[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]).