced into the joints of the pyramid casing is a mystery. The blocks at the base weigh sixteen tons, so that no free sliding to reduce the joint-filling could be done; yet the vertical joint, five feet high and seven feet long, is filled with a film of plaster only a fiftieth of an inch thick. The joints of the masonry in the passages and chambers are all filled with plaster, though so close as to be almost imperceptible. In the core masonry a coarse plaster was poured between the stones and filled into hollows. The flaws and defects in the faces of stones were freely filled with plaster, which was coloured to match the stone. In rock tombs plaster was used to fill up cracks and hollows; and it often remains in perfect condition while the rock around has decayed.
Plaster was also used on the brick walls, which were faced with a hard coat about a tenth to a sixteenth of an inch thick, upon which paintings were executed. By the XVIIIth dynasty this became a mere whitewash over the mud-facing of the wall. In the roughly-hewn rock tombs of that age at Thebes, the jagged surfaces were smoothed by a coat of plaster, often two or three inches thick in the hollows. A strange use of stucco was for a thin coat over sculpture, as a basis for colouring. Such a coat was even laid over statuary. In all ages this hid to some extent the full detail of the sculptor’s work in reliefs. In the XIIth dynasty the finest lines were hidden by it; and on coming down to the Ptolemaic times the plasterer ignored all the sculpture below, filling the figures with a smooth daub of plaster on which the painter drew what he liked. It seems strange why the sculptors should have continued to put fine work and detail on to a surface where they were going to be at once ignored. It suggests a rigid bureaucracy in which the sculpture had to be passed by one man, and the painting by another, without any collaboration.
Stucco was used for independent modelling, as in Italy. It was laid on a flat canvas base, stretched over wood, and the whole relief was in the stucco. The chariot of Tahutmes IV is one of the main examples of such work, of which a small portion is shown in [fig. 132]. The relief is low and smooth, and full of detail; there is none of the sketchy rough tooling, as seen in Roman stucco reliefs. Minute details of dress and hair are all tooled in, and supply some of the best studies of Syrian robes. The varying patterns on the shields of different branches of Syrians, the feathering of the arrows, the shape of the daggers, and the flowers of the papyrus and lotus of north and south, are all most precisely rendered. It would be hard to find any point in which more details could be introduced.
PLASTER
132. Stucco relief modelling (XVIIIth dynasty)
133, 134. Plaster castings for studies
Plaster was also used for casting in moulds, and for making moulds. The death mask of Akhenaten shows how such castings were produced in the XVIIIth dynasty, from a single mould without any undercutting, to serve the purpose of the sculptor as a model. Of later examples of such castings we have here a lion’s head and a king’s head (figs. [133], [134]). They were probably made to be supplied as school copies to the workshops where the sculptors were trained. Plaster moulds are very common at Memphis, and it is said they were even used for casting bronze work. This is very doubtful, as plaster is reduced to powder at 260° C., while moulds for bronze casting must be heated to 1500° to 1800° C.; they are more probably for casting pewter. Plaster moulds were also used for moulding pottery lamps. The oiling of plaster was done on painted plaster statuettes, so as to make them waterproof. They can still be scrubbed in water without disturbing the colour.
The most artistic use of plaster was for the modelled heads, which were placed on mummy cases in Roman times. Though most such works were rather crude, some are found which show real ability of portraiture. In [fig. 135] we have a sympathetic study of the face of a young man. The lips are beautifully true, the modelling of the cheek is quite natural, the nose and brow well formed; only the eyes have been left blank, and marked afterwards with colour. The head, [fig. 136], is evidently a careful study, giving the cautious, cold expression of the man. Another face ([fig. 137]) is subtle, and full of feeling: the faint smile on the lips, the gracious contour of the cheek, the wavy hair, give a memory in death of a real personality. The only jarring feature is the square brow, copied from an unfortunate convention in Greek art. The eyes are here again left blank; but they seem to have been intended to be open, by the slight ridge of the raised lid. Was there a convention of regarding the dead as incapable of seeing, though seen by memory? How far these modelled heads were portraits is answered in a curious way by [fig. 138]. The light outline there is that of the plaster modelling, the dark outline within it is the skull from the interior of the coffin. It will be seen how exactly they agree; there is a thin skin over the forehead, then a fleshy part to the brow. Along the bridge of the nose the model closely follows the bone; below the nose the angle of meeting of the jaws exactly agrees, leaving a uniform thickness of lips; and lastly, the fleshy fulness of the chin is seen projecting. This agreement is one which the artist could never have expected to be thus tested, and therefore gives us the more confidence in his skill.
PLASTER
135, 136, 137. Modelled heads
138. Modelled head and skull
CHAPTER XV
CLOTHING
Though leather hides, with the hair on, are found over bodies in the earliest graves, yet linen cloth was introduced early in the prehistoric times, and is frequently found wrapped around the bodies.
On reaching the first dynasty the weaving is seen to be very fine and regular, though we only have some of the stuff used for mummy wrappings, from the tomb of King Zer. The threads are very uniform, and there are 160 to the inch in the warp and 120 in the woof. Modern fine cambric has 140 threads to the inch, so it was quite equalled by hand work at the beginning of Egyptian history. A group of a dozen different cloths on one mummy of the XVIIth dynasty show 138 x 40 and 128 x 56 as the finest, and 21 x 15 as the coarsest mesh. The greatest disproportion of the threads is 138 to 40, or 3½ to 1, and the least is 70 to 62, or 9 to 8; it is recognised as a principle of Egyptian weaving that the woof was not beaten up as closely as the lay of the warp. Unfortunately we have scarcely any cloth except mummy wrappings, and it is not to be expected that the finest work would be thus used.
The size of the looms was considerable. The cloths on the mummy just named are up to five feet wide; and one edge has been torn off that amount, so it was originally more. The pieces are up to sixty feet long, and yet not complete. The looms were horizontal on the ground for coarse work, such as mats; but fine work was done on a vertical loom, and from the ease of displacing threads in tapestry the warp threads were separately weighted and not fastened to a beam. Loom weights of baked clay or of limestone are common.
CLOTHING
139. Coloured tapestry (XVIIIth dynasty)
140. Cut leather net
A few pieces of woven tapestry have been found in the tomb of Tahutmes IV, and part of one is given here full size in [fig. 139]. The colours used are red, blue, green, yellow, brown and grey. The coloured threads pass to and fro over the space assigned to them, thus entirely parting the warp threads from the neighbouring ones, so that a slit is left along the vertical margins of the colours. This was remedied by stitching; but the same weakness is seen in the Roman and Coptic woven tapestries. These are known from the pagan period, as there are many mythological subjects; but the greater part belong to the Christian and Mohammedan ages.
The Roman and Coptic tapestries are placed upon garments as derivatives from darning, or from patches put on the garments to prevent them wearing through. The positions are broad stripes over the shoulders where any object would rest when carried, circular patches on the breasts and on the knees. On referring to the hundreds of figures in Roman dress from the third to fifth centuries (in Garucci, Vetri ornati di figure in oro), embroideries or tapestries are unusual in Italy. A dozen robes with scrolls or foliage patterns are shown, but only three with knee patches, and one of those (xxxi, 1) is a female servant holding an Egyptian fan, probably therefore an Egyptian slave. It seems, then, that this system of circular patches on the wearing parts is not Roman but Egyptian. Beside the woven tapestries, which are nearly all in purple, embroidery was done with the needle in white thread on the purple ground.
Leatherwork was of importance in Egypt in all ages. The two principal arts in it were the appliqué work in colours, and the cutting of network. The great example of the appliqué work is the funeral tent of Queen Isiemkheb, about 1000 B.C. It was eight feet long and seven feet wide, with sides over five feet high. Six vultures are outspread along the top, and the sides have a long inscription. The whole of the figures and signs are cut out in variously coloured leather, and stitched on to the crimson leather ground. This work we can trace in the style of earlier decorations, back to the head fillet of Nofert, [fig. 24]. It is also continued down to the present day in the appliqué work in coloured stuffs on the inside of Egyptian tents.
The cutting of leather nets was an art of great skill. Rows of slits were cut, breaking joint one with other, so that a piece of leather could be drawn out sideways into a wide net. One of the most delicate of such nets is partly shown in [fig. 140]. The square patch left in the middle of the net was for the wear of sitting on when the net was put over the linen waist cloth. Such nets over the cloth are shown in the figures of the harvesters, [fig. 70], with the slit network and the square patch. To cut the leather in such extremely fine threads must have required great skill and care; and not only is the leather slit, but considerable slips have been removed so as to produce an open net close up to the edge band of solid leather; on some edges an inch or two is cut away to form one side of the rhombic opening.
In many directions we have now traced the outlines of the artistic skill of the Egyptians, but only outlines, which point incessantly to the wide spaces that need to be filled in by further detail. Much of that has yet to be discovered, but much is ready to hand whensoever a careful observer may choose to devote attention to any of the branches of art or technical work which we have so briefly noticed. In every direction a complete collecting of materials and an adequate publication of them would bring a full reward in results.
The powerful technical skill of Egyptian art, its good sense of limitations, and its true feeling for harmony and expression, will always make it of the first importance to the countries of the West with which it was so early and so long connected.
CHAPTER XVI
EGYPT’S PLACE IN THE ART OF THE WORLD
In the opening chapter we have considered the point of view from which the art of Egypt—like that of every other country—must be approached. The physical conditions which surround man will necessarily control his expression of thought and his perception of beauty. Forms and designs growing out of the conditions of one land will be inappropriate in another land, and lose most, or all, of their value if transported to different surroundings. Hence it is futile to attempt to contrast the art of one country directly with that of another. We might as well compare the beauty of a tropical garden with that of an alpine forest. The only ground of comparison is that of expressing the character and emotions of the artists; and that art which conveys the mental state of the people most readily is the most perfect art. This criticism leaves aside altogether the moral question of our appreciation of the people themselves; that does not belong to art but to ethics. And before we can begin to judge of that, we must know their surroundings, and the position in which they were conditioned in the world.
Our consideration here is with the art. When we look over the varied artistic expression of different races, we see that each people has seized some one excellence, growing out of its conditions, and adapted to its feelings and utilities. We can admire each excellence in turn, and see that in each of these qualities no other people has reached the same perfection. We must recognise that artistic expression is not only shown in sculpture and painting, but in literature, mechanical design, and the amenities and adaptation of the social organism.
In Egypt, as we have noticed, the ruling principles of the art are durability, strength, and dignity, and such were the features of the national character. In vain do we look in any other country for as great an expression of any of these principles. And, with the single exception of Greece, it was also supreme in precision of work. Its work was the true expression of character, and in perfect harmony with the nature of the country.
In Crete, so far as we can yet see, the pre-eminent facilities were the expression of motion, and the development of decorative form, and especially colour, upon pottery. Classical art never attained to the skill shown by the prehistoric art in these directions.
In Assyria, figure and animal sculpture stood very high in the best period; and the free adaptation of this to the purposes of life, as we see in the great development of friezes on the palace walls, was the distinguishing feature. No people seem to have lived amidst their art more than the Assyrians.
In classical Greece, the supremacy in vital sculpture and architectural proportion has so filled the attention of the modern world that the higher achievement of surrounding nations in other directions has been largely overlooked. In each of the special qualities that we note in other peoples the Greeks were their inferiors.
Rome was largely dominated by other races in its development; but in the art of civilisation and raising subject peoples, in the shaping of life and rule of law, it stood far above any ancient nation. In this—as in the arts elsewhere—we must look at its best period, when the impartiality and probity of its administrators brought all Greece under their sway.
The Celtic and Northern arts stood first in the rhythm of intricate decoration, and the subtlety of the curves; the ideal may not appeal to us, but no other region has ever produced such perfect and complex design.
In Medieval Europe, though sculpture scarcely reached the vitality of classical work, yet in expression it stood as high as in any school of art; and in the architecture the sense of expansion and aspiration—the spiritual aspect—reaches a higher level than man has touched elsewhere.
In Italy, the expression of art in painting was its great achievement, in harmony with the character of grace seen in other lines of Italian production.
The Persian and Mesopotamian civilisation triumphed in its glorious use of coloured glaze decoration, which has been carried westward to Syria and Rhodes, and still continues in the vast domes of coloured tiles in Spain.
In Arab art we meet the exquisite calm of geometrical design with various angles, which cannot be analysed at a glance like a Roman pavement: they arrest the eye to linger over them, to seek how they arise, and what they mean.
Further east, it is difficult for us to enter sufficiently into the fundamental feelings of the races, to enable us to value their art truly. But we can at least feel the grand sense of profusion when looking at the mountainous structures of the immense topes and pagodas of India, peopled with innumerable figures on countless stages. To the minds which produce and live amongst such forms, all other work must seem poor and bare. In Chinese art we can admire the fine adaptation and the sense of minute perfection in the articles before us, the dignity and reserve shown; and, in the literature, even a stranger to the land can feel the intimate harmony with Nature, and the mystic sense of mood in the mountains and trees and lakes around. Hardly any other poetry that we know touches the spirit of life so essentially.
The facile Japanese may well claim an unsurpassed skill and deftness in the painting of Nature, and a power to grasp the greatest amount of reality with the least means. Their perception of Nature in its strange and mysterious moods, which they show by the brush, is almost as penetrating as in the literature of China. Their exquisite sense of fitness, and of taste for beauty of workmanship, only makes us begin to realise the clumsiness of our own cast-iron performances.
To wander so far from Egypt may seem needless; and it would be so if the essentials of other arts were more familiar in English works. We have read lately of an alleged “tyranny of the Nile”; but the real tyranny over English minds for a century past has been the “tyranny of the Hellene.” The one side of art in sculpture has obscured all others; and the English mind has, with its usual idolatry, made the standard of Greece its sole measure. We need to see that a dozen national arts have each been supreme over the others in some one aspect. Then we shall see how meaningless it is to contrast the excellence of one national art with another. Each country has to confess that it has only fully expressed one aspect out of many in the immense range of human life.
Now we can begin to see the real meaning of the so-called limitations of Egyptian art. Every people has had its limitations likewise, fitting it to its conditions; and if we look at them all impartially, and not by the standard of any one of them, we shall see that the deficiencies and limitations of most races are of much the same extent. If the Egyptian had tried to render not only character, but emotion also, he would have been defying his true conditions, as much as if we put a dado of Persian glazed tiles on the Parthenon. To refer this artistic perception to the uniformity of the Nile, is about as true as if we attributed any deficiencies in German art or literature to the prevalence of cold and snow, which is a far greater tyranny than the inundation. Every physical circumstance is a factor in human work, but none of them singly dominates it. There is no point in calling the Egyptian childish in his abilities, as every other nation has been equally childish in some other respects—the Roman in his abject submission to omens, the Greek in playing with words, the Assyrian in his inaccuracy, the Arab in his drawing. In short, there is no essential difference in the capacity for showing national life and feeling by the art of each country; and in the facility and truth of expression Egypt stands in the first rank of those lands where Art has exhibited the character of man.