Volume II Part 23 (2/2)

[272] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musee_, No 1010

[Illustration: FIG 236--Lion, froyptians were as th and beauty of these animals, which in their days must have abounded in the deserts of Syria and Ethiopia They were chosen to be the ee;[273] a lion's head was placed upon the shoulders of Hobs, and that of a lioness upon the shoulders of Sekhet

Finally it was from the lion that the first idea of that fictitious animal which the Greeks called a sphinx, was taken

[273] At Tell-el-A (LEPSIUS, _Denkmaeler_, vol vi pl 100)

”At first the sphinx can have been nothing but a lion placed to guard the entrance to a temple The co, with a lion's body, must have been a result of the national love for sy himself, as represented by this association of physical with intellectual strength, acted as guardian of the building which he had founded There was a radical distinction between the Greek sphinx and that of the Egyptians The latter propounded no enigma to the passer-by, and the author of the treatise, _Upon Isis and Osiris_, was in sy behind the yptians but their philosophy, which was seen as if through a veil Thus they placed sphinxes before the gates of their tey contained all the secrets of wisdoyptians did not ht”[274]

[274] MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-egypte_, vol ii p 9

[Illustration: FIG 237--Bronze lion, Boulak Drawn by Bourgoin]

We have already reproduced many examples of what may be called the classic form of sphinx, his head covered with the _klaft_ and his paws extended before his 41 and 157, Vol I) But the type included several secondary varieties So sys 227 and 238); sometimes the head of a hawk is substituted for that of a man The animals which for

205, Vol I), but the na in co else

The Greek word sf??? is feminine The sphinx with feypt Wilkinson only knew of one, in which the Queen Mut-neter of the eighteenth dynasty was represented[275]

[275] Upon the significance of the sphinx and its different varieties, see WILKINSON, _Manners and Custoether on a single plate (vol

ii p 93) all the fantastic aniyptians

See also MASPERO, _Meique, 1879)_

[Illustration: FIG 238--Sphinx with huyptians were not content with confusing the figures of es of the Gods, they combined those of quadrupeds and birds in the sas upon the backs of gazelles and antelopes, and now and then a curious ani 239) Whether such fantastic quadrupeds were consciously and deliberately invented by the Egyptian artists or not, we have noIn a period when there was none of that scientific culture which alone enables uish the possible froed and bird-headed anis

For the Greeks of Homer's time, and even for their children's children, the chimera and his kindred were real They knehere they lived, and they described their habits In a picture at Beni-Hassan, these i before the hunter, and mixed up with the undoubted denizens of the mountains and deserts[276]

Such representations must have been coypt, partly i inhabitants of the latter country distributed all over Western Asia, and the basin of the Mediterranean They had a large share of that matic character which has always been an attraction in the eye of the decorator They s represented upon them existed in some corner of the world, and they certainly did much to forh Greece to the modern ornayptiens et la Mosaque de Palestrine_, p 82 (_Gazette Archeologique_, 1879)

[Illustration: FIG 239--Quadruped with the head of a bird From Champollion, pl 428 _bis_]

-- 7 _The Technique of the Bas-reliefs_

Work in low relief held such an iyptian sculptor that we must study its processes in some detail

In the first place, it was almost invariably painted Those bas-reliefs which show no trace of colour may be looked upon as unfinished

Secondly, the depth of the relief varied as ures of the Osiride piers to the delicate salience of the carvings upon the steles and toh relief have been found in the120, Vol I),[277]

but they are quite exceptional; the depth is usually from two to three millimetres It is the saures that the relief becomes as much as a centimetre, or a centimetre and a half in depth; articulations, the borders of drapery, and the bounding lines of the contour, are indicated with much less salience

[277] See also LEPSIUS, _Denkmaeler_, part ii pl 11, and a toypte_, plate 6 and page 37) cites, as a curious example of a bolder relief than usual, the scenes sculptured upon the to the servants of the defunct carrying a gazelle upon their shoulders

The processes used in Egyptian reliefs were three in nu almost unknown elsewhere

The commonest of the three is the saures are left standing out frohtly hollowed in the neighbourhood of their contours When limestone was used, this method was almost always preferred, as that material allowed the beds to be dressed without any difficulty