Egyptian sculpture

TELL EL AMARNA 143

Here the early convention of the form of the figure is resumed, but the face and the upper part of the body are certainly those of a child; it is specially noticeable in the three-quarter and side-views. The wood figures wear the blue crown, which here is carved out of ebony, and the decorations are of sheet-gold, the eyes are inlaid, the implements carried in the hand are of gilt copper and are entirely separate from the figure. In this, as in many of the statues of Akhenaten, the form of the uraeus should be noted. The statuettes of goddesses who guard the canopic shrine in the tomb of Tutankhamen are again a mixture of the art of Tell el Amarna and the conventions of the Egyptian artist. The figures have the long neck of the Tell el Amarna statues, but the body conforms more to the Egyptian convention. It is also noticeable that although the goddess wears the pleated cloak, she wears also a pleated underdress, which completely covers the whole figure. The head-dress is apparently a linen one, in the front somewhat of the form of the memes, but without lappets over the shoulders; wide bead necklaces are hung round the neck, and fall over the shoulders. The arms are unnaturally thin, so also are the hands; the feet are represented as bare, but, from the space between the big toe and the second toe, it is obvious that the model who sat for this figure had been in the habit of wearing sandals with a strap.

The triad of Tutankhamen between the god Amon and the goddess Mut (Pl. XXXVII. 1) is interesting not only because it marks the fact that the king had returned to the old religion, but it shows also how the artistic influence of Tell el Amarna still persisted. Although the technique of the sculpture is beautiful, and the faces of the king and of the god are still perfectly preserved, the style shows a want of modelling as in the later periods, while the repre-