Egyptian sculpture

180 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE

to fill blank spaces round the figures, are merely small rounded signs with no real drawing in them, but with as much detail as possible.

The decoration of large walls, as, for example, on the pylons at Philae (Pls. LIT., LIII.) and elsewhere, iseffected by gigantic figures representing the king in the presence of divinities or the king as Horus slaying his enemy. The doorway between the pylons is covered with panels, each of which is filled with small figures and small clumsy hieroglyphs; the effect is spotty though intended to be rich, and is not in keeping with the huge figures on the pylons. The scenes are invariably religious, the Pharaoh offering to the gods; the favourite deities are Osiris, Isis, and Horus, and in many examples the king himself is represented as Horus, the queen as Isis. Here and there among these sculptures are various scenes and incidents in the life of a god which throw considerable light on the Egyptian religion. The decorative panel of the hawk in the bulrushes is found nowhere else in Egyptian art, and shows that even when most bound down by religious convention, an occasional trace of true artistic spirit can be found amid the weary sameness of Ptolemaic reliefs.

The figure of the king hoeing shows some of the chief characteristics of Ptolemaic relief sculpture. Little, if any, anatomy is seen, unmeaning rounded protuberances take the place of the muscular structure so well rendered in the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom. The attempt to represent a profile figure is entirely nullified by the wrong curve of the shoulder and by the position of the navel. The sculptor had no knowledge of the bony or muscular structure underlying the skin, and has made the whole figure—face, body, limbs—appear as though stuffed with cotton-wool like a doll, The hoe in the king’s hands is also late in form;