Egyptian sculpture

TELL EL AMARNA 139

skin; the profile is exactly that of the celebrated painted limestone head. The eye is set well below the brow, and the rendering of the whole face is not only naturalistic, but is executed with a delicacy and refinement unsurpassed even at Tell el Amarna. The ear, however, is conventionally rendered, and, in fact, is little more than indicated; it stands out from the head according to the convention of the New Kingdom statues, so as to be visible from the front when the head-dress was worn. The eyes are painted, the long line of paint from the eyelid goes to the edge of the orbit.

The portrait-head of Queen Tyi from Sinai shows the queen in middle life. She has long, narrow eyes set horizontally, not obliquely, like the ebony head; the nose is not like that of her son, but is at an angle from the forehead, the forehead itself being straight. The lips protrude slightly, and are not unlike those of Akhenaten, being very full and thick, especially the lower lip; the chin is long and thin, and it is clear from the whole type that Akhenaten derived much of his facial appearance from his mother.

The little torso of a princess, in sandstone, nowat University College, London, is a fine example of the art of Tell el Amarna (Pl. XXXIV. 2). It is rare to find a nude figure at any period of Egyptian art, except at Tell el Amarna, where nudity seems to have been the fashion in the royal family. The figure shows a child, still unformed, as is seen by the plumpness and undeveloped condition of the body. It is part of a group of the king and queen, with the princess standing beside her parents; therefore it is only the front of the figure which has been carved, as the back is against the royal throne. The whole style of the figure is entirely un-Egyptian, and approximates far more to the Greek method of representing the human body than to anything Egyptian. Had