Part 12

They form two circular portions of nearly equal size, joined by two hinges, the first turning on a fixed axis, the second a movable bolt taken away when the bracelet was opened. The back part is a mere plate of polished gold about 1½ inches broad, on which eight twists and eight fillets are laid side by side. The twists and fillets alternate, and the ends are bordered with a thin strip parallel to the hinge. On it are placed two rows of minute particles of metal soldered together, and kept in place by two flat double-twisted little chains. The front portion is expanded to the middle, where it is just over 2 inches in height. At the hinges it is edged by a row of egg-shaped ornaments set between two flat chains, and along the curves by a twist flanked by two fillets. A second frame, included in the first, is of a more complicated design: a double _motif_ of little beads and chains goes round the curves, but on the side of the fixed hinge the cartouche name of Ramses II is to be seen, and on the side of the movable hinge two bands of beads and filigree lozenges on a plain background. In the space thus reserved the goldsmith had traced the silhouette of a group of ducks lying flat, by means of a line of beads and a thin thread. The two bodies, which are packed together so as to be combined in one, are formed of a piece of lapis lazuli, cut and highly polished. The ends of the bodies are imprisoned in a gold sheath decorated with a covering of small knobs and lozenges; the tails are joined together, and simulate a fan; they are of lapis, striped with threads of gold to mark the separation of the feathers. Another gold sheath, of similar workmanship, envelops the chest; the two necks escape with a bold movement, and the two heads, twisting round, lie symmetrically on the back of the creatures. Between them and the frame is a smooth ribbon in sharp zigzags on a seed-plot of granules. The whole effect is rather heavy, and it would have been better if the artist had shown a more sober taste; but having stated so much, it is clearly seen that his work was conceived with a perfect understanding of decoration and a mastery of all the secrets of the art.

All the methods that he so well manipulated may be found in the work of the goldsmiths of contemporary Egypt, especially in that of those who, living in remote villages, have come less under European influence than their colleagues in the cities. The models they copy are never of so delicate an imagination or so skilled an execution; but we note for the most part the same devices and the same decorative parts of which we note the employment here; lozenges, zigzags, simple twisted cords, double-plaited small chains, rounded mallets, threads, filigrees in lines or in seeds. The ingots are beaten, stretched, fashioned, polished on the same little anvil. The granules are blown as formerly in charcoal powder, and the skill with which they are put together and soldered to obtain the desired designs is as great as in the time of the Pharaohs. In that, as in many other industries, the Egypt of to-day has inherited from the Egypt of the past, and we have only to look at the artisans in their shops to learn how the subjects of Ramses II set about their work.

III

The gold and silver vases are some years later than the bracelets. On one of them, indeed, may be read the name of Taouasrît, a great-granddaughter of Ramses II who married successively Siphtah and Setouî II, and who enjoyed her hour of celebrity in the last days of the XIXth Dynasty. It is a half-opened lotus, mounted on its stem. The calyx of the flower is formed of thin gold-leaf, not lined, sharply cut at the outer edge. The stalk is smooth except where the cartouche is engraved: it expands and flattens out at the bottom to form a foot, and the widening is decorated with folioles, kept in place by three circular bands. The lines are sufficiently harmonious, but the execution is poor, and the object would scarcely deserve a brief mention in our catalogue if the royal name did not assign it a definite date: here the artistic yields to the archæological value.

It is otherwise with the gold vases that accompany it. They are of medium size, and the smallest of them all measures only about 3 inches from bottom to top; but the harmony of the proportions makes them perfect models of the kind of plate that appeared at banquets on the sideboards or tables of the rich. The bowl is rounded, and surmounted by a straight neck almost as high as the bowl itself, the upper edge of which curves slightly outwards. The front is decorated with a traced ornament simulating that of one of the large necklaces in lotus petals with which the Egyptians adorned themselves on fête-days. The two bands with which it was fastened to the neck fall undulating on the right and left, and two cats--the two cats of the goddess worshipped at Bubastis--look at them inquisitively, with attentive eye, distended back, quivering tail, straight ears, as if asking to play with them. A lotus escapes below, and on the slopes of its corolla two geese glide flapping their wings. The neck is divided into three equal rows, separated by flat cords: first a wreath of lotus buds points downwards, joined together by a band of threads, one on top of the other; then a row of egg-shaped fruits, and lastly a band of round florets hollowed in the centre and the hollow encircled with points like stamens. There is neither handle nor holder, but a small barrel, through which a gold ring was passed and by which the object could be hung up, was fastened by three rivets to the lotus buds on the side opposite to that of the necklace. The barrel is of bluish faïence set in a gold mount with a terminal flower. It shows signs of wear and is dented in several places, but none of the blows it suffered have seriously injured it: it is as perfect as at the moment it issued new from the shop. The choice of motives is elegant, the grouping irreproachable, the composition bold and a little summary: the artist seems to have worked quickly, but he possessed such mastery of his craft that the rapidity of the fabrication in no way injured the charm of the work.

The second vase is larger, for it measures about 4½ inches in height; if the shape is similar, the detail of the decoration is very different. The bottom is flat, and the outer surface is filled by a lotus, drawn so as to cover it entirely. The bowl is not smooth, but three-fourths of it are covered with a regular bossage, which gives it the appearance of an enormous symbolic ear of _dourah_. The method employed to produce it is not repoussé work properly so-called, hammered from the inside to the outside. The general network was first very lightly traced on the metal; then the rounds were outlined with a blunt instrument and hammered into a furrow, which, pressing down the metal round them, left them themselves in relief. The neck was finished by an almost imperceptible rim, obtained by turning the upper edge of the gold plaque outwards. There are four rows instead of the three of the small vase: at the top the line of buds, then lotuses head downwards, with alternate bunches of grapes or undefined flowers hanging between them, then centred florets, and then fruits. The suspensory ring is fastened to the band of petals by a _motif_ in shape of a calf. The beast lies on its belly, the tail folded over the back; the head, turning to the right, is extended and raised, as if to look over the edge of the neck. It seems to have been chiselled in the solid metal, and not engrafted, and then finished with the graver. It is treated broadly, with a sure touch and the knowledge of animal form that is peculiar to the Egyptians; it may be placed beside the couchant calves that serve as perfume caskets and are masterpieces of sculpture in wood: it will lose nothing by the comparison. The whole presents the same characteristics as the preceding vase, and when closely examined we are soon convinced that it comes from the same workshop; indeed, there is little risk of mistake if we attribute both to the same artist.

It is the same with the two silver jugs which accompany the two gold vases: they have a common origin, and an equal importance for oriental toreumatology. One of them, unfortunately, was broken, and we do not possess all the pieces; but we have enough to be sure that it resembled the one that has come to us intact. The bowl is covered to two-thirds of its height with longitudinal rows of fruits, sitting one on the other like the scales of a pine cone. Here again it is not ordinary repoussé work, but the outline of each scale has been marked round and the metal then pressed down from outside to inside. The smooth belt which lies between the embossing and the rise of the neck carries round the whole of the vase a single line of hieroglyphics expressing a wish for the eternal life and prosperity of the royal cupbearer, Toumoumtaouneb, then a vignette and the owner in worship before a goddess, who is pacific and Egyptian on the perfect vase, but bellicose and foreign on the broken vase, armed with lance and buckler. Toumoumtaouneb was a person of importance in his time: not only was he entitled chief cupbearer, but he is proclaimed the king’s messenger in all barbarous lands, and he doubtless brought back his pious regard for the bellicose goddess from one of his journeys in Syria. That is the only exotic element found in the decoration of the two vases. The top of the neck is ornamented with a rim of light gold. It has two rows of subjects, one on top of the other: episodes of hunting or fishing. A fragment of the broken vase shows a troop of wild horses running towards a marsh with lotuses, where birds are flying. The intact vase is unfortunately encrusted in places with oxide, which obscures the detail of the scenes: we distinguish outlines of boats, tufts of aquatic plants, men drawing nets or shooting arrows, beasts at full gallop; in the upper row there are imaginary trees with palm-leaves or volutes, among which griffins fight with lions. If we do not owe the silver vases to the same artist who fashioned the gold vases, he was at least endowed with the same admirable skill. He has greatly simplified the outline of his figures, but the lines are firm, even, sunk in the metal with the precision of a master: the craft had no secrets from him. But that is not the chief merit of his work: twenty others would have been capable of so much among the goldsmiths who worked for the king and the great nobles. What specially distinguishes it is the originality of the design he chose for the handle, and the manner in which he treated it. A kid, attracted by the fumes of the wine contained in the vase, had climbed the bowl, and boldly standing on its hind feet, the legs strained, the spine rigid, the knees leaning against two gold calyxes which spring horizontally from the silver face, the muzzle pressed against the moulding, he looks greedily over the edge: a ring passing through the nostril serves for hanging up the vase. The body is hollow and has been fashioned in two pieces stamped out, and the two halves soldered together longitudinally and touched up with the graver. The horns and ears are inserted: a triangular hole was introduced in the middle of the forehead. The material technique is excellent, but the conception is even superior to the technique: nothing could be truer than the movement that inspires the little creature, nor more ingenious than the expression of greediness emanating from the whole of the body.

Representations of many similar vases may be seen on the monuments of the Theban Dynasties, with foxes, leopards, and human beings for handles, and we had asked ourselves if they really existed anywhere except in the imagination of the painters of the hypogeums. There is now no manner of doubt that they were faithful reproductions of models used by the Egyptians, or by the nations with whom the Egyptians had relations either in war or in commerce. Shall we ever find one of the large table épergnes which show scenes of conquest, with trees, animals, statuettes of negroes or Asiatics in gold or in enamel? They contained such a large amount of metal that they would have been cast into the melting-pot at some moment of want, but we await the chance that may give us depôts similar to that of Zagazig: I do not think, however, that we shall find pieces of a finer inspiration or of a more harmonious composition than that of the vase with the kid.

IV

The silver pateræ have suffered much. Hurriedly piled up in the receptacle where they were hidden, the oxide bound them solidly together, and we have not yet succeeded in separating them all. It has besides eaten into them in so thorough a fashion that we have only ventured to clean two or three: it is doubtful if we shall ever risk touching the rest. It is a misfortune common to most of the silver objects found in Egypt: under the influence of the annual infiltrations, the organic acids, of which the subsoil of the ancient cities is composed, attack them and eat them away without truce or mercy. If the metal was of suitable thickness we might hope that the surface only was injured and the core of the metal unharmed, but most often they consist of a leaf of metal of extreme thinness, which quickly decomposes. Thus the object only endures at all thanks to the oxide crust, and if that support was removed it would be resolved into dust and tiny fragments.

Only one of the pateræ is almost intact. It measures just over 6 inches in diameter and about 5½ inches in height. It is flat at the bottom and the sides are slightly inflated at the base; they are decorated at the top with a gold border fastened to the rim by rivets. Two small decorated plates in chased gold are furnished with rings which hold a little gold rod that, bent in three, serves to suspend it. Four large gold rounds are placed flat on the rim opposite the handle. The side is smooth, with a single line of hieroglyphics on the outside--a kind wish, on the parvis of the temple of Neîth, for the owner, the singing-girl of Neîth, Tamaî, “the Cat.” It is silver leaf, stamped out in a curve, the two ends of which have been joined without any appreciable overlapping and then soldered together. The bottom is also formed of silver leaf, which is fastened to the lower edge of the sides and divided into two concentric rows. In the centre is a sort of umbilicus, with a gold flat-rimmed hat decorated by a line of rounded beads of metal and several lines of little chains. The row nearest the centre is slightly lower; on it may be seen water full of fish, with tufts of lotus here and there. A little papyrus boat, occupied by a naked shepherd and a calf, floats amid the patches of green; birds fly about, and two nude figures of young women--the same who, modelled in wood, provided the sculptors of the period with a charming design for perfume ladles--swim side by side in order to gather flowers. A flat space and a line of tiny rounds separate the pool from a hunting-ground that four conventional palm-trees planted at equal distance divide into the same number of distinct compartments. Two winged sphinxes with women’s heads stand on either side of one palm, the paw raised and stretched out as if to pull down the dates: two symmetrical pairs of goats leap at the other palms to browse on them. Between these groups, animals run madly about, a wild ox chased by a leopard, hares and gazelles by foxes, dogs, or wolves. The figures of the middle row are of repoussé work of so feeble a character that we should almost say they are engraved on the metal: those of the outer row are of a stronger repoussé, and then gone over again and finished with the graver.

The other pateræ resemble these as far as the technique and decoration are concerned: they evidently came from the same workshop and belonged to one owner. Were they for daily use or only for ornament? It would seem that they were not fashioned for a definite use: at least they do not recall the shapes seen on the monuments in the hands of guests at a banquet or of priests in the sacrifices. They were hung on the walls of halls, or placed on sideboards on fête-days, and if they were given to the guests, it was not simply for them to eat or drink out of. Filled with fresh water or clear wine, it was a sort of miniature lake, in the centre of which the point of the gold hat rose like an islet: the landscape and figures, seen through the transparent medium, stood out on the flat background with peculiar vivacity, and were effaced or deformed at pleasure when the liquid was disturbed. It is not so long since we were pleased with similar puerilities, and Orientals do not disdain them to-day: the pateræ were, perhaps, toys rather than objects of real utility. I shall not say the same of the silver strainers, the forms of which are elegant but not overladen with ornament, and evidently intended for use. A wide opened funnel, a plaque at the bottom pierced with tiny little holes--the handle alone testifies to any artistic attempt--an open papyrus flower, the petals of which, bent over the stem, lean on the rim of the funnel. It is a useful implement for kitchen or cellar, well adapted to its end, easy to keep clean, in a word practical, a thing in truth that the pateræ are not.

V

It is clear, then, that the interest of the find is great in itself on account of the number and beauty of the objects. Until now the greater part of the goldsmiths’ work we possess was of the Ptolemaic period, and those that could be attributed with certainty to the Pharaonic period possessed no characteristics that permitted us to judge the skill of the Egyptians. The pictures on the walls of tombs or temples authorize our belief that it was very skilful, but the conventions of their designs are still so ill-defined that there is not always agreement about their interpretation. It is even necessary to ask if certain motives figuring outside a vase ought not to be taken as belonging to the decoration of the inside. We now have a sufficient number of their works to justify our conjecture, and to declare in all sincerity that the goldsmiths were in no way inferior to the sculptors, at least so long as the second Theban Empire lasted.

These objects were found on the site of ancient Bubastis, and the presence of the cats of the goddess Bastît on several of them, as well as the name of Tamaî, the Cat, that is on the chief vase, seem to point that they were made in the place that has restored them to us. It is true that Tamaî was a singing-girl of Neîth, living in the enclosed space before the temple of Neîth, and that might be a counter-indication, at least so far as these objects are concerned. Setting aside the question of origin, which is too uncertain, we may ask if they are really Egyptian by inspiration, or if there is not a risk in examining them more closely of the discovery of proofs of some foreign influence. For about a quarter of a century, now, Assyria, Chaldæa, Asia Minor, Crete and the Egyptian islands have become better known to us, and the scholars who have studied those places have not been slow to despoil Egypt in their favour: it is too often sufficient for an object or an artistic design frequently occurring on Egyptian monuments to be found in those places at once to attribute to them the original invention or ownership. I cannot help thinking that many of these claims are not legitimate, and that in a more general way it is exceedingly rash in the case of a civilization so complex and distant in its beginnings as that of Egypt at the time of the second Theban Empire, to claim the ability to discern all the elements it borrowed from outside. We know how rapidly the peoples of the Nile assimilate the foreigner: in ancient times, it was with the arts as with men, and forms of architecture, of drawing, of industrial production, transplanted among them, either quickly disappeared and left no trace, or yielded to the conditions of the country, and became so completely fused with the taste of its environment that it is now scarcely possible to distinguish the foreign from the native. I believe that Egypt certainly accepted exotic types; but the lands with which she had relations did not abstain from imitating her, and from the most distant ages. She gave to others at least as much as she received from them, and in many cases where the question of filiation has recently been determined against her, it would be well to suspend that judgment, if not to upset it.

In this case, I imagine that it will not enter any one’s mind to dispute that the bracelets of Ramses II and the chalice of Taouasrît are Egyptian pure and simple. The two gold vases and the two silver jugs present no foreign characteristic: the gold kid is of the same family as the goats sculptured fifteen or twenty centuries earlier in the Memphian bas-reliefs, standing on their hind legs and nibbling at a bush. The pateræ, it is true, resemble the Phœnician gold and bronze cups so often found in the Euphrates districts and in the lands on the shores of the Mediterranean: but no one has refused to admit that they were imitations of Egyptian models, and perhaps a more impartial examination would lead archæologists to restore some of them at least to Egypt. At any rate, the treasure of Zagazig shows us what those models ought to be: the Phœnicians were not unmindful of them and respected the general arrangement, even if they often modified the detail. One element only in the scenes of the two rows may be exotic: the female sphinx with the strange locks of hair, if we choose to see in her a derivative of the griffin rather than a fantastic deformation of the male sphinx of a former age. But even so, it must not be forgotten that the griffin belongs to the ancient national foundations like the oxen and gazelles, goats, dogs, leopards seen by its side: its presence would only prove--if its form was so characteristic that we could not refuse to believe it an incongruity--that it was borrowed from the arts of Syria or Chaldæa by some artist tired of always using the traditional types of his country.

XVIII

THREE STATUETTES IN WOOD

(_The Louvre_)

The three little wooden figures reproduced here are of Theban origin, and represent persons who lived under the conqueror-kings of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties.