A very needful branch of recording is the taking impressions of inscriptions and flat reliefs. The usual method is by wet squeezing of paper, which may be made up of any thickness, from a true mould to a slight surface impression. If a mould is wanted for future casting, a tough rag paper without much size should be used; but good newspaper will do. The tougher the paper is when wet, the better. The stone must be thoroughly cleaned and soaked. The paper is cut to the size, and, if less than the stone, in two or more sheets. A sheet is then put in a basin of water, rolled about to soak, and then gathered into a ball and rolled between the hands to break the grain, just short of pulping the surface; next shaken out like a wet handkerchief, and then laid on the stone with enough slack to go into all the hollows. It is then gently beaten with a spoke-brush until it is pushed into the hollows ([Fig. 33]). If they are deep it is needful to use strips of paper soaked and pulped, and laid by finger in the hollows, so as to nearly fill them. Finally, a severe beating is given to the whole, as violent as can be done without tearing the paper. The paper should be pulped on the stone, and driven into every crack and porosity; using a second, and even a third, sheet to bind it together. The pulp in the hollows should be kneaded in with the sharp edge of the brush-back, using the whole weight of the body to force it home. About 50 square feet of such work is as much as can be done in a day. The precautions are: avoid bubbles of water or air below the paper, beat quite straight without dragging, and see that there is no creeping of the paper or shifting on the stone. When quite dry and hard the cast may be carefully peeled off. After heating and waxing, plaster casts may be taken from it, with a slight oiling between each using.
A slighter working is enough on shallow inscriptions; but such squeezes generally need to be taken off while wet, and allowed to dry alone, or else the paper drags flat out of the hollows when contracting in drying. This is specially the case on polished granite, where there is no grip on the surface.
Surface impressions of incised carving may be taken with a single sheet of paper beaten just enough to catch the edges of the cutting; and such make excellent bases for inking over to produce a facsimile drawing ([Fig. 31]). The impression is so much better on the inner side, that the inking is done on that, and the figures are thus reversed in the plate.
Fig. 31.—Copy made by inking a paper squeeze, 1:8. A part of the Israel stele, with the name Israel in the last line but one.
Fig. 32.—System of numbering sheets of connected drawings.
Dry squeezes.
But on all coloured work, and many kinds of tender stones, wet squeezing is a crime, as it destroys the original. Fatuous tourists and brazen students have wrecked innumerable monuments by wet squeezing, and it is now necessarily prohibited in Egypt unless special permission is obtained to do some object which cannot be injured by it. Another system, that of dry squeezing, I therefore introduced when doing the Medum tombs. A sheet of thin paper is held over the stone, and it is pressed over each edge of the cutting so as to leave a bend in the surface. Then, laid on a drawing-board, with an oblique lighting, the bends are all drawn on with pencil, checking by comparison with the stone. Sometimes it is best to draw by lamplight, and check with the stone afterwards. The drawing should always begin at the bottom right hand, so as not to press out the impression by the hand; and the sheets must not be rolled before being pencilled. For small lines, a piece of indiarubber should be used to press the paper into the hollows. For the outlines of reliefs the thumb nail must be used. This system is quicker and more accurate than any reduced-scale hand drawing. Over large wall surfaces the sheets should be placed in regular rows, lettered A, B, C ([Fig. 32]), and each sheet numbered in the row, so that A 3, B 3, C 3, come one below the other. The register of positions is kept by marking a minute cross with pencil on the wall, so that the corners of four sheets will fall between the four arms of the cross. Thus each fresh sheet is placed exactly to fit the sheets which have preceded it, in the row and in the column. Any large blanks or injuries should have their corresponding sheets duly lettered (even if nothing is on them), and put with the drawings, so that there shall be no hitch in placing them all in one great sheet afterwards. It may be convenient to join up the sheets, and then redivide the drawings at suitable spaces between the subjects for convenience of packing. To join the sheets they must be laid together in position, a slight cut then made with a knife to mark two sheets across the joint; then turned back-up, adjusted by the cut, and a strip of adhesive paper put on the joint, dabbed down and not rubbed along. Thus large sculptured walls can be copied sheet by sheet, joined up, inked in, and then photolithographed for plates. It is needful to remember that the Postal Union will take rolls up to 60 centimetres length and 21 cm. diameter, as ordinary parcels up to 5 kilograms; or 75 cm. length if not over 10 cm. diameter and 2 kilograms of weight, by book post, open at ends.
