Plate IV.
1400 B. C. TO ROMAN.
| Photo, Manseil. 42. AMENOPHIS III.: GRANITE. | 43. QUEEN TAIA: LIMESTONE. | Photo, Anderson. 44. RAMESES II.: GRANITE. |
| 45. NEGRESS: EBONY. | 46. QUEEN HATSHEPSUT. | 47. KHA-EM-HAT. | 48. SETI I. |
| 49. PRINCESSES: FRESCO. | 50. FOUR RACES OF MAN. | 51. TUMBLER. |
| 52. SCENE IN XXVI. DYNASTY. | 53. PTOLEMAIC RELIEF. | 54. MODELLED HEAD AND SKULL. |
(C) Flat drawings of this age are rare. Some fine examples, such as the geese from Mēdūm, show that such work kept pace with the reliefs; but most of the fresco-work has perished, and there are few instances of line drawing.
The XIIth Dynasty.—This age overlaps the previous in its style. The end of the last age was in the very degraded tomb work of the early XIth Dynasty.
(A) The new style begins with the royal statues, which it seems we must attribute to the foreign kings from whom the XIIth Dynasty was descended. These statues were later appropriated by the Hyksos, and so came to be called by their name, which is a misnomer. The type of face (Plate III. fig. 38) is thick-featured, full of force, with powerful masses of facial muscle covering the skull. The style is very vigorous and impassioned, without any trace of relenting towards conventional work. The surfaces are not in the least subdued by a general breadth of style, as in the last period; but, on the contrary, revel in the full detail of variety. There is perhaps no age where nature is so little controlled by convention in either the living character or its sculptured expression. One of these kings might well be the founder of the IXth Dynasty, “Achthoes (Kheti), who did much injury to all the inhabitants,” “Khuther Taurus the tyrant”; the expression is that of a Chlodwig or an Alboin. From this type evidently descended the milder and more civilized kings of the XIIth Dynasty, the resemblance being so strong that the fierce figures have even been identified with that dynasty by some. A good example is that of the statue of Amenemhat (Amenemhē) III. (Plate III. fig. 39). The style of the XIIth Dynasty may be summed up as clean, highly-finished work, strong in facial detail; but with neither the grandeur of the IVth nor the vivacity of the XVIIIth Dynasty. This passed in the XIIIth Dynasty into a graceful but weak manner, as in the statues of Sebkhotp (Sebek-hotep) III. and Neferhotp.
(B) The relief work shows most clearly the rise of the new style. In the middle of the XIth Dynasty an entirely fresh treatment appears; the Old Kingdom work had died out in very bad sunk-reliefs, the fresh style (Plate III. fig. 41) was a low relief with sharp edges above the field. It was full of delicate variety in the surfaces, and of elaborated close-packed lines of hair and ornaments. By the time of the early XIIth Dynasty, this reached a perfection of refinement in the detail of facial curves, with an ostentatiously low relief (P.K. ix. i.), rather on the lines of modern French work; but the whole with clean, firm outlines, severely restrained in the expression, and without any trace of emotion. It is the work of a school, in which high training took the place of the reliance on nature. Sunk relief was also well used, as by Senusert (Senwosri) I. (Plate III. fig. 40). There was a steady decline during the XIIth Dynasty and onward, but the same tone was followed.