Egyptian sculpture

METHODS OF THE ARTIST 5

The advantage of making a wooden figure in several pieces is obvious. Wood was a comparatively rare commodity in Egypt, and in many cases had to be imported. To make a figure in one piece would require an extremely large tree to accommodate the width of the shoulders; this width is considerably diminished by making the arms, with part of the shoulder, separately. In the statues the width of the upper part of the body, without the arms, is very little, if at all, greater than the hips. The arm at right angles, if carved out of the solid block, would be against the grain of the wood and would be liable to snap off; but by making the arms out of the length of the wood, they have the required strength. The whole figure being covered with stucco and then painted, the joints are not visible.

In stone-work there are no composite figures before the New Kingdom, except in so far as the inlaid eyes may be considered to be of a different material from the main part of the statue. But that composite statues were made in the Middle Kingdom is vouched for by the Stele of the Artist. Centuries later the method was described by Diodorus, who states that two brothers, Telekles and Theodorus, made a statue between them, one working at Samos and the other at Ephesus, and that when the parts were assembled and put together the statue appeared to have been the work of but one man, so accurately had the work been done by measurement. He goes on to say that the art of making composite statues “is practised specially amongst the Egyptians, for amongst them the form of statues is not judged from the appearance to the eye, as amongst the Greeks.”

The mortise-and-tenon joint is apparently described in the Stele of the Artist, Sen-irui, who speaks of ‘‘the cutting of the enterer and of that which goes out’’; in other words,