[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).