* Thus Queen Ahhotpû I., whom the “servant” Anhûrkhâû knew
to be a woman, is transformed into a King Ahhotpû in the
tomb of Khâbokhnît.
Drawn by Boudier,
from a photograph
by Gayet.
They were surrounded by a whole host of lesser functionaries—bricklayers, masons, labourers, exorcists, scribes (who wrote out pious formulae for poor people, or copied the “Books of the going forth by day” for the mummies), weavers, cabinet-makers, and goldsmiths. The sculptors and the painters were grouped into guilds;* many of them spent their days in the tombs they were decorating, while others had their workshops above-ground, probably very like those of our modern monumental masons.
* We gather this from the inscriptions which give us the
various titles of the sculptors, draughtsmen, or workmen,
but I have been unable to make out the respective positions
held by these different persons.
They kept at the disposal of their needy customers an assortment of ready-made statues and stelæ, votive tablets to Osiris, Anubis, and other Theban gods and goddesses, singly or combined. The name of the deceased and the enumeration of the members of his family were left blank, and were inserted after purchase in the spaces reserved for the purpose.*
* I succeeded in collecting at the Boulak Museum a
considerable number of these unfinished statues and stelæ,
coming from the workshops of the necropolis.
These artisans made the greater part of their livelihood by means of these epitaphs, and the majority thought only of selling as many of them as they could; some few, however, devoted themselves to work of a higher kind. Sculpture had reached a high degree of development under the Thûtmoses and the Ramses, and the art of depicting scenes in bas-relief had been brought to a perfection hitherto unknown. This will be easily seen by comparing the pictures in the old mastabas, such as those of Ti or Phtahhotpû, with the finest parts of the temples of Qurneh, Abydos, Karnak, Deîr el-Baharî, or with the scenes in the tombs of Seti I. and Ramses II., or those of private individuals such as Hûi. The modelling is firm and refined, showing a skill in the use of the chisel and an elegance of outline which have never been surpassed: the Amenôthes III. of Luxor and the Khâmhâît of Sheikh Abd el-Qurneh might serve for models in our own schools of the highest types which Egyptian art could produce at its best in this particular branch. The drawing is freer than in earlier examples, the action is more natural, the composition more studied, and the perspective less wild. We feel that the artist handled his subject con amore. He spared no trouble in sketching out his designs and in making studies from nature, and, as papyrus was expensive, he drew rough drafts, or made notes of his impressions on the flat chips of limestone with which the workshops were strewn.