Volume II Part 21 (2/2)

Plates 23 and 24

[242] CHAMPOLLION ypte et de Nubie_, p 326)

[243] CH BLANC, _Voyage dans la Haute-egypte_, p 178

Unless Mariette was mistaken in his identification of one of the ments in the Boulak Museum, Thebes must have possessed first-rate artists even at the death of Ra 223) in question: ”By a happy inspiration, Mariette has given the bust of Queen Taia a pendant which equals it in attractiveness, which surpasses it, perhaps, in delicacy of treate cap which weights it without adding to its beauty It for king was standing; in his left hand he held a raive an idea of the youthful, alrace, of the soft and melancholy charm in a countenance which seems overspread with the shadow of some unhappy fate How did its author contrive to cut froranite, these frank and fearless eyes, that slender nose with its refined nostrils, and these lips, which are so soft and full of vitality, that they see harder than wax We are in presence of one of the finest relics of Egyptian sculpture, and nothing more exquisite has been produced by the art of any other people The inscription is ranite, but Mariette believes that the statue represents Menephtah, the son of Raanisation du Musee de Boulak_--MARIETTE, _Notice_, No 22

[Illustration: FIG 222--Statue of Rameses II in the Turin Museum

Granite Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier]

[Illustration: FIG 223--Head of Menephtah Boulak Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier]

There is a colossal statue of Seti II, the son of this Menephtah, in the Louvre (Fig 224) Although the material of which it consists, naranite, the features, which have a family resemblance to those of Menephtah, are executed in a much more summary fashi+on than in the Boulak statue, and yet the execution is that of aof the orous[245]

[245] Louvre Ground-floor gallery, No 24

[Illustration: FIG 224--Seti II Sandstone statue, fifteen feet high Louvre Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier]

There are hardly any royal statues left to us which we can ascribe with certainty to the twentieth dynasty, but at Medinet-Abou, both on the walls of the temple and in the Royal Pavilion there are bas-reliefs which show that the sculpture of Rareat Theban Pharaohs, kne to hold its own aiven a few exa is shown as a warrior and as a high priest (Figs 172 and 173, Vol I); other groups should not be forgotten in which he is exhibited during his hours of relaxation in his harehters

Under the last of the Rayptians lost their n possessions in the South and East

Inclosed within its own frontiers, between the cataracts in the South and the Mediterranean in the North, and enfeebled by the domination of the priests and scribes, the country becadoms, that of Thebes, under a theocratic dynasty, and that of Tanis in which the royal na Semitic influence

That worshi+p of Asiatic divinities which, though never mentioned in official monuments, is so often alluded to in the steles,these were Resheb, the Syrian Apollo; Kadesh, who bore the nareat Babylonian Goddess Anahit, the Anaitis of the Greeks Kadesh is so 225)

Exhausted by its internal conflicts, Egypt produced few s, however, of this barren period, and especially Sheshonk, have left at Karnak records of their military victories and of their efforts to re-establish the national unity After the twenty-fourth dynasty Egypt becadoiarise endured, the southern conquerors gave full eypt had preserved The latter were set to reproduce the features of the Ethiopian kings, but the works which resulted are very unequal in reat door in the pylon of Raures is by no means satisfactory ”The relief is too bold; the erated to a raceful strength”[246]

[246] CH BLANC, _Voyage dans la Haute-egypte_, p 153

[Illustration: FIG 225--The Goddess Kadesh; froh these bas-reliefs, the only ones of the period which have been encountered, are evidently inspired by the decadence, the Egyptian sculptors seem to have still preserved much of their skill in portraiture Mariette believes that a royal head in the Museum at Cairo represents Tahraka, the third of the Ethiopian sovereigns It is disfigured by the loss of the nose The reeneral type is foreign rather than Egyptian[247] However this may be, it cannot be denied that in the alabaster statue of Ameneritis, which was found at Karnak by Mariette, we have a yptian art re 226)[248]

[247] MARIETTE, _Notice_, No 20

[248] MARIETTE, _Notice_, No 866 There is a cast of this statue in the Louvre, but, like that of the statue of Chephren, which forms a pendant to it, it has been coloured to the hue of fresh butter and the result is reeable Even when placed upon a cast froh, but when the cast is one from a statue in diorite, like that of Chephren, it is quite inexcusable It would have been better either to have left the natural surface of the plaster or to have given to each cast a colour which should in soinals andthe Ethiopian occupation Queen Aypt While her brother Sabaco was yet alive she was dignified with the title of regent, later she brought her rights to the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt to the usurper Piankhi, whom she married and made the father of Shap-en-Ap, who afterwards became the mother of Psemethek I

[Illustration: FIG 226--Statue of Ameneritis Alabaster Boulak

Drawn by G Benedite]

The head of A worn by Goddesses She holds a whip in her left hand and a sort of purse in her right; there are bangles upon her wrist and ankles and the contours of her body are frankly displayed beneath the long chemise-like robe, which falls almost to her ankles

The features are resolute and intelligent rather than beautiful, the squareness of the lower jaw and the firnificant