Much exact knowledge of the life of ancient Egypt is derived from the clay seals of high officials. The oldest known titles are those of “Commander of the Inundation.” The seal here is that of the “Southern Sealer of all Documents of King Sekhem-ab,” 5100 B.C.
STONE VASES. The stone vases for the royal palaces were cut in many kinds of hard rock. The rarer kinds are rock crystal, serpentine, and basalt; limestones, porphyry and syenite were more usual; and the commonest materials were metamorphic rocks formed from volcanic ash verging into slate, dolomite, marble, and alabaster. These materials were mostly selected for their beauty. The red porphyry is the rarest, being only known in a bowl of the time of Mena, and two prehistoric pieces. Black porphyry with very large detached white crystals belongs only to the age of Mena. Pink granite, blue-grey volcanic ash, the quartz crystal, and the pink limestones are all very beautiful materials. The hardness does not seem to have been aught but an attraction, as the finest work is always put on the best materials; whereas the soft alabaster and slate did not seem to challenge any great amount of care. The working of the inside was always done by grinding with blocks, sometimes having first removed the axis by a tube drill hole. The outside was dressed by chipping, hammer-dressing, and hand polishing; sometimes done by circular motion on a block, but often by crossing work by hand. The readiness with which oval forms were made shows how little depended on circular motion.
TOMBS OF KING ZER OF THE FIRST DYNASTY, 5400 B.C.
Brickwork was common in the houses and tomb-chambers of the prehistoric period, and in the time of the kings of Abydos the building of the tombs was greatly extended. Here are seen the brick partitions to contain offerings, around a wooden chamber now destroyed. Beyond this all round were 318 graves of the royal servants.
Two-Colour Glazing
The use of glazing had been already invented early in the prehistoric age, as far back as S.D. 31; but it was only applied to beads and small amulets. The earliest glazed pottery vase known is of Mena, and this has his name in violet glaze inlaid in the green glazed body. Glazed vases continued to be made throughout the first and second dynasties, but became rarer, and they have not been found revived till much later times. But ivory and wood were largely used for carved objects, sometimes of elaborate design. One of the most distinguishing points of the age of the early kings was the minute carving in imitation of leafage and basket-work, which was mainly done in slate, but also in wood. The fragments which remain show most elaborate patterns worked out with minute attention to detail. Nothing of the same kind is known in any other age.
Remains of the Oldest Sculpture
MONUMENTS. There are but few monumental remains from these early dynasties. The great rock-cut scene of Semerkhet conquering a Bedawy chief in Sinai is the main example. The figures are only summarily cut in the natural face of the sandstone; but the truth of the outline is better than in any of the more pretentious work of later times in that region. The scene of Sanekht—early third dynasty—is much poorer, and that of his successor, Zeser, is scarcely legible, the work is so rude and slight. The private tablets which were put over the graves around the royal tombs show that the fine work was limited to a small number of royal artists in the first dynasty, and that there was no general school of able men such as arose in later times. The figures and hieroglyphics are rudely hammered out, and the drawing is but clumsy. There is seldom more than just the name of the deceased. By the time of Den many are distinguished as the Akhu-ka, the “glorious soul”; while there is also a class apparently named “people of King Setui, daughter of the captive”—i.e., slaves born of captives taken in his wars.