Egyptian sculpture

TELL EL AMARNA 145

of the period. It is quite likely that Akhenaten was not so interested in these relief sculptures, which are usually from the tombs of his officials, and were not necessarily executed under his own eye like some of the fine statues and paintings. There is no relief sculpture remaining in the palace or temple, probably because it was removed when the place was destroyed, though it is from the palace itself and from the Temple of Aten that we obtain some of the finest statues and paintings. But, as already suggested, it is not unlikely that the relief sculptures for the purpose of tomb decoration were done by artists of a different calibre from the artist of the statues. The technique of the reliefs is not of the highest, it is almost invariably the hollow relief, often rather deeply cut and without the delicacy of modelling which is found on the sculptures in the round. These tomb-sculptures are more important for the history of religion and of manners than for the history of art; for here is shown, in a manner that could never be represented in the round, the God of Akhenaten, the sun disk, with the rays ending in hands. The hands come to the king and queen, they receive the offerings, they hold the sign of life to the royal nose so that the king may breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, they support the royal hand and the royal body in every action. It is a plastic representation of one of the main theses of Akhenaten’s religion, the entire dependence of the creature upon the Creator.

Another characteristic of the figures in the reliefs is the number of running men (p. 124. fig. 5); the action of these is vividly expressed, the technique of motion is extremely well developed. Other characteristic figures are those who stoop, so that the back is almost at right angles from the legs to the neck, the head is raised so as to bring it again into the vertical position (p. 124. figs. 6. 7). This attitude, which

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