66. Second age
67. Ship on wall-painting
68. Geese of Medum
The great age of painting was the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties. The sculpturing of tombs was then abandoned in favour of the cheaper paint; and the taste of the age for graceful and light treatment found its best scope in the use of the brush. Here we have a group of pelicans ([fig. 69]) with an old herdsman and baskets of eggs. Next ([fig. 70]) is a harvest scene. Two men are carrying a load of the ears of corn in a net. Behind are the stalks of straw after the ears have been cut. Two girls who were gleaning have stopped to quarrel over the corn; one has seized a wrist of the other, and the two free hands have each taken a grip of the other one’s hair. To the right, under a sycamore fig-tree, one boy is asleep, while another plays on a long reed pipe, with a water-skin hung over his head. In the lower line a girl with a thorn in her foot is stretching it out to be examined by another girl. Further, a lad is stripping the heads of millet by dragging them through a fixed fork. The whole scene is full of incident, and the drawing of the figures in unusual action is excellent. The curious dress of the men is a linen waist-cloth, with a net of slit leather-work to take the wear, and a solid piece of leather left in the middle of it for sitting on, as in [fig. 140]. Such slit leather-work is dealt with in the last chapter.
NEW KINGDOM PAINTING
69. Pelicans and keeper
70, 71. Harvest scenes
A third scene ([fig. 71]) is in the harvest field; the ears have been put into a net, and to press them down a stick is passed through a hole on one edge, while a man has hooked his arm over the stick, and jumped up so as to bring his weight with a jerk to press the stick down; with his other hand he holds the end of a cord tied to the net, so as to be ready to secure the stick when pressed down and prevent it springing up again. The spirit shown in this action is very good, and it is perhaps the only figure given in the act of jumping. On the left is a young woman, one of the daughters, behind the owner of the tomb; on the right is a gleaning girl, stopping in the tall corn to drink, with her basket set on the ground.