was in Egypt never emancipated from architecture.53 It was sculptured
for a certain and determinate place, always in connection with
a temple, palace, or sepulchre, of which it became a subservient
ornamental portion, an architectural member as it were, like the pair
of obelisks placed ever in front of the propyleia, or the columns supporting
a pronaos. This poverty of forms, and their constantly
recurring monotony, make the inspection of large Egyptian collections
as tiresome to the great bulk of visitors, as the review of a
Russian regiment is to the civilian; one figure resembles the other,
and only the closer investigation of an experienced eye' descries a
difference of style and individuality.
The bas-reliefs were not, for the Egyptians, so much independent
works of art, as architectural ornaments, and means for conveying
knowledge, answering often the purpose of a kind of vignettes or
illustrations of hieroglyphical inscriptions. They record always some
defined, historical, religious, or domestic scene, without pretension
to any allegorical double-meaning, or esoteric symbolism. Beauty
remained with their hierogrammatic artists less important than distinctness,
the correctness of drawing being sacrificed to conventionalisms
of hieratic s ty leb u t, on the other hand, a general truthfulness
of the representation was peculiarly aimed at. The unnatural
mannerism of the Egyptian bas-relief manifests itself principally in
the too high position of the ear,54 and in representing the eye and
chest as in front view, whilst the head and lower part of the body are
drawn in profile.55 nevertheless, this constant mannerism and many
occasional incorrectnesses are blended with the most minute appreciation
of individual and national character. It is impossible not at
once to recognize the portraits of the kings upon their different
monuments; and we- alight on reliefs where some of the figures are
so carelessly drawn as to present two right or two left hands to the
spectator, yet combined with such characteristic effigies of negroes, of
Shemites, of Assyrians, of Nubians, &c., that they remain superior to
the representations of human races by the. Greeks and Romans.
This general truthfulness applies to Egyptian art from the very first
dawn of history, throughout all the subsequent periods, down to the
time of the Roman conquest. But whilst the principal features of
art remained stationary,' the eye of the art-student finds many
changes in details, and these constitute the history of Egyptian art.
53 Cf. W i l k i n s o n , Architecture of the Ancient Egyptians, London, 1853.
54 Morton, Cran. JEgypU^VhiifoA., 1844, pp. 26-7; and “ inedited MSS.” in Types of Mankind,
p. 318:— P r u n e r , Die JJeberbleibsel der AItagyptishchenMenschenrage,München,184:6,
55 For a ludicrous example, see the “ 37 Prisoners at Bonihassan,” in RosELLiNij M. R.
XXYI—VIII; of the remote age of the Xllth dynasty.
The proportions of the statues in the time of the Old Empire [say
from the 35th century b . c., down to the 20th,56] are short and heavy;
the figures look, therefore, somewhat awkward; but, on the whole,
they are conceived with considerable feeling of truth, and executed
with the endeavour to obtain anatomical correctness. The principal
forms of the body, and even its details, the skull, the muscles of the
chest and of the knees, are nearly always correctly sculptured in close
but not servile imitation of nature. The shape of the eye is not yet
disfigured by a conventional frame, nor is the ear put too high; but
the fingers and toes evidently offered the greatest difficulties to the
primeval Egyptian artists. They commonly failed to form them
correctly; the simplicity and exactitude displayed in sculpturing the
face and body scarcely ever extended to the hands and feet, which
are blunt and awkward.
The earliest of all the statues now extant in the world, as far as
we know, is the effigy of K am -t e n , or H omten, a “royal kinsman”
of the Bid dynasty, found in his tomb at Abooseer, and now in the
Berlin Museum. The following wood-cut [7] is a faithful reduction of
this statue’s head, characterized by a
good-natured expression, without any
mannerism or conventional -type about
the features; the eye is correctly, and
the mouth naturally drawn; not yet
twisted into the stereotyped unmeaning
smile of the later periods.
It is interesting to compare the
head of this statue with the low-relief
portrait [8] of the same prince from the
same tomb, in order to perceive the
difference between the artistic conception
of a statue and of a relief
in Egypt. The relief portrait is evi-
XVTf 8 PreT1<rasly stated, in the present impossibility of attaining, for times anterior to the
Uth dynasty, any precise chronology, we shall make use herein of the vague term centuries,
when treating on events anterior to the age of Solomon, taken at B. C. 1000. The
numerical system of Chev. L e p s iv s furnishes the scale preferred by us, which is defined in
Wes of Mankind, p. 689. His arrangement of Egyptian dynasties inay be consulted in
wh* h aUS ^'9yptm’ '!thioPitn und der ffalbinsel dee Sinai, Berlin, 1852, pp. 364—9 ; of
* ic the elegant English translation by the Misses H o r n e r (Bohn’s Library, 1853) contains
® ater emendations of this learned Egyptologist.
seque *n lithograph by Chev. Lepsius to Mr. Gliddon; together with our subiniD
^ °S’’ an<^ ° ^ er heads that space precludes us from inserting; but for the
to th* nT USe. °f a11 Which’ in these icon°graphic and ethnological studies, we beg to tender
e hevalier our joint acknowledgments.
Fig. 7.