Part 7

When the first Ptolemies decided at the beginning of the third century B.C. to restore the Theban temple of Amon, they found it encumbered with _ex-votos_. Everywhere, in the halls, the corridors, the court-yards, there were stelæ, stone statues, little wooden or bronze figures, sacred or royal insignia, heaped up one on the other, and in such quantities that there was no space for new ones. It was a legacy of extinct Dynasties or of noble families who had died out, to whom the Pharaohs had granted the privilege of consecrating their image in the house of the god, and to sell or destroy any of them would have been to commit sacrilege.[46] They were dealt with according to the custom of the contemporary peoples: a vast pit was dug between the seventh pylon and the hypostyle hall, and then they were buried pell-mell in holy ground. Twenty centuries later, in 1883, hastily made soundings revealed the richness of the site to me, but, lacking money, I could not venture to undertake anything. It was not until 1901, when the regular progress of clearing away brought the workmen to the spot, that I advised M. Legrain to dig more deeply than usual, so that nothing which was hidden beneath the earth might escape observation. The excavations yielded just what I had foreseen, royal colossi in granite, limestone, sandstone which were restored to their ancient places along the pylon; a little below came fragments of a fine limestone building of Amenôthes I that Thoutmôsis III had used for banking up when he enlarged the temple; and at the very bottom, at a depth of over six, twelve, fourteen yards, what none of us had thought of, an intact _favissa_ in which hundreds of statues and small objects awaited in the mud the hour of their deliverance.

For four years M. Legrain has been exploring the spot foot by foot, and I think he has succeeded in entirely emptying it. We must now draw up the inventory of the treasures it has bestowed on us. The greatest benefit conferred by them is assuredly on political history. All epochs are not represented in equal abundance--the first Theban Empire is, so to speak, merely mentioned, and the two great Dynasties of the second are represented only by about a hundred pieces--but from the fall of the Ramessides to the Persian conquest the series of the high priests of Amon reappears almost complete, with their wives, sons, brothers, the children or latest descendants of their brothers, and from the day when the male line failed, the princesses who inherited its rights, with the noble persons who wielded the power in their name. However, the large find all at once of statues and inscriptions serves not only to give information about the revolution that transformed the military kingdom of Thebes into a theocracy, but also furnishes documents for the study of the progress of art during the twenty centuries and more that the revolution took. The artistic merit of the objects is very unequal, and many of them are only interesting to the archæologist; some, however, stand out distinguished above the mass, and take their rank worthily beside the best known productions of Egyptian art. As they come from the same temple, and have been erected by different members of the same families, it is natural to see in them the work of one school, established at Thebes in far-off antiquity. Indeed, a unity of character common to all is easily discerned, which, perpetuating itself without notable change from generation to generation, fixes undeniable affinities of conception and technique.

II

Setting aside a few stelæ in which the arrangement is bad and the composition coarse,[47] the most ancient monuments we possess of that school are those discovered by Carter and Naville between 1900 and 1906 in the tomb of Montouhotpou V at Deîr-el-Baharî. The bas-reliefs of the chapel belonging to the pyramid are as correct in design and as firm in touch as the fine Memphian bas-reliefs of the Vth or VIth Dynasty; but the relief is more accentuated, the outline bolder and freer, the man more thick-set, and more firmly placed on the ground, the woman of a more slender figure, with larger hips and a more ample bosom. The statue of the king which is in the Cairo Museum[48] was cut in the sandstone with a bold, firm chisel. The feet and knees are thick, the hands massive, the bust indicated in summary fashion, the face boldly modelled. The colour is harsh, the flesh black, the costume white, the cap red, according to the ritual of the ceremonies for which it was destined; the whole has an aspect of barbarism, but a premeditated barbarism, having regard to the religious effect to be produced. If a Memphian sculptor had treated a similar subject, he would not have failed to harmonize the lines and soften the colour: unconsciously he would have fused its type with the softer type of human physiognomy that prevailed in his school, at the risk of enfeebling its energy. The Theban sculptor, on the contrary, exerted himself above all to reproduce the truth as it revealed itself to him, and that preoccupation is dominant to the end with all of his school. They sought the likeness with the intention of exaggerating rather than of softening the individual features of the subject, and in order to attain it, did not shrink from roughness of execution nor violence of colour: they often fell into barbarism, but scarcely ever into banality.

When, under the XIIth Dynasty, Thebes became one of the capitals of Egypt, its kings sometimes employed local artists, sometimes called in sculptors imbued with the Memphian tradition from Heracleopolis or the Fayoum. Chance has preserved for us two colossal heads, one of Sanouosrît I (Ousirtasen),[49] discovered by Mariette in the ruins of Abydos, the other of Sanouosrît III, extracted by M. Legrain from the pit at Karnak. The handicraft is excellent in both cases, and seldom has this unpromising stone been worked with greater skill, but the inspiration of the whole is different. Here are two persons of the same race, and the general resemblance is sufficient to set aside any doubt: for if it were not there, we should be tempted to see in each a sovereign of a different Dynasty. The first belongs to a school inspired by the Memphian tradition: the sculptor has idealized or, if preferred, symbolized his model, and has given it the short full oval, the smiling good-humoured face that the school adopted for official statues of the Pharaohs. The second, on the other hand, copied the features without softening a single one; the face is long and thin, the brow narrow, the cheek-bones prominent, the jaw bony and heavy. He has hollowed the cheeks, surrounded the nose with two deep furrows, tightened the lower lip and projected it into a contemptuous pout; he has realized a strong work, whereas the other, penetrated by opposite principles, has only evolved from the stone an agreeable composition, but one lacking individuality.

The contrast between the two methods is less striking in the bas-reliefs than in the statues. Among the fragments used by Thoutmôsis III for filling up is a square pillar emanating from a limestone building of Sanouosrît I. The Pharaoh is seen on one of the sides accompanied by Phtah. They are there, the sovereign and the god, face to face, breathing each other’s breath, according to the etiquette of greeting between persons equal in rank. The style greatly resembles that of the Memphian school, but when examined more closely, peculiarities of the Theban school are to be distinguished. The contours are firmly fixed, the relief is less flat, and consequently the shadows less thin, and thus the outline of the figures stands out more strongly against the background than in the pictures of Gizeh or Saqqarah: a Memphian would perhaps have displayed more elegance, but would have remained true to convention. The scenes engraved on the other three sides also present the characteristics of Theban art, and it is a pity that the fragment is so far unique. If the rest of the temple was decorated in the same happy fashion, the XIVth Dynasty encouraged at Thebes a work comparable to the finest of the XVIIIth or XIXth on the porticoes of Deîr-el-Baharî, in the sanctuary of Gournah, and in the Memnonium erected by Setouî I at Abydos.

III

It is with the statues of the XVIIIth Dynasty discovered at Karnak by M. Legrain as with those of the XIIth: directly we look at them we notice distinctive signs of the school, with modifications that are explained when we consider the position of Thebes at that period. The favourite residence of the Pharaohs and permanent seat of their government, its prosperity was continually increased by the booty gained in Syria or Ethiopia, and as wealth increased, so did the taste for building. Not only did the kings never tire of embellishing the city, but, following their example, private individuals built sumptuous palaces and tombs there. For so much activity a large supply of artists was needed: studios multiplied, sculptors came from all parts of the country to supplement the few Theban sculptors. Those strangers did not join the local school without exercising some influence on it: it was subdivided into several branches, each of which, while preserving a common ground of precepts and habits, soon assumed its personal physiognomy. We already know two or three of them, but how many must there have been during the three centuries that the Dynasty lasted, all the work of which is lost for us or confused with the mass?

I like to attribute to the same studio, besides a certain number of pieces recently acquired by the Cairo Museum, three of the best fragments extricated by M. Legrain from the _favissa_, the Thoutmôsis III, the Isis, and the Sanmaout. The Thoutmôsis III is in a very supple schist that allows the most delicate chiselling, and no engraving can do justice to the delicacy of the modelling: the play of the muscles is discreetly noted, but with extraordinary sureness, and, the imperceptible shadows it produces varying in proportion as we walk round the figure, the aspect of the physiognomy seems to change from moment to moment. Isis was not of royal birth, and perhaps came from one of the lower strata of society: five-and-twenty years ago her existence was not suspected, and the Karnak statue in pink granite is the first portrait we have of her. It is through her, however, that Thoutmôsis III possesses the features by which he differs from his predecessors, the large aquiline nose, wide-opened, almost protruding eyes, full mouth, rounded face. The heavy wig he wears made the sculptor’s task difficult; so much the greater then is the merit in conceiving a work before which we pause, even by the side of the preceding one. It contains all the characteristics of the Theban school, the seeking after the personal expression, the sincerity of the rendering, the width of the shoulders and, as a set-off, the intentional smallness of the waist between the ample breasts and broad hips. Study of the composition compels us to attribute it to the same studio, if not to the same artist to whom we owe the statue of Thoutmôsis III. I think the same about the group representing Sanmaout and the little princess Nafêrourîya whose steward he was: nothing could be less conventional than the free, firm gesture with which he holds the child, or the posture of trusting abandon with which she leans against his breast. The frankness of the movement well harmonizes with the spiritual gentleness of the face and the smile that animates the eyes and the full lips. Sanmaout was Queen Hachopsouîtou’s major-domo, and his sovereign had authorized him to erect his statues in the temple of Amon. After examining those that remain to us, it cannot be doubted that they all come from one of the royal studios, most probably the one whence came later the statues of Thoutmôsis and his mother Isis.

And we have direct proof that the Theban sculptors of that period tried above everything to make sure of the likeness. They drew their subject over and over again before definitely making the rough sketch, and the dry climate of Egypt has preserved many of their cartoons. Cartoon is not exactly the term, since they used fragments of limestone for their studies, but the word _ostraca_ by which they are designated is not much better, and, further, is only intelligible to expert Egyptologists. Hundreds of them have found their way to the Cairo Museum, and they show the attempts of the artist, his hesitations and corrections, the variations of his thought and of his hand, down to the moment when he became absolute master of his model. More than once, too, the chances of excavation have brought the model itself to light, and provided us with the means of comparing the portrait with the original. That is the case with Thoutmôsis III. His mummy was found in 1881 in the _favissa_ of Deîr-el-Baharî and is exhibited with the others in the Gallery of Sovereigns in the Cairo Museum. The face has certainly greatly changed in course of mummification, and the shrunken flesh, the sunken eyes, the flattened nose, and the discoloured skin make him very different from what he was formerly. But if the superficies has changed, what is beneath has endured: if we compare the profile of the face with the mask of the statue, we must admit that they are identical, with the addition of the life, the expression of which was perpetuated by the sculptor.

Let us skip a century and a half, and transport ourselves to the last years of the Dynasty: they have bequeathed us several pieces that must be related to a common origin: the fine woman’s head that Mariette called Taia, the Khonsou and the Amon of Harmhâbi,[50] the Toutânoukhamanou, and perhaps also the statuette in petrified wood extracted from the _favissa_ by Legrain in 1905. Is not a portrait of Aî to be recognized there? It is broadly treated despite its restricted dimensions, but the unfortunate material employed did not allow the artist to go far as regards execution: the likeness remains uncertain. But it preserves the mark of the school, and various details in the nose, mouth, the cut of the eyes, the inset of the eyebrows, lead me to think that we shall probably be right in attributing it to the group of artists to whom we owe the Khonsou and the Toutânoukhamanou. I am certain that they come from the same hand, and an instant’s examination will prove it. The two figures might almost be superimposed: the eye is hollowed out in an identical amount in both, the attachment of the nose is similar, and so is the way of slightly inflating the nostrils and of dilating the middle of the lips and compressing the corners. The physiognomy has something ailing in it, but the indications of ill-health, the obliquity and bruised appearance of the eyes, the thinness of the cheeks and neck, the prominence of the shoulder-bones, are more perceptible in the Khonsou than in the Toutânoukhamanou; we might say that the model of the Khonsou, if it is not Toutânoukhamanou at a more advanced age, had a more visible tendency to consumption. A doctor should study them both: he alone could decide, if, as I imagine, they represent a sick man, and possibly he could, according to the external aspect of the subject, establish the exact diagnosis of the disease.

The similarities are less marked in the head called Taia, and they are not at once noticeable in the engraving: but they are clear to those who have studied the originals. In a slighter degree all the details I have noted in Khonsou and Toutânoukhamanou are there: the queen is not a sick woman, but the different parts of her face are treated in the same way, and the hand which sculptured them is that which so delicately chiselled the portraits of the god and the Pharaoh, its contemporaries. Even when only the queen was known, her strange physiognomy greatly excited the imagination of scholars. Mariette, who discovered her, thought her a stranger to Egypt; he identified her with Tîyi, the wife of Amenôthes III, and declared her to be Syrian, Hittite, Armenian, and his opinion long prevailed. We know now that her date is at least a quarter of a century after Tîyi, and that she represents the wife or mother of Harmhâbi, one of the Pharaohs who succeeded the heretical sovereigns of the XVIIIth Dynasty. And in fact the portraits of Tîyi that have recently emerged from the earth have no point of likeness with that of Mariette’s queen. They present a woman of a thin bony type, with heavy jaw and long depressed chin, a low receding forehead, the physiognomy of the Pharaoh Khouniatonou with which the bas-reliefs and statues of El-Amarna have familiarized us. By the form and expression of her face our queen is allied to the family of Harmhâbi or Toutânoukhamanou: the resemblance of her statue to those of Legrain would sufficiently prove it, if further proof were required.

And now, when the two groups I have just described have been compared, it is easily admitted that the inspiration and technique of the second proceed directly from the inspiration and technique of the first. Taste fluctuated during the five or six generations that divide them, and the caprices of fashion have influenced the execution: but the general characteristics remain unchanged, and their persistence allows us once again to assert the continuity of the school.

IV

It maintained its flourishing condition during the XIXth Dynasty, and the _favissa_ has restored to us works that yield in nothing to those of the preceding age. In my opinion the best is a mutilated statue of Ramses II, so like the big Turin statue in pose and execution that it might be the first rough draft of it, or the exact smaller copy. A few pieces of the XXth Dynasty are worthy of esteem without rising far above mediocrity, as in a little group in granite of Ramses VI bringing a Libyan prisoner to the god Amon: the bearing of the victorious Pharaoh does not lack pride, the constrained posture of the barbarian is skillfully noted, and the movement of the miniature lion that glides between the two is interpreted with the customary naturalness of the Egyptians when they portray animals.[51] I prefer the priest with the monkey, or, to give him his name, Ramses-Nakhouîti, the chief prophet of Amon. In a crouching posture, with calves and thighs flat on the ground, a roll spread out before him across his legs, bewigged and petticoated, uncomfortable in his robes of ceremony, with an air of abstraction he meditates, or silently recites prayers to himself. A little hairy cynocephalus perches on his shoulders, and looks at him over his head: it is the god Thot who is revealed in this unusual position, and it was difficult to co-ordinate the beast and the man in a manner that should be neither absurd nor simply ugly. The sculptor has come out with honour. The priest slightly bends his neck, but we feel that the beast does not weigh on him: the monkey on his part half shrinks behind the head-dress, and the deep frown of his face prevents the mischievous effect that the countenance of an animal above a human face might have produced. Like the group of Ramses VI, it bears the imprint of the school, but with notable differences of technique: if the first was sculptured in one of the royal studios, the second comes from another studio of which the origin can be indicated.

We know how, about a century after the death of Ramses III, the pontiffs of Amon made themselves masters of the whole of the Thebaïd: while a new Dynasty established itself at Tanis in the eastern delta, they exercised supreme authority over Southern Egypt and Ethiopia, sometimes with the title of high-priest, sometimes with that of king, and their sacerdotal house was the seat of their government. We do not know the exact site, but we learn from an inscription that it was situated near the seventh pylon, not far from the spot where the _favissa_ was dug out. It is probable that their relatives obtained the privilege from them, at the moment they assumed domination, of erecting their statues in the temple. The court-yard between the seventh pylon and the hypostyle hall contains only a small number of _ex-votos_: they chose it as the place in which to consecrate their monuments, and filled it in the course of generations. What has come down to us does not include all they erected in their own name or to the memory of those they loved. Many statues were seized or destroyed during civil or foreign wars, but when the Macedonians conquered the land enough remained for more than five hundred to be thrown into the _favissa_. A large number of artists must have been needed to execute so many commissions, and, besides its royal studio, Thebes long possessed one or several pontifical studios. To one of those must be assigned the man with the monkey, and nearly all the statues after the fall of the Ramessides. For the most part they have a real value, and scarcely yield to the old royal works, such as the limestone statuette of Orsorkon II, who drags himself along the ground and offers a boat to his god, the fragments of which have disappeared. We are forced to confess, however, that many are, if not bad, of no interest for the history of art.