The Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt

The art of a country, like the character of the inhabitants, belongs to the nature of the land. The climate, the scenery, the contrasts of each country, all clothe the artistic...

Before we can understand any art the first step is to discriminate between the different periods and their various styles, and to observe the characteristics of the several scho...

Figures in the round are the earliest mode of modelling, and remain the most important, as they are less conditioned than reliefs, and give full scope to ability and knowledge....

In reliefs the representation of Nature is complicated by the inevitable use of some conventions, and some kind of perspective, to reduce solid objects to a plane delineation. I...

Painting is certainly the earliest art of Egypt; but, being more perishable than sculpture, many periods of it are hardly represented at present. A very early prehistoric vase,...

The earliest constructions were of brick, or of palm-sticks interwoven. From the necessary forms of these all the details of the stone architecture have been copied. A parallel...

We here begin to deal with the more technical rather than the purely artistic view--the crafts as well as the arts. Connected with the last chapter is the study of the materials...

Native gold is, in all countries, one of the earliest materials for manufactured ornaments, and it appears to have been much used in prehistoric Egypt. Though gold is not now so...

Here we shall deal with the useful metals, apart from the ornamental work of jewellery previously described. Copper was worked from the beginning of the prehistoric civilisation...

The use of glazing begins far back in the prehistoric age, some thousands of years before any examples of glass are known. Glaze is found on a quartz base as early as on a potte...

The varieties of pottery are so extensive that from the prehistoric age alone a thousand are figured, and the later ages give at least thrice that number. We cannot attempt to g...

In prehistoric times ivory was much used, doubtless owing to the elephant being still abundant in southern Egypt. The natural form of the tusk was often left, and the surface wo...

Wood was by no means so rare in early times as it is now in Egypt. Floyer has shown how much the desert has been stripped by the introduction of the tree-feeding camel. We see i...

In the masonry of the pyramids, plaster is constantly used, both to fill joints as a bedding, and to level up hollows in a face. The plaster used is a mixture of ordinary lime a...

Though leather hides, with the hair on, are found over bodies in the earliest graves, yet linen cloth was introduced early in the prehistoric times, and is frequently found wrap...

In the opening chapter we have considered the point of view from which the art of Egypt--like that of every other country--must be approached. The physical conditions which surr...