Egyptian sculpture

LATE PERIOD 165

falls from the arm-pits almost to the ankles, and completely hides the whole of the body. The legs, as far as they can be seen, are of fairly good workmanship, and so also are the feet. The figure of the god Osiris, held between the hands of the priest, and standing on a little altar, is of the conventional type, except for the face, which has more expression and is more human in character than is usual in such figures.

The wooden anthropoid coffin of Pete-Har-Si-Ese (Pl. XLVI. 2), although it bears a man’s name, is in the form of a woman. Petrie calls attention to the Greek feeling in the long, narrow face, with thick waved hair across the forehead; the style is as essentially un-Egyptian as the garment. The face has unfortunately been damaged by the disintegration of the wood under the stucco, but even in its present condition it is in many ways better than many of the statues of this period. It has also some of the usual faults of late-Egyptian work; the ears are too large, and are spread out in the way that is common in the New Kingdom, and there is no attempt at any modelling in the neck, which is hardly more than a cylindrical column. The figure is naturalistic in that the width at the hips is more in keeping with the actual human body than is usual in Late statues. The breasts are represented as entirely globular, covered by the pleated garment, through which the nipples show. The hands and arms show observation, and are rendered with some naturalistic effect. The feet suggest that the lady has worn shoes, for there is no space between the big and second toes, and the little toe turns in sharply. The dress is represented as of a closely pleated material—note the pleats over the arms and at the ankles, and note also the band which confines the pleats at the ankle; across the skirt is a design of enwrapping wings, which is not uncommon in the XXVIth dynasty. Though the figure has many faults, it is interesting as showing what