Egyptian sculpture

LATE PERIOD 153

the result if the art of the XX Vth dynasty had been permitted to come to full fruition.

When the country revived under the Hellenised Psammetichus, the artist was no longer able to create, but the remembrance of the recent impulse was still an influence, and it resulted in the copying of the old work, not of the XXVth dynasty, but chiefly of the Old Kingdom. As in all systematic copying, the result is not successful, for, as Petrie puts it, ‘in genera] there is only a regular imitation of various parts, clumsily put together.’’ In many cases the imitation is very close, and to the untrained eye is difficult to distinguish. It is only necessary, however, to compare the modelling of the body in any XXVIth-dynasty work, especially the articulation of the joints, with the modelling in Old or Middle Kingdom sculpture, in order to see the difference. Technique was all that appealed to the sculptor of the Late Period, all the sculpture was smoothed and rounded, and the stone statues were polished to a mirror-like surface; this high, vitreous polish is characteristic of the XXVIth dynasty.

After the XX VIth dynasty the country fell into the hands of the Persians. Statues of this period are very rare, but the great tomb of Petosiris, at the end of the period, shows that relief sculpture and painting owed their inspiration to Greek influence.

It was not until the rise of the native kings in the XXXth dynasty that Egyptian art once more revived. Egypt was merely a province of the vast Persian Empire, and had very little life of its own until the XX Xth dynasty; then there was a Nationalist rising, and three native kings in succession came to the throne. Under them came a slight rise in art, but the period of the native rule was not sufficiently long to allow of many statues being made; a few only of these