Volume II Part 16 (1/2)
[Illustration: FIG 172--Sepa and Nesa, Louvre Four feet eight inches high]
The induction to which we have been led by the style of these figures is confir recent explorations in the necropolis of Mereen paint under the eyes has, as yet, only been found in statues from a certain peculiar class of tombs at Gizeh and Sakkarah These are chambers cut in the rock, in which the roofs are carved into is of palm wood
Some of the texts which have been found in theical place has not yet been satisfactorily deterures upon which the adornment in question occurs would appear therefore to be contehbourhood of the pyramids[174]
[174] The Boulak Museuures See _Notice_, Nos 994 and 995
[Illustration: RA-HOTEP AND NEFERT
BOULAK MUSEUM
Iress was rapid between the end of the third dynasty and that of the fourth It was during the latter dynasty that the art of the Ancient Empire produced its masterpieces Mariette attributes the two famous statues found in a ton of Snefrou, the predecessor of Cheops They are exhibited, under glass, in the Boulak Museum (Plate IX)[175]
[175] _Notice des principaux Monuures were discovered in January, 1872 They had a narrow escape of being destroyed by the pickaxes of the superstitious fellaheen Mariette fortunately arrived just in tie _Recueil de Travaux_, vol i p
160
”One of them represents Ra-hotep, a prince of the blood, who enjoyed the dignity of general of infantry, a very rare title under the Ancient Empire; the other is a woman, Nefert, _the beauty_; her statue also infor We do not knohether she was the wife or sister of Ra-hotep The interest excited by the extreures is increased by our certainty of their prodigious antiquity In theis frankly archaic, everything is as old as the oldest of the tombs at Sakkarah, and those date fro tomb which, as is proved by the connection between their structures, dates from the same period as that of Ra-hotep, is that of a functionary attached to the person of Snefrou I We n the two statues fron of the third dynasty”[176]
[176] MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-egypte_, p 47
Each of these figures, with its chair-shaped seat, is carved froh The man is almost nude; his only dress is a ribbon about his neck, and white breeches like those to which we have already alluded The wo chemise, open between the breasts, which we have seen upon Nesa
Besides this a wide and richly designed necklace spreads over her chest Upon her head she has a square-cut black hich, however, allows her natural hair to be visible in front Over the wig she has a low flat cap with a decorated border The carnations of the ht yellow
These statues betray an art much more advanced than that of Sepa and Nesa The pose is ht arm of Ra-hotep is stiff and held in a fashi+on which would soon cause cra of the body is free and true, though without s of Nefert are skilfully suggested under her robe But the care of the sculptor has been iven to the heads By iven theotten The arched eyebrows sured with heavy lashes and to stand out well from the eyeball In the case of the latter the li contrast with the pupil and iris (Fig 173) The noses, especially that of Ra-hotep are fine and pointed; the thick but well-drawn lips seem about to speak Her smooth cheeks and soft dark eyes, eyes which are still coive Nefert a very attractive look Her s contrast to that of Ra-hotep, which is full of life and aniled with a little hardness
[Illustration: FIG 173--Ra-hotep Drawn by Bourgoin]
The longer we look at these figures the less ready are we to turn away from them They are portraits, and portraits of ifted with life to- under the sun of Egypt, thetoblue che a pitcher upon her head, we should know them at once and salute them by name as old acquaintances We find none of the marks of inexperience and archaism which are so conspicuous in the statues of Sepa and Nesa A few later figures may seem to usthem all in all, we cannot look upon these statues as other than the creations of a mature art, of an art which was already in full command of its resources, and of a sculptor who had a well-inal style of his own
We find the saroup of monuments ascribed by Mariette to no less remote a period[177] The same eye for proportion, the same life-like expression, the same frankness and confidence of hand are to be found in those sculptured wooden panels of which the museum at Boulak possesses four fine exae called Hosi, where they were enfrae about 3 feet 10 inches high and 1 foot 8 inches wide The drawings which we reproduce give a good idea of the peculiarities of style and execution by which they are distinguished (Figs 174-176)[178]
[177] ”According to all appearance these panels date fron of Cheops” _Notices des principaux Monuments_, etc
Nos 987-92
[178] There is a panel of the same kind in the Louvre (_Salle Historique_, No 1 of Pierret's _Catalogue_), but it is neither so firood preservation as those at Cairo
At first sight these carvings are a little e to the eye accustoure presented is less thickset The body, instead of being s are thin and long In the head especially do we find unaccustoly aquiline; the lips, instead of being thick and fleshy, as in alyptian heads, are thin and coly eneral type is Seyptian And yet the inscriptions which surround thehest class One of the in two different attitudes, is Ra-hesi; the other, who is sitting before a table of offerings, bears the name of Pekh-hesi The decipherable part of the inscription tells us that he was a scribe, highly placed, and in great favour with the king
The tomb in which these panels were found was not built on the usual plan of the mastaba Mariette alludes to certain peculiarities which are to be found in it, but he does not describe therouped in a peculiar fashi+on; ement of the objects borne in the left hand of Ra-hesi is quite unique Struck by these singularities, Mariette asserts that ”the style of these panels is to Egyptian art what the style called archaic is to that of Greece”[179] This assertion seems to us inaccurate Not that we ives for ascribing these panels to an epoch anterior to the great pyrae, it seems to be impossible, in view of the style in which they are executed, to call them archaic They show no yptian artist never carved ith greater decision or with more subtlety and finesse than are to be seen in these panels As for the differences of execution which have been noticed between these figures and the stone statues of the sae of yptian love for fidelity of imitation Wood is not attacked in the same fashi+on as soft stone Its constitution does not lend itself to the ample and rounded forms of lapidary sculpture It demands, especially when a low relief is used, a ain, these were portraits; all the Egyptians were not like one another, especially in that priypt in which perhaps various races had not yet been blended into a ho the contemporaries of Cheops, as in our day, there were fat people and thin people Men ere tall and slender, and men ere short and thickset Countenances varied both in features and expression[180] In ti froyptian es passed away the influence of that type became more and more despotic It became alid obligation to reproduce the personal characteristics of an individual with fidelity But at the end of the third dynasty that consummation was still far off And we need feel no surprise that the higher we yptian civilization the es which it offers to us, and thethe variation between one work of art and another
[179] MARIETTE, _La Galerie de l'egypte Ancienne au Trocadero_, 1878, p 122
[180] Thus we find in a to to Lepsius, dates from the fourth dynasty, certain thickset sculptured forures taken frohbourhood, at Gizeh The body is short, the legs heavy and massive LEPSIUS, _Denkmaeler_, part ii pl 9
It must not be supposed, however, that the features which we have mentioned as peculiar in the cases of Ra-hesi and Pekh-hesi are not to be found elsewhere If we examine the profile of Nefert, still more that of Ra-hotep, we shall find that they also have the sloping forehead and aquiline nose The body of Ra-hotep is rounder and fatter than those in the wooden reliefs, but the lines of his countenance have a strong reseures on the panels
[Illustration: FIG 174--Wooden panel frooin]