to e s a r e a r ti s t i c a lly r e p r e s e n t e d . K i n g H e e er -H e t e p ’s e a r , h ow e v e r,
is placed too high, the earliest instance
of such an abnormity in an Egyptian
statue.
The invasion of the nomad Hyksos
between theXIHth and XVHth Dynasties,
whether Arab and Phoenician She-
mites, as commonly believed, or perhaps
Turanians (Scythians, Turkomans), as
we might guess from the fact that they
were a people of horsemen,68 interrupted
the development of Egyptian art and
civilization for several centuries. Their
reign is marked by destruction and ruins,
Fig. 11.
A m e n em h a—Statue.
not by works of art or of public utility; still their irruption benefited
the valley of the Kile through their introduction of the most important
of all auxiliary domesticated animals, the horse, unknown to
primeval Arabia, and to Egypt previously to the Hyksos, but appearing
on the reliefs of the Dynasty which overcame the invaders.
The XVHth Dynasty of A a hm e s 69 and his successors snapped the
foreign yoke asunder, and expelled the nomades. Art revived again.
The restoration in public life was às thorough-going as that of Prance
under the Bourbons ; the reign of the foreign intruders was altogether
ignored, and scarcely mentioned in the records but for its overthrow.
In-their canons70 of art, this Hew Empire tried to imitate the style
of the XHth and X lllth Dynasty; but the spirit which manifests
itself on the monuments of the XVHth Dynasty is different from
that of the earlier'periods. Instead of the refined elegance which
reigned under the S esortasens, we encounter more grandeur in the
Hew Empire,—somewhat incorrect and conventional, and less attentive
to nature than in the earlier monuments, but always impressive.
During the victorious period between T hutmosis I. and B e x en -A ten,
68 P i c k e r i n g , The Races of Men, vol. ix. of the U. 8. Explor. Exped., 1848. •<0n the
introduced jiiants and animals of Egypt G u d d o n , Ôtia Ægyptiacu, London, 1849, p. 60.
69 The Hyk-sos are beginning, at last, to emerge from historical darkness. “ La lecture
du papyrus No,. 1 de la collection Sallier a révélé demierèment à M. de Rougé une des mentions
longtemps cherchées. Le papyrus s’est trouvé être un fragment d’une histoire de la
guerre entreprise par le roi de la Thébaïde contre lé roi pasteur Apapi. Cette guerre se termina
sous Amosis (A a h m e s ) , le monarque suivant, par l’expülsioh: des étrangers.”
(ALFREn Mauky, Revue des Deux Mondes, Sépt. 1855, p. 1063).
” 11186 tlle term “ eanon,” in the sense adopted by L e p s id s {Auswahl, Leipzig, fol. 1840
—Plate “ Canon der Ægyptischen Proportionen”), and since so well classified into three
epochas of artistic variation in the Dmkmaler by B i e c h ( Gallery o f Antiquities selected
from the British Museum, Part II.. PI. 33, p. 81 ;)-a n d by B o n om i, on the canon' of Vitruvius
Pollio ( The Proportions of the Human Figure, London, 8vo;, 1856).