Egyptian sculpture

42 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE

the two representations is striking. Here the figures are separated from one another, the only point of contact is the bull’s foot placed partly on the man’s arm. The man is not in the same hopeless position as in Pl. VI. 1; he is struggling to escape, and the artist has failed to render the complete defeat of the enemy. The bull is also engaged in destroying a fortress, three square objects possibly indicating falling bricks. The interest in the scene is thus divided and the attention diverted from the main incident. The long legs and narrow body of the animal and the stiffness and want of energy in its action should be compared with the earlier example. The surfaces here are flat, without modelling, except that the bull’s shoulder is raised above the level of the body; the hair between the horns is indicated by a few vague, diagonal lines. The man’s long hair is worked with straight lines, the straight short beard is also indicated by straight lines.

In this early Proto-dynastic work, the symmetrical arrangement of the design is a marked character. In the palettes the long-necked antelopes, the giraffes, the hunting-dogs, and the Hathor heads are arranged symmetrically; on the Gebel Araq knife-handle (Pl. VI 3.) there is the same symmetry, and the intertwined snakes on the knife-handle in the Petrie collection again show the same arrangement of design. The form of the mace-heads does not lend itself to symmetrical design, and the Hunters palette is also unsymmetrical. The symmetrical arrangement does not appear to be indigenous in Egypt; although it goes back to the pre-dynastic period, it does not continue, and until the XVIIIth dynasty is found only on scarabs of the Hyksos period or in designs such as the symbolic sma with intertwined plants on the side of a royal throne. Symmetrical designs, in the form of “balanced