Egyptian sculpture

32 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE

edge of the head-dress. The lips have a sharp edge, a convention which is found throughout all the later periods, although not in every statue. The ears are set too high, but are damaged, so that it is impossible to say whether they were correctly worked or not. Here again, unfortunately, the chin has been broken away. The enthroned figure is the prototype of the statues of kings in the succeeding dynasties.

As soon as stone architecture became an established fact, the statues acquired the stiffness of architectural decoration. As I have pointed out above, the IInd dynasty must be regarded as the period when the conventions of Egyptian sculpture were fixed.

The statue of Zoser, found by Firth in the Temple of the Step Pyramid, is of siliceous limestone. The king is represented seated, his left hand resting upon the left knee, the right hand laid across the body. The figure shows in a great measure the conventions of the later periods, but there are certain points of difference. The face is that of a middleaged man, and although greatly damaged, is full of character. The eyes, set well below the brow, were originally inlaid, the inlay having now disappeared; the nose is broken; the mouth is of a different type from some of the later portraits, and has a downward curve; the ears are not too large, and are set in the right place; a beard, incised transversely, was fastened to the chin. The head-dress is peculiar to this statue, it is the memes head-cloth; the lappets, ending in a point, hardly descend below the shoulder. Below the lappets is a wig, a full wig of many strands like that worn by women; there is no indication of the uraeus. The garment is the white cloak, which here does not cover the shoulders; it is wrapped round the body, both hands being exposed, and descends as far as the feet. Below this thin garment the