5Mine of
personages were immortalized in more than life-size statues carved from a hard volcanic rock—diorite or green basalt. Such is the statue of Chephren (p1. r, Jig. 2), the builder of the second pyramid, dating from the fourth dynasty. The king is seated in a chair or throne. On hi< head is the royal k/afi; about his loins, the sebenii. His arms are drawn close to his body, and his hands rest upon his knees. .‘lthough evidently a portrait-statue, in posture it becomes one of the types of royal figures which in the New Empire we find preserved in the colossal figures of Amenophis III. at Thebes and of Rameses II. at Ipsainboul. From the Middle Empire we have few remaining sculptures, but such as still exist present a new type of countenance, and in details a different mode of %vorkman
/Ir/ of Me New Empire, and especially the eigh teenth and nineteenth •dynasties, constituted an epoch of gigantic con structions. The sculptor's art was now employed in carving the colossal statues which adorned the facades of the temples.
Sialnes of Rameses largest of these statues are the four figures of Rameses II. on the rock-cut temple at Ipsamboul 4). Although seated, these figures are about seventy feet high. An immense standing figure of Rameses, now lying with its face to the ground near the site of ancient Memphis, was presented to the English government, but, owing to the difficulty of transport, has never been removed. The finest statue of this period is the black-granite seated figure of Rameses II. possessed by the Turin Museum r, fig. 3). The king is fully clad in a striated garment and holds a sceptre in his right hand. On his head is a rich helmet highly ornamented and bearing the uraws. In front of the throne, at the feet of the king, are two small statuettes representing the king's son and wife. In pose it reminds us of the Chephren of the Ancient Empire, but in workmanship it is more refined and finished. This statue represents the climax of the Egyptian sculptor's art. In the following period we find looser and more careless work, a certain refinement of feeling, but less dignity and a diminished sense of form.
Beni-Hassan Reliefs.—Figure i (61. 2) is a scene taken from the south wall of the tomb of Nevothph, at Beni-Hassan, representing the farm hands of the occupant of the tomb felling trees. In other scenes from the same tomb we see the master himself carried in a palanquin, his workmen making a boat, his gardeners plucking grapes, his women rolling bread, and his physicians doctoring animals. It is mainly to such wall-pictures
that we are indebted for the fulness of our information concerning the life and customs of the ancient Egyptians.
Relief RaMCSCS 2 introduces us to the more conventional forms of the New Empire. The scene represents one of the successors of Rameses receiving consecration from the gods. Upon the head of the king is the solar disk with the ureri or serpents emblematic of royalty; above the disk is the royal cartonche. To the left is the ibis-headed god Thoth. Primarily moon-god, Thoth becomes the divine measurer, the god of law and wisdom and justice. A reminiscence of the lunar concep tion is seen in the disk and crescent which crown the ibis-head. To the right is the hawk-headed Horns, the god who made light triumph over darkness and good over evil. Upon his head is the united crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. From the sacred vessels which the gods hold issue streams composed of the Nile-key, or symbol of life, and the sceptre. The animal-heads by which the various divinities were distinguished from one another represent to us the sacred traditions of an animal-worship which was long-lived in the Egyptian religion, and strong enough to have pre vented the sculptor from attempting to express spiritual quality by varia tions of the human countenance.
Head of Isis.—More elaborate in ornamental detail is the head of Isis ( fig . head which, with slight variations, was used to portray upon the walls of the rock-cut tombs of Thebes the queens whose mummified bodies lay hidden in the secret vaults below.
Sfihin.res.—One of the striking objects of Egyptian sculpture is the sphinx, of which there are several varieties. In one class of sphinxes we find a human head—male or female—joined to a lion's body. To this class belongs the great Sphinx, in the vicinity of the Pyramids of Gizeh. (See ARciirrEcreitE, pl. 1.) It is carved from the solid rock, and measures sixtv-six feet from the crown of the head to the platform on which the forepaws of the lion rest. Buried in the sand, its exact sig nificance is not vet fully known. To the same class belongs the sphinx in black granite from Tanis, one of the most important monuments remaining to us from the Middle Empire.