History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 2 — 20 - Vol. 02, Ch. 02: The Memphite Empire, pt. 8

We are not acquainted with the names of any of the men who conceived these prodigious works.

The inscriptions mention in detail the princes, nobles, and scribes who presided over all the works undertaken by the sovereign, but they have never deigned to record the name of a single architect.

* * The title “mir kaûtû nîbû nîti sûton,” frequently met with under the Ancient Empire, does not designate the architects, as many Egyptologists have thought: it signifies “director of all the king’s works,” and is applicable to irrigation, dykes and canals, mines and quarries, and all branches of an engineer’s profession, as well as to those of the architect’s. The “directors of all the king’s works ” were dignitaries deputed by Pharaoh to take the necessary measurements for the building of temples, for dredging canals, for quarrying stone and minerals; they were administrators, and not professionals possessing the technical knowledge of an architect or engineer.

[Illustrations: 234a.

jpg Avenue of Sphinxes--Karnak] [Illustrations: 234a-text.

jpg] They were people of humble extraction, living hard lives under fear of the stick, and their ordinary assistants, the draughtsmen, painters, and sculptors, were no better off than themselves; they were looked upon as mechanics of the same social status as the neighbouring shoemaker or carpenter.

The majority of them were, in fact, clever mechanical workers of varying capability, accustomed to chisel out a bas-relief or set a statue firmly on its legs, in accordance with invariable rules which they transmitted unaltered from one generation to another: some were found among them, however, who displayed unmistakable genius in their art, and who, rising above the general mediocrity, produced masterpieces.

Their equipment of tools was very simple--iron picks with wooden handles, mallets of wood, small hammers, and a bow for boring holes.

The sycamore and acacia furnished them with a material of a delicate grain and soft texture, which they used to good advantage: Egyptian art has left us nothing which, in purity of Hue and delicacy of modelling, surpasses the panels of the tomb of Hosi, with their seated or standing male figures and their vigorously cut hieroglyphs in the same relief as the picture.

Egypt possesses, however, but few trees of suitable fibre for sculptural purposes, and even those which were fitted for this use were too small and stunted to furnish blocks of any considerable size.

The sculptor, therefore, turned by preference to the soft white limestone of Turah.

[Illustration: 236. jpg ONE OF THE WOODEN PANELS OF HOSI, IN THE GÎZEH MUSEUM]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

The original is now in the Gîzeh Museum.

He quickly detached the general form of his statue from the mass of stone, fixed the limits of its contour by means of dimension guides applied horizontally from top to bottom, and then cut away the angles projecting beyond the guides, and softened off the outline till he made his modelling correct.

This simple and regular method of procedure was not suited to hard stone: the latter had to be first chiselled, but when by dint of patience the rough hewing had reached the desired stage, the work of completion was not entrusted to metal tools.

Stone hatchets were used for smoothing off the superficial roughnesses, and it was assiduously polished to efface the various tool-marks left upon its surface.

The statues did not present that variety of gesture, expression, and attitude which we aim at to-day.

They were, above all things, the accessories of a temple or tomb, and their appearance reflects the particular ideas entertained with regard to their nature.

The artists did not seek to embody in them the ideal type of male or female beauty: they were representatives made to perpetuate the existence of the model.

[Illustration: 237. jpg A SCULPTOR’s STUDIO, AND EGYPTIAN PAINTERS AT WORK]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a chromolithograph by Prisse d’Avennes, _Histoire de l’Art Égyptien_.

The original is in the tomb of Rakhmirî, who lived at Thebes under the XVIIIth dynasty.

The methods which were used did not differ from those employed by the sculptors and painters of the Memphite period more than two thousand years previously.

The Egyptians wished the double to be able to adapt itself easily to its image, and in order to compass that end, it was imperative that the stone presentment should be at least an approximate likeness, and should reproduce the proportions and peculiarities of the living prototype for whom it was meant.

The head had to be the faithful portrait of the individual: it was enough for the body to be, so to speak, an average one, showing him at his fullest development and in the complete enjoyment of his physical powers.

The men were always represented in their maturity, the women never lost the rounded breast and slight hips of their girlhood, but a dwarf always preserved his congenital ugliness, for his salvation in the other world demanded that it should be so.

Had he been given normal stature, the double, accustomed to the deformity of his members in this world, would have been unable to accommodate himself to an upright carriage, and would not have been in a fit condition to resume his course of life.

[Illustration: 238. jpg CELLARER COATING A JAR WITH PITCH] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

The original is now in the Gîzeh Museum.

The particular pose of the statue was dependent on the social position of the person.

The king, the nobleman, and the master are always standing or sitting: it was in these postures they received the homage of their vassals or relatives.

The wife shares her husband’s seat, stands upright beside him, or crouches at his feet as in daily life.

The son, if his statue was ordered while he was a child, wears the dress of childhood; if he had arrived to manhood, he is represented in the dress and with the attitude suited to his calling.

Slaves grind the grain, cellarers coat their amphoræ with pitch, bakers knead their dough, mourners make lamentation and tear their hair.

The exigencies of rank clung to the Egyptians in temple and tomb, wherever their statues were placed, and left the sculptor who represented them scarcely any liberty.

He might be allowed to vary the details and arrange the accessories to his taste; he might alter nothing in the attitude or the general likeness without compromising the end and aim of his work.

The statues of the Memphite period may be counted at the present day by hundreds.

[Illustration: 239. jpg BAKER KNEADING HIS DOUGH] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Béchard.

The original is now in the Gîzeh Museum.

Some are in the heavy and barbaric style which has caused them to be mistaken for primaeval monuments: as, for instance, the statues of Sapi and his wife, now in the Louvre, which are attributed to the beginning of the IIIrd dynasty or even earlier.

Groups exactly resembling these in appearance are often found in the tombs of the Vth and VIth dynasties, which according to this reckoning would be still older than that of Sapi: they were productions of an inferior studio, and their supposed archaism is merely the want of skill of an ignorant sculptor.

The majority of the remaining statues are not characterized either by glaring faults or by striking merits: they constitute an array of honest good-natured folk, without much individuality of character and no originality.

They may be easily divided into five or six groups, each having a style in common, and all apparently having been executed on the lines of a few chosen models; the sculptors who worked for the mastaba contractors were distributed among a very few studios, in which a traditional routine was observed for centuries.

They did not always wait for orders, but, like our modern tombstone-makers, kept by them a tolerable assortment of half-finished statues, from which the purchaser could choose according to his taste.

The hands, feet, and bust lacked only the colouring and final polish, but the head was merely rough-hewn, and there were no indications of dress; when the future occupant of the tomb or his family had made their choice, a few hours of work were sufficient to transform the rough sketch into a portrait, such as it was, of the deceased they desired to commemorate, and to arrange his garment according to the latest fashion.

If, however, the relatives or the sovereign* declined to be satisfied with these commonplace images, and demanded a less conventional treatment of body for the double of him whom they had lost, there were always some among the assistants to be found capable of entering into their wishes, and of seizing the lifelike expression of limbs and features.

* It must not be forgotten that the statues were often, like the tomb itself, given by the king to the man whose services he desired to reward.

His burying-place then bore the formulary, “By the favour of the king,” as I have mentioned previously.

[Illustration: 241. jpg THE SHEIKH-EL BELED IN THE GIZEH MUSEUM] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.

We possess at the present day, scattered about in museums, some score of statues of this period, examples of consummate art,--the Khephrens, the Kheops, the Anû, the Nofrît, the Râhotpû I have already mentioned, the “Sheîkh-el-Beled” and his wife, the sitting scribe of the Louvre and that of Gîzeh, and the kneeling scribe.

Kaâpirû, the “Sheîkh-el-Beled,” was probably one of the directors of the corvée employed to build the Great Pyramid.

* He seems to be coming forward to meet the beholder, with an acacia staff in his hand.

He has the head and shoulders of a bull, and a common cast of countenance, whose vulgarity is not wanting in energy.

The large, widely open eye has, by a trick of the sculptor, an almost uncanny reality about it.

* It was discovered by Mariette at Saqqâra.

“The head, torso, arms, and even the staff, were intact; but the pedestal and legs were hopelessly decayed, and the statue was only kept upright by the sand which surrounded it.

” The staff has since been broken, and is replaced by a more recent one exactly like it.

In order to set up the figure, Mariette was obliged to supply new feet, which retain the colour of the fresh wood.

By a curious coincidence, Kaâpirû was an exact portrait of one of the “Sheikhs el-Beled,” or mayors of the village of Saqqâra: the Arab workmen, always quick to see a likeness, immediately called it the “Sheikh el-Beled,” and the name has been retained ever since.

[Illustration: 242. jpg THE KNEELING SCRIBE IN THE GIZEH MUSEUM] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch- Bey.

[Illustration: 242b.

jpg THE SITTING SCRIBE IN THE GÎZEH MUSEUM] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Émil Brugsch-Bey.

This scribe was discovered at Saqqâra, by M. de Morgan, in the beginning of 1893. The socket which holds it has been hollowed out and filled with an arrangement of black and white enamel; a rim of bronze marks the outline of the lids, while a little silver peg, inserted at the back of the pupil, reflects the light and gives the effect of the sparkle of a living glance.

The statue, which is short in height, is of wood, and one would be inclined to think that the relative plasticity of the material counts for something in the boldness of the execution, were it not that though the sitting scribe of the Louvre is of limestone, the sculptor has not shown less freedom in its composition.

We recognize in this figure one of those somewhat flabby and heavy subordinate officials of whom so many examples are to be seen in Oriental courts.

He is squatting cross-legged on the pedestal, pen in hand, with the outstretched leaf of papyrus conveniently placed on the right: he waits, after an interval of six thousand years, until Pharaoh or his vizier deigns to resume the interrupted dictation.

His colleague at the Gîzeh Museum awakens in us no less wonder at his vigour and self-possession; but, being younger, he exhibits a fuller and firmer figure with a smooth skin, contrasting strongly with the deeply wrinkled appearance of the other, aggravated as it is by his flabbiness.

The “kneeling scribe” preserves in his pose and on his countenance that stamp of resigned indecision and monotonous gentleness which is impressed upon subordinate officials by the influence of a life spent entirely under the fear of the stick.

Banofir, on the contrary, is a noble lord looking upon his vassals passing in file before him: his mien is proud, his head disdainful, and he has that air of haughty indifférence which is befitting a favourite of the Pharaoh, possessor of generously bestowed sinecures, and lord of a score of domains.

The same haughtiness of attitude distinguishes the director of the granaries, Nofir.

We rarely encounter a small statue so expressive of vigour and energy.

Sometimes there may be found among these short-garmented people an individual wrapped and almost smothered in an immense _abayah_; or a naked man, representing a peasant on his way to market, his bag on his left shoulder, slightly bent under the weight, carrying his sandals in his other hand, lest they should be worn out too quickly in walking.

Everywhere we observe the traits of character distinctive of the individual and his position, rendered with a scrupulous fidelity: nothing is omitted, no detail of the characteristics of the model is suppressed.

Idealisation we must not expect, but we have here an intelligent and sometimes too realistic fidelity.

Portraits have been conceived among other peoples and in other periods in a different way: they have never been better executed.

[Illustration: 246. jpg PEASANT GOING TO MARKET] * Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Béchard.

The original is at Gizeh.

--Vth dynasty.

The decoration of the sepulchres provided employment for scores of draughtsmen, sculptors, and painters, whose business it was to multiply in these tombs scenes of everyday life which were indispensable to the happiness or comfort of the double.

The walls are sometimes decorated with isolated pictures only, each one of which represents a distinct operation; more frequently we find traced upon them a single subject whose episodes are superimposed one upon the other from the ground to the ceiling, and represent an Egyptian panorama from the Nile to the desert.

In the lower portion, boats pass to and fro, and collide with each other, while the boatmen come to blows with their boat-hooks within sight of hippopotami and crocodiles.

In the upper portions we see a band of slaves engaged in fowling among the thickets of the river-bank, or in the making of small boats, the manufacture of ropes, the scraping and salting of fish.

Under the cornice, hunters and dogs drive the gazelle across the undulating plains of the desert.

Every row represents one of the features of the country; but the artist, instead of arranging the pictures in perspective, separated them and depicted them one above the other.

[Illustration: 247. jpg KOFIR, THE DIRECTOR OF GRANARIES]