Volume I Part 4 (1/2)

I conceived the plan of this history, of which the first instalment is now submitted to the public, at the time when M Wallon, who is secretary to the _Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres_, entrustedof classic archaeology But before it could be realized two conditions had to be fulfilled I had to find an associate in the work, a companion ould helpmy auditors in those first lectures at the Sorbonne I had also to find a publisher ould understand the wants of the public and of the critics in such a matter In this, too, I have succeeded, and I am free to undertake a hich is, I hope, destined to carry far beyond the narrow limits of a Parisian lecture room, theressing with a step which becomes daily more assured The task is an arduous one, and the continual discoveries which are reported from nearly every quarter of the ancient world, ue andomissions and defects pointed out even by the most benevolent critics, but we are convinced that in spite of such iood service, and will cause one of the aspects of ancient civilization to be better understood This conviction will sustain us through the labours which, perhaps with some temerity, we have taken upon us How far shall we be allowed to conduct our history? That we cannot tell, but we may venture to promise that it shall be the chief occupation and the dearest study of all that reth

GEORGES PERROT

TO THE READER

We have been in soraphy to each section of this work, but after ainst it We shall, of course, consider the art of each of the races of antiquity in less detail than if we had undertaken a yptian, upon assyrian, or upon Phnician art; but yet it is our alect no source of information which is likely to be really valuable From many of the books and papers which we shall have to consult webut their titles, but we hope that no iether, and in every case we shall give references which may be easily verified Under these circumstances a formal list of works would be a mere repetition of our notes and would only have the effect of giving a useless bulk to our volus have not been taken directly froinals we have been careful to indicate the source from which we obtained the only from authors of undoubted authority Those illustrations which bear neither an artist's naraphs As for the perspectives and restorations supplied by M

Chipiez, they are in every case founded upon the study and comparison of all accessible docu to indicate in each of these drawings how much has been borrowed from special publications and how raphic evidence

M Chipiez has sometimes employed the ordinary perspective, sometimes that which is called axonometric perspective The difference will be at once perceived

Egyptologists lyphs which occur in our illustrations These hieroglyphs have been as a rule exactly transcribed, but we do not pretend to offer a collection of texts; we have only reproduced these characters on account of their decorative value, and because without theeneral appearance of this or that monument It will thus be seen that our object is not affected by a mistake or two in such ratitude to all those who have interested themselves in our enterprise and who have helped us to make our work complete Our dear and la the winter that we passed in Egypt, while he still enjoyed soth and voice, we obtained from his conversation and his letters some precious pieces of information We have cited the works of M Maspero on ale, and yet we have learnt s Before his departure for Egypt--whither he went to succeed Mariette--M

Maspero was our perpetual counsellor and referee; whenever ere embarrassed we appealed to his well ordered, accurate, and unbiased knowledge We are also deeply indebted to M Pierret, the learned _conservateur_ of the Louvre; not only has he done everything to facilitate the work of our draughtsreat museum, he has also helped us frequently with his advice and his accue M Arthur Rhone has lent us a plan of the temple of the Sphinx, and M Ernest Desjardins a view of the interior of that building

The artists who have visited Egypt have helped us as cordially as the learned men who have deciphered its inscriptions M Gerome opened his portfolios and allowed us to take three of those drawings, which express with such truthful precision the character of Egyptian landscape froenerous as M Gerome, and if we have taken but one illustration froements for this voluh them M Brune has allowed us to reproduce his plans of Karnak and Medinet-Abou

We have had occasion, in the work itself, to express our acknowledgoin, G Benedite, and Saint-Elme Gautier, who have drawn for us the principal monuments of the Boulak and Louvre Museums For the architecture we must name M A Guerin, a pupil of M Chipiez, who prepared the drawings under the direction of his ht and skilful point has so well engraved theiven results which, as we hope, will satisfy our readers,care of M Comte, whose process has been employed; all these plates have been reviewed and retouched by his are by MM Ramus, Hibon, Guillaumot pere and Sulpis In order that the polychroyptians should be rendered with truth and precision in its refined tones and coed M Sulpis to make use of a process which had almost fallen into disuse from its difficulty and want of rapidity; we mean that which is called _aquatint_ Our plates II, XIII, and XIV will perhaps convince our readers that its results are superior to those of chroraphy, which is noidely employed

A HISTORY OF ART IN ANCIENT EGYPT

CHAPTER I

THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION

-- 1 _Egypt's Place in The History of the World_

Egypt is the eldest daughter of civilization In undertaking to group the great nations of antiquity and to present then to each its due share in the continuous and unreress until the birth of Christianity, we have no alternative but to co the past of mankind, we have the choice of several points of view We ious conceptions which succeeded one another during that period, or we ive our attention rather to the literature, the arts and the sciences, to those inventions which in time have done so much to emancipate mankind from natural trammels and to make him master of his destiny One writer will confine himself to a description of manners, and social and political institutions; another to the enuht on by internal revolutions, by wars and conquests; to what Bossuet calls ”_la suite des ehest ambition of all will attele picture, so as to show, as a whole, the creative activity of a race and the onward enius in the continual search for ”the best” But in any case the coypt that has preserved the earliest atteypt that those monuments exist which contain the first perht by written characters or plastic[36] forypt that the historian of antique art will find the earliest materials for study

[36] The word ”plastic” is used throughout this work in its widest significance, and is not confined to works ”in the round”--ED

But, in the first place, we ive some account of the curious conditions under which the people lived who constructed and ornain, then, by describing the circumstances and the race characteristics under which this early civilization was developed

-- 2 _The Valley of the Nile and its Inhabitants_

The first traveller in Egypt of which we have any record is Herodotus; he sums up, in an often quoted phrase, the iypt,” he says, ”is a present from the Nile”[37] The truth could not be better expressed ”Had the equatorial rains not been coe to the Mediterranean, a passage upon which they deposited the ypt would not have existed Egypt began by being the bed of a torrent; the soil was raised by slow degreesman appeared there when, by the slow accumulation of fertile earth, the country at last became equal to his support”[38]

[37] HERODOTUS, ii 7

[38] MARIETTE, _Itineraire de la haute egypte_, p 10 (edition of 1872, 1 vol Alexandria, Moures)

Other rivers do no more than afford hu districts, for a certain narrow stretch of country on each hand When they overflow their banks it is in a violent and irregular fashi+on, involving wide-spread ruin and destruction Great floods are feared as public misfortunes It is very different with the Nile Every year, at a date which can be alins to rise slowly and to spread gently over the land It rises by degrees until its surface is eight or nine ins to fall with the same tranquillity, but not until it has deposited, upon the lands over which it has flowed, a thick layer of fertile h, and in which every seed will gerour and rapidity