UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. I-W(').S\ THi; UBIMK'Y Ol BENJAMIN PARKE AVERY. GIFT OF MKS..AVERY. 'Alibis Accessions No . ([) y (p //^ CLns A HANDY-BOOK THE BRITISH MUSEUM. ASKLEPIOS. (aiSCULAPITJS.) Found in the Island of Melos, 1828. British Museum, 1866. From the Blacas Collection. A HANDY- BOOK BRITISH MUSEUM, FOR E VER Y-DA Y READERS, BY T: NICHOLS, A SENIOR ASSISTANT IN THE PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN'S OFFICE OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. " For the manifestation of the glory of God, and for the benefit of mankind generally." SIR HANS SLOANE. X?% J S8Sr " I7BRSITY O N D O N : , PETT-ER, AND GALPIN, LA BELLE SAUVAGE YARD, LUDGATE HILL; AND 596, BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 1870. AMI Bfr? CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. THE ORIGIN OP THE MUSEUM CHAPTER II. THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT: I. Egypt and the Egyptians ....... 14 II. Northern Egyptian Vestibule. Sculpture. Dynasty IV. to XVIII ........ . . 35 III. Northern Gallery. Statuary Bas-reliefs Fresco-paintings. Dynasty XVIII. . x ....... 50 IV. Central Saloon. Colossal and other Statuary. Dynasty XIX. 82 V. Southern Gallery. Statuary Sarcophagi Wall Sculpture. Dynasty XIX. to the Eoman Occupation ... 92 VI. Egyptian Eooms : Upper Floor. Mummies Sarcophagi Smaller Antiquities. Dynasty IV. to the Eoman Occu- pation .......... 128 CHAPTEE III. THE ASSYRIAN DEPARTMENT: I. The Kings of Assyria, Chaldsea, and Babylonia . . . 158 II. The Story of the Slabs. Assyrian Gods and Goddesses Warfare Sieges Eemoval of Sculptures The Chase, &c. 179 III. Smaller Assyrian Sculpture. Architectural Eemains Fur- niture Metal Works Ivories Vases, &c. - Glass Terra-cotta Figures and Eeliefs Sculpture Monoliths and Obelisks Vessels of Bronze Weights Miscel- laneous Objects Seals Persepolitan Sculptures, &c. . 211 IV. The Assyrian Language and Writing ..... 228 (Subjects of the Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions.) CHAPTEE IV. CLASSICAL ANTIQUITIES: The Greek Collection ......... 238 Hellenic Eoom. Earliest Specimens ...... 239 vi CONTENTS. CLASSICAL ANTIQUITIES (continued) : PAGE Elgin Room. Parthenon Sculptures, &c 244 The Phigalian Bas-reliefs 261 The Lycian Remains. Xanthian Monument, &c. . . . 264 The Carian Remains. Tomb of Mausolus 277 Discoveries in the Temple at Cnidus ...... 287 The Colossal Head of Asklepios (JEsculapius), from Melos . 290 Sculptures from the Cyrenaica Pentapolis 292 The Greek and Grseco-Roman Sculptures from various sources. The Townleian and Miscellaneous Collections . . . 295 The Greek and Roman Portraits in Marble .... 316 Roman Sculptures, &c., found in England 327 The Greek and Grseco-Roman Terra-cottas (Clay Figures, Bas- reliefs, &c.) 328 The Mural Paintings of Pompeii, Hereulaneum, and Stabise . 333 Bronzes. Greek, Etruscan, and Roman 335 Ancient Gold Ornaments, &c 350 Antique Gems 356 The Greek Vases (formerly called " Etruscan ") . . . . 360 The Keltic, Roman, and Saxon Remains found in Great Britain and Ireland 367 Mediaeval Collections. Ivory Carvings, &c. Enamels Mis- cellaneous Metal Works Clocks and Dials Seals Signet Rings, &c. Majolica, &c. Glass .... 373 Pre-historic and Ethnographical Collections .... 381 Coins and Medals 384 The National Library 392 Index . . . 401 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Sir Hans Sloane (From the Portrait in the British Museum by Stephen Slaughter, 1736) 3 Egyptian Antiquities. Statuette of Betmes (Fourth Dynasty); Colossal Statue of Pharaoh Amenophis III. ("Memnon," Eighteenth Dynasty); the Goddess Pasht (Statue with the name of Shishak, Twenty-second Dynasty); the Trial Scene, from the Vignette of a Papyrus (Ptolemaic Period) - - To face 50 The Military Chief Banofre (Seated Statue from Thebes) - - 60 Column of Pharaoh Amenophis III. ...... 66 An Egyptian Fowling (Theban Fresco-painting) .... 73 Sepulchral Tablet of the Priest Amenhetp 80 Barneses II. (Sesostris) (From one of the Colossal Statues in Nubia) 83 Sarcophagus of Naskatu, a Memphite Priest ----- 110 Head of Sphinx, and Sepulchral Vases 120 Atau's Vases and Stand (Arragonite, from Abydos) ... 134 Egyptian Arms --._.--_.. 137 Hoshea, King of Israel Name in Assyrian (cuneiforms) - - - 168 Assyrian Pictures by Assyrian Artists (Bas-reliefs). Assyrian Deities bestowing the Fruit of the Tree of Life on King Assur- nazirpal ; the Assyrian Army besieging a City; a Lion-hunt by King Sardanapalus (Assurbanipal) .... To face 178 The Assyrian God of War (From the Bas-reliefs) - - - - 226 Parthenon Sculptures (" Elgin Marbles"). Statues from the Pedi- ment ; a Metope ; Slabs of the Frieze - - - To face 238 View of the Parthenon (From Lucas's Restoration) - - - - 246 Horse of Selene (Pediment of the Parthenon) ------ 250 Victory adjusting her Sandal (Temple of Nike-apteros) - 257 Combat of Centaurs and Lapithse (Temple of ApoUo at Phigalia) 261 Sculptures from Lycia. Tomb of Paiafa ; Nereids and Lion from the Xanthian Monument To face 264 Marbles from Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Cyrene. The Apollo Citharoedus, from Cyrene ; the Demeter, from Cnidus ; Slab of the Frieze of the Mausoleum To face 278 Mausolus. Statue from his Tomb 282 Asklepios (JSsculapius) (Head in Marble, from the Blacas Col- lection) Frontispiece. The Colossal Lion (From a Tomb near Cnidus) - - - - 289 Thalia, the Pastoral Muse (Statue, Townley Gallery) - To face 296 " Clytie " (Marble Bust) 298 Nymph of Diana (?) (Seated Figure, Marble) - - - - 300 Dione ; Hero (Marble Busts) 304 The Venus of the Townley Gallery To face 304 Apollo (Head in Marble, from the Giustiniani and Pourtales Collections) 305 The; Disk-thrower, after Myron's Diskobolos (Statue in Marble) 307 Vlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The Canephora of the Townley Gallery (Statue in Marble) To face 308 Satyr playing with the Infant Bacchus (Marble Group from the Farnese Collection) - - - - - - - - -311 Bacchic Vase (Marble) - - - - 313 Victory immolating a Bull (Small Marble Group) - - - - 315 Roman Portraits (Marble) Julius Csesar; Julia Sabina; Nero. To face 316 Pericles (Inscribed Marble Bust) 317 Trajan (Marble Bust) 320 Barbarian Chieftain (Marble Head) 321 The Emperor Hadrian addressing his Legions (Marble Statue) - 322 A Eoman in Civil Costume (Marble Statue) 323 Antoninus Pius (Marble Bust from Cyrene) 324 Sepulchral Urn, with Figures of the Chimsera; Terra-cotta Vase in form of a Female Head 330 The BuHding of the Argo (Terra-cotta Bas-relief) - - - - 332 The Etruscan Venus ; an Etruscan Pedestal Mirror (Bronze) - - 338 Greek Armour and Weapons -------- 342 Mercury (Payne-Knight Collection) ; Jupiter (Denon and Pourtales Collections) (Bronze Statuettes) 343 Bacchus (from Pompeii, Temple Collection); Meleager; Silenus (Bronzes) To face 346 Etruscan Gold Ornaments 351 Gold Ornaments (From the Blacas Collection) - - - To face 352 Projecta's Silver Casket 355 Augustus (Sardonyx, from the Strozzi and Blacas Collections) - 358 The Camirus Vase (Surprise of Thetis by Peleus) - - To face 360 "Etruscan" Vases 361 The Portland (Barberini) Vase 364 Eoman Tomb of Tiles containing Cinerary Urns (Presented by Her Majesty the Queen) 368 Eoman Ornaments found in Britain ------ 369 Ancient British Arms. Helmet, Shields, Axe-head, Celts, Sword- blades, Daggers, Spear-heads, &c. (Bronze) To face 370 Ethelwolfs Eing 371 Anglo-Saxon Casket, with Eunic Inscriptions 372 Christ Crucified, supported by Angels (Italian Ivory Carving) - 373 Seal of Thomas Thirleby, Bishop of Westminster, A.D. 1540-50 - 378 Snuff-box presented by Napoleon I. to the Hon. Mrs. Darner j The Mask said to have been taken from the face of Oliver Cromwell shortly after his death 379 Slade Glass Mosque Lamp, with the Name of Sheikhoo ; Eoman Bottle ; Persian Ewer ; Venetian Drinking- glass and Marriage- cup To face 380 Eelics of the Abyssinian Expedition - - - - To face 382 Algerian Ornaments 383 Coins, Greek and Eoman _.-----. 387 Medal (English) 390 Sir Joseph Banks (Statue by Chantrey) - - .395 Shakspere (From the Portrait by M. Droeshout, in the folio of 1623) 398 ,,;: . A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BEITISH MUSEUM. CHAPTEE I. THE ORIGIN OF THE MUSEUM. THE British Museum is filled to overflowing with almost countless " specimens," or examples, of WORK. The work is that of NATURE and that of MAN ; but since man must always work only on the material that Nature gives him, the rudest flint that bears his mark upon it in its sharpened edge is counted as Ms work. But many "samples" cannot be understood for what they are or relatively estimated without some knowledge of that which they exemplify. Thus, on the one hand, hieroglyphic writing might be seen by an uninformed person without any suspicion that it could convey connected ideas, and lava means nothing to one who never heard of volcanoes ; or on the other, he who knew nothing of Greek or modern sculpture could scarcely judge of the comparative value of either by the specimens before him. "We B 2 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. cannot estimate the truth of a likeness without knowing the original, nor call fruit fine or flowers beautiful unless we have seen many of the same class to compare them with. And thus these " specimens " sentences torn out of the world's history-book signify more or less to us according as we know much or little of the context. Thus also, like pictures graven on the walls of an ancient people, or even like those that hang yearly in our Academy, they give to the very life the scene which has yet to be made intelligible by reference to history or the descriptive motto. They are at once the interpreters and the interpreted of history.. Without these specimens, or others like them, the record were not ; they are the circumstantial evidence through which the explorer patiently tracks the steps of man and nature, telling us what both have done in his "histories" of the one, and his "sciences" of the other. Before entering on a description of the different departments, let us glance at the history of the Museum as a whole. Among the oil-paintings will be found several portraits of a man, whose name, scarcely remembered by this busy generation, is yet worthy of grateful regard; for it is to SIR HANS SLOANE, of Chelsea, that the founding of the British Museum is primarily due. Born in Ireland in 1660, of Scotch parents, he came to London at nineteen to study medicine. He was already remarkable for his love of nature the love, not so much of the poet, content to know through THE ORIGIN OF THE MUSEUM. 6 feeling, as of the man of science, who seeks to know through exploring. One of those " happy accidents " which so often befall men with a strong bent or gift, gave him the opportunity of following his SIR HANS SLOANE. (From the Portrait in the British Museum by Stephen Slaughter, 1735.) favourite pursuit. A botanic garden had just been opened at Chelsea, by the Druggists' Company, to which Sloane had the privilege of admission, and which, we may here mention, he bought in later life and presented to those early benefactors, in order that future young botanists might enjoy a similar benefit. His studies in this pleasant B 2 4 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. little garden led to his friendship with Ray the botanist, and Boyle the philosopher ; and, indeed, he seems very early to have acquired distinction hy his zeal and industry in scientific research. Applying the same habit of "patiently question- ing and diligently observing nature " to his pro- fessional studies, he became famous for his medical skill, and at twenty-seven was offered the post of physician to the Duke of Albemarle, Governor of Jamaica. He accepted it, in order to epitomise his own account that he might see for himself some of the strange things he had heard so much of, that he might deserve well of the Societies (the College of Physicians and the Eoyal Society) which had con- ferred " unmerited favours" upon him by electing him as member of the one, and fellow of the other, and also in order to increase his professional skill, "many of the ancient and best physicians having travelled to the places whence their drugs were brought, to inform themselves concerning them." After little more than a year's stay in Jamaica, however, the death of the Duke of Albemarle occasioned Dr. Sloane's return to England. He had in that time made so large a collection of rare and valuable natural objects that the botanical specimens alone were more than eight hundred, and this collection we may regard as the nucleus of the British Museum treasures. After his return, Sloane again practised in London, and con- tinued actively engaged in his profession until he had reached his eighjiiefci year ; he then retired to his es- tate at Chelsea, wherre he died January llth, 1753, at THE ORIGIN OF THE MUSEUM. 5 the age of ninety-two.^) During this long period he had, step by step, received and deserved almost every honour that could be conferred upon him. Having attended Queen Anne in her last illness, he was created a baronet on the accession of George I., being the first in the medical profession upon whom that honour had been bestowed. He became President of the College of Physicians, and, on Sir Isaac Newton's death, in 1727, of the Eoyal Society ; and in the same year was appointed medical adviser to George II. He was remarkable for his care for the poor ; in the face of much opposition and ridicule, he introduced dispensaries for their benefit ; and the excellent management of the children of the Foundling is traced to the judgment and kindness exercised by Sir Hans Sloane during his connection with the Hospital. He was indeed no less morally than intellectually gifted. Addison might have said of him that he was " The happiness of his friends, his family, and his relations;" words which are well confirmed by the extremely frank and kindly expression of his portraits. Only two years after Sloane's return from Jamaica his collection is praised by Evelyn in his Diary, as " very copious and extraordinary," and seems to have attracted much interest from literary and scientific men. Sloane continued to add to his treasures to the end of life. Once, a collection, as valuable as his own, ( J ) His tomb may be seen in the old churchyard of Chelsea; and in the Botanic Gardens hard by stands the statue of Sir Hans, sculptured by Kysbrach. 6 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. was bequeathed to him by his friend, Mr. Courten, alias Charlton, hampered with debts and legacies, which made it an expensive bequest ; and at another time he bought for 4,000 the collection of Mr. Petiver, of Aldersgate- street. The former was worth about 8,000, and was of a very miscellaneous de- scription birds and medals, shells, miniatures, and serpents, are among the rarities that Evelyn gazed at with admiration ; the latter consisted chiefly of botany : and with the additions made by Sloane himself, his library at last numbered about 50,000 books and drawings, and above 4,000 MSS. In his will, " Sloane's Museum " was valued by himself at 50,000; it was then at Chelsea, whither he had taken it when he left Bloomsbury and retired from active life. He desired that his museum should become a national benefit, and gave expression to his wishes in a will, by which it was left in trust to the Government, on payment of 20,000 to his heirs. The will gave evidence of a liberality of feeling some- what unusual in days when " the learned " were a small and exclusive aristocracy, who did not always sufficiently realise that "property" in wisdom, above all things "has its duties as well as its rights." Sir Hans desired that his collections should be kept together " in or about London," where his fortune had been made, and where they would be of most use, owing to the " great confluence " of people. The Government accepted the bequest, and at the same time determined upon buying some other collections that were then on sale. It then became THE ORIGIN OF THE MUSEUM. 1 necessary to provide a building for the reception of these collections, together with a library bequeathed for the public use by Major Edwards, and a collection of MSS. that had long been lying about in Govern- ment offices. The sum required was 300,000, which Govern- ment was unable to raise without having recourse to a public lottery ! Natives, foreigners, and cor- porate bodies were invited to contribute, and most minute and curious regulations were made for the conduct of the lottery ; no open betting on the result was allowed ; the managers were to swear to be above-board in their dealings, and were to have " a hundred pounds a-piece for their good offices;" and the lottery tickets were to be printed in difficult devices, to baffle imitation. Above 95,000 accrued from this national lottery, which took place in 1753 and 1754; and 20,000 having been paid out of the sum to the two daughters of Sir Hans Sloane, as required by the will, the Sloane Museum became the property of the nation, and with the before-mentioned collections, was henceforth known as the " BRITISH MUSEUM." By the Act incorporating the Museum in 1753, forty-seven trustees had been appointed ; three " principal trustees," the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons ; twenty " official trustees," ministers and officers of state, &c. ; nine family trustees, and fifteen elected trustees. These gentlemen now proceeded to choose a suitable building for the reception of the Museum ; and Montague House, 8 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. Bloom sbury, then the property of Lord Halifax, was bought by them for about 10,000, and fitted up for the purpose. On January 15, 1759, all arrangements had been completed, and the Museum was opened to the public for the first time. Nothing was to be paid for entrance, but the public was very warily admitted, as great fears were entertained lest the " mobb " should do mischief ( ] ) Only ten at a time were allowed to enter, and these were broken up into two companies, and limited to an hour's inspection of each department of the Museum. As the days of general admission were also to be considered as public holidays for Londoners, it is perhaps no wonder that some alarm was felt for the safety of the Museum. But, happily, the predictions of evil proved so utterly groundless, that the restrictions on free entrance were by-and-by abandoned. The Museum has never been injured by sight-seers, and it is said that even habitual thieves think it shame to rob that which has been so assiduously and generously gathered and kept for the people's use and pleasure. Eminent men were placed in charge of the (*) In a paper found among the Ward Collection of MSS. in the British Museum, after pointing out the bad results that would follow from the opening of the museum to the public, the writer goes on to say : " If notwithstanding this forewarning it might be judged within the intention of the Act that public days should be allowed, the trustees would find it absolutely necessary to have more than ordinary assistance to preserve the least order on these occasions to have a committee of themselves attending, with at least two justices of the peace, and to have the constables of the division of Bloomsbury; but, besides, these civil officers would have to be sup- ported by a guard, such as usually attended at the play-house ; and even after all this, many accidents must and would happen." THE ORIGIN OF THE MUSEUM. 9 Museum Dr. Gowin Knight at the head, assisted by Dr. Maty, Dr. Morton, and Mr. Empson, of whom the first two afterwards succeeded to Dr. Knight's office. The Museum prospered under the good man- agement of these and subsequent librarians. From the very commencement, valuable objects and col- lections of every description, and from every part of the globe, were poured in upon it, until at the beginning of this century it was so over-filled that the antiquities gained by the Egyptian expedition in 1801, and the Townley Marbles, bought in 1805, lay scarcely sheltered from rain in the Museum yards, and a gallery was erected for both collections in 1807. But additions were con- stantly made, and in 1823, when the magnificent library formed by George III. was given to the nation, it was considered better to build an entirely new museum-house than to go on ineffectually adding to the old one. Parliament voted supplies, and the work was -begun at once. The first wing of the new building was ready for the reception of the royal library in 1828, Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Ellis being then librarian. As others were added, the old building was pulled down ; the works of reconstruction and demolition thus went on simul- taneously and gradually, and it was not till 1845 that the old Montague House had entirely dis- appeared. Sir Robert Smirke was the architect of the present building. It is an imposing and beautiful structure of the " Grecian Ionic " order, not un- worthy of the noble collections within its walls. The 10 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. last considerable addition made to the Museum-house is the Beading-room, designed by Mr. Panizzi, which was opened to readers in 1857. Yet now, in 1869, the Museum has again quite outgrown its habi- tation. Each department is so extensive and com- plete, that to be of the utmost use to the student, it would require a separate building and organisa- tion ; and though at present so much as this cannot be hoped for, yet the separation of the " Natural" from the other collections has been already the subject of discussion in Parliament, and will probably be effected before very long. The ground floor of the Museum is now given up chiefly to books, manuscripts, and cognate collections, and to ancient sculpture ; while in the galleries above are to be found (often with difficulty, from their close crowding) natural productions, animate and inanimate, and ethno- graphical collections, ancient and modern. The Museum is divided into twelve departments, viz., Printed Books Manuscripts Oriental Antiquities- British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography- Greek and Eoman Antiquities Coins and Medals- Botany Prints and Drawings Zoology Palaeonto- logy Mineralogy and Maps, Charts, Plans, and Topographical Drawings each under the immediate care of a keeper or under-librarian. That the Museum has steadily risen in public favour from the commencement, the following figures will show. In 1805, the first year in which a complete return of the number of admissions was made, 11,989 visitors entered; in 1815, 34,409; THE ORIGIN OF THE MUSEUM. 11 18.25, 127,643; 1835, 359,716 visitors and students; 1855, 395,564; 1865, 477,650; 1867, 556,317; 1868, 575,739. The Exhibition years of '51 and '62, however, disturbed the regular rate of increase ; more than two~ and a half millions of visits were paid to the Museum in the former, and more than a million in the latter year; while the years after the Exhibitions, '52 and '63, showed a great falling off. The visits of students, as well as of the general public, are included in these numbers. But what, after all, is the use of the Museum ? Its historical use we have already referred to, and the scientific use is not less obvious. There remain to be noticed among the " benefits to mankind," which also are and must be " for the glory of Grod," its use in the advancement of art and science, and its influence in the improvement of taste. Since it is by the application of knowledge to practical lile that progress is ever effected, the Museum gives the means of better action, in giving the means of knowledge to the people. One familiar thought will bring clearly before the mind the greatness of the boon thus offered to those who will use it. It is said that in the East civilisation is stationary, and in the West progressive ; the Asiatic, to whom " know- ledge " is a great and beautiful abstraction, which is alloyed and defiled when it ceases to be purely speculative, receives the patterns of his life and work from his forefathers, copies them with an in- observant and incurious fidelity, and seeks neither to 12 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. invent nor discover any new thing. The European, on the other hand, seeks to understand what it is given him to be and do, and finds in mastery of the facts he knows, the key to others that he knew not of new modes of work, new sciences, new arts, are suggested to him ; his life is ennobled and ameliorated by knowledge thus gained and APPLIED ; and he is ultimately blessed with the blessing that necessarily waits upon "him that is faithful in the least." But not only does the intelligent study of these collections suggest and stimulate invention, it also 'develops and enlightens taste, or the sense of the beautiful and befitting. We of an over-anxious and over-hasty age may come here to school, and be taught by nature, and by ancient men, that measure and completeness in our work which can only be attained by such patient processes as theirs. We see nature with gentle touches fashioning a pebble in a thousand years into loveliness ; we see our fathers giving their transient lives with ungrudging, nay, with joyful toil, to elaborate their work, and thus un- consciously securing for it an immortality of beauty. And as we learn to love and prize beauty from either source, and even as we call it the " unattainable per- fection " of nature and ancient art, we are being taught the secret whereby it was, and may be again, attained the unhasting, unresting method of nature the patient waiting on his work in which man so worthily followed her. The artist is reminded that .the same way to perfection lies open to him as to the Greek of old ; the mere observer learns, in the study THE ORIGIN OF TUE MUSEUM. 13 of beauty which came by honest labour, to discourage and avoid that which is false and fleeting in art or workmanship of any kind. And in these collections, as in a microcosm, the "glory of God" is manifested; not only by the evidence of design and adaptation in each and every object, for which, perhaps, Sir Hans Sloane and the philosophers of his age, chiefly glorified God, but by this that, on examination, this beauty and luxuriant diversity of life, from its root to its uttermost unfold- ing, is found to be occasioned and determined by law this variety to spring from unity, this freedom from necessity. For the " service " of creation appears as "perfect freedom;" its "necessity" as the most spontaneous grace. Modern science has revealed this wonderful union of what appear to us contradictory elements this reconcilement, in the government of the world, of the free play of individual life with its subservience to universal ends. Thus, while Sir Hans Sloane and his contemporaries rejoiced in the pro- vision for individual development and beauty that they found in every fragment of nature's work, we of this age have almost a new sense and perception given us, in the knowledge that these fragments are truly and indeed parts of a great whole. Surely to have but a glimpse of these unfolding mysteries of creation is " for the benefit of mankind, and the glory of God j'^ 1 ) and this we may have, if we choose, in the Museum, where are set forth alike the "pro- cess of the ages " and the " long results of time." ( l ) See Motto. 14 CHAPTER II. THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. " The Egyptians stand forth pre-eminently as the Monumental People of the world." BUNSEN. I. EGYPT AND THE EGYPTIANS. To the west and south-west of the land of Egypt lie the Libyan deserts ; to the south the somewhat less arid country of Nubia or Ethiopia ; and on the east, hot winds blow across the narrow sea that divides it from Arabia, a land of few rivers and much sand ; but on the north is the Mediterranean, and across it blow the northern winds, tempered and moistened by their journeying over land and sea. And through the midst of the low-lying plain, bounded by rocks of granite, limestone, and sandstone, flows the Nile " Hapimoou, the Numerous Waters " and by its bounteous overflow, a barren land is made like to a watered garden. Its course from the cataracts near ancient Philse to the sea is about 450 miles ; it flows within a valley nine miles in mean width as far as Cairo ; and soon after divides into two great branches, which fall into the sea at Eosetta and Damietta, forming the plain of the Delta (A). Hither, it is said, came the tribe of Mizraim, or Menes, son of Ham, shortly after the Noachian THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 15 deluge^ 1 ) Travelling westward from Central Asia, they passed the isthmus that unites the continents, and found in the valley of the Nile a good and pleasant land to dwell in. They came from what was then the centre of civilisation, bringing with them the highest art and knowledge of their time. Thus, while in many countries the growth from savage rudeness can be traced backward even to the ages of "stone" and "bronze," in Egypt the most ancient remains are those of a people possessing all the essentials of well-being. Analogies between the Egyptian race and its Asiatic neighbours confirm the popular account of its origin. With all their di- versity, strong likenesses exist between the Egyptian and Assyrian styles of architecture the Egyptian face has points in common with the Asiatic, and, as a great philologist has said, the Coptic language, which preserves the ancient forms and roots, "bears irre- fragable witness to the primitive cognate unity of the Semitic and Aryan races." With a climate hot, dry, and pure, and with a soil productive beyond their wants, the Egyptians rapidly increased. Tradition speaks of a priestly or theocratic government as at first established among them ; but they have been ruled over by kings from the earliest known times. The kingly power, though absolute in many directions, was in others limited by custom, and by the privileges of the influential castes. Eirst was the priestly or sacerdotal caste. Eeligious duties and the study of art and science were not (*) Misr is still the Arabic name for -Egypt. ' 16 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. their sole employment ; they administered justice, regulated taxation, and, in fact, all civil affairs were under their control. Members of the royal family (including sometimes even the king himself) held or superintended the chief priestly offices ; a third part of all Egypt was the portion of the temple and the priesthood; the caste was exempt from taxation; and even (as we learn from the history of Joseph) when " the famine was sore in the land," the estates of the priests were not sold. The priests were permitted to marry, and their wives were often associated with them in the service of the temples. Extreme abstinence and cleanliness were enjoined on them by their rules, and their ablutions even ex- ceeded the number usually prescribed by custom in the East. The military caste defended the empire from external enemies, and kept peace at home ; the regular armies which the great Egyptian conquerors required were drawn by conscription from this class. The agricultural caste were the pro- prietors or farmers of the land. They were moder- ately taxed, according to the produce of their farms, for the support of the king and the superior castes ; and so abundant were their harvests, that the imposts paid by this caste were the chief part of the state revenue. The fourth, or industrious caste, con- sisted of merchants, workmen, and artisans of all sorts, among whom sculptors and artists were placed ; and thus it has happened that they, whose works secured so lasting a fame for their masters, are them- selves unknown. The industrious caste contributed, THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 17 like the agricultural, to the wealth of the nation. Egyptian greatness was, indeed, founded upon the labour of these inferior castes. The farmers grew corn so largely, that in process of time Egypt be- came the granary of the world, and also exported flocks and herds. The artisans were famous for their manufactures of fine linen, their paper, their pottery and metal- work, and many other manufac- tures. They built galleys with oars and sails ; the chiseling of their granite monuments shows that they must have used tools of the most finely- tempered steel ; and paper was made by them from the papyrus, a reed (probably not now to be found in Egypt) which grew in marshy places. Many dynasties of kings or Pharaohs reigned over Egypt ; but. we shall see no Egyptian remains in the British Museum of earlier date than the Fourth Dynasty. Yet before that house had begun to reign, the Egyptian people were great and prosperous. Their manner of life was the same then as in far later times ; their language different only in a few minor points of construction; and their subsequent history but relates the growth and (development of a civilisation which was already flourishing. Egypt was densely peopled ; but the poor had an abundance of simple food, and underwent no such struggle for mere life as too often falls to the lot of their brethren in colder and less fertile countries. Nor did they need to take much thought for shelter ; the heat obliged them even to sleep out of doors, and they scarcely used their huts, except as store - houses. c 18 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. These facts the density of population, the little labour required for its subsistence, and the time it thus gained for application to other purposes seem in part to account for the gigantic character of Egyptian buildings. Neither the life nor the labour of the people was precious in the sight of their masters. An Egyptian king, knowing that cheap and abundant labour could be permanently com- manded by the state, could design a work of almost any magnitude, however "unproductive," without misgiving lest his plan should be beyond accomplish- ment. If too vast for one generation to fulfil, the poor, who never ceased from the land, would com- plete it in the next, under his successor; and the stranger and the captive were also impressed into the work. Soon great cities sprang up, chiefly upon the banks of the Nile ; and the country was divided into three provinces, Upper, Middle, and Lower Egypt, or generally only into Lower and Upper. Before the era of the Pyramids, Abydos, or This, the oldest capital of Egypt, had been built in the Upper province, and Thebes had, perhaps, been founded ; and. in the Lower, Heliopolis and Mem- phis had risen, and, like This, had been the abode of kings. Under one of these (Athothis, a lover of literature, also celebrated for his knowledge of medi- cine) the palace of Memphis was built; and in his reign, too, according to tradition, quarried stone was first used in building. The builders obtained their materials the hardest granite in the world, the more malleable sandstone, and the calcareous stone THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 19 used for lime and also in building from rocks of each formation, which are present in the range of hills bordering the Nile on either side. The Egyptians possessed in a high degree that religious faculty which is " the glory of the human understanding." They have so stamped the impress of religion on all their works, both small and great, that Egyptian remains cannot be understood with- out constant reference to Egyptian belief. The priesthood cast so much mystery around their faith, that many of its rites and tenets are still subjects of conjecture rather than certainty; but some of its chief characteristics have been made known to us through the researches of Sir Gr. Wilkinson and De Rouge. The fundamental doctrine of the religion was the unity of the Deity; but this unity was thought too sacred for representation, and HE was known by a sentence, or an idea, being worshipped in silence. The attributes of this Being, however, were represented under positive forms; and hence arose a multiplication of gods, that engendered idolatry, and caused a total misconception of the real nature of the Deity in the minds of all who were not ad- mitted to a knowledge of the truth through the mysteries. The division of the nature of God into his attributes was in this manner : Regarded with reference to his works, or to man, he was no longer thought of as quiescent, but became an agent; and he was no longer the One, but distinguishable and divisible, according to his supposed character, his actions, and his influence on the world. He was, then, c 2 20 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. the Creator, the Divine Goodness (or the abstract idea of good), Wisdom, Power, and the like ; and as we speak of him as the Almighty, the Merciful, the Ever- lasting, so the Egyptians gave to each of his various attributes a particular name. But they did more ; they separated them, and invented figures of gods and goddesses, in order to specify and convey to the eyes of the people an impression of these attributes or abstract notions ; and thus in Egypt, as in other countries, the educated and enlightened gave occasion to the idolatry of the multitude by their elaborately symbolic teaching. The uneducated failed to take the same view as "the initiated" of these personi- fications, and the mere emblems of divinity soon received divine honours, as being the very gods they represented. The Egyptians also represented each god as appearing under a variety of names and characters, and as often assuming the form of animals. The animals so honoured became objects of reverence, and even of worship, in their turn ; and thus, by a series of downward steps, the vain imaginations of man " changed the glory of the incorruptible Grod into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things." Those attributes of the Su- preme Being which resemble qualities most appro- priate to man, strength, courage, &c., were personified as gods ; the more feminine attributes, such as gentle- ness or purity, as goddesses. The divinities usually had some special seat of worship which they were supposed to protect and THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 21 favour, like the patron saints of Eoman Catholic towns. Naturally the power and wealth of the city came in time to influence the popular opinion con- cerning its presiding deity, so that whatever their original rank in the Egyptian Pantheon, the gods of great cities could hardly fail of being esteemed great. The wife and child of a god, associated with him in a kind of trinity, were also worshipped in his chosen city. This group was theoretically regarded as a combination of " attributes," the third of which proceeded from the other two. The doctrine of these trinities, or, more properly, triads, prevailed from the earliest times, and probably had some philosophical foundation, which the priesthood deemed too abstruse for the common people to understand. First in the Pantheon was Ammon, Amen, or Amen-Ea (Ea, the sun), the chief deity of Thebes. He represented the one universal force, the " hidden power" of Nature. As Ea, the sun, he was sup- posed more or less to influence the inferior deities or satellites, and was the tutelary god of On, or Heliopolis. The classic mythology corresponds in many respects with the Egyptian, partly, perhaps, because their origin is identical, and partly because the younger mythology may have derived some of its myths from the elder. The Egyptian gods, there- fore, are commonly identified with those Greek gods who seem most to resemble them ; and Amenra is known as Jupiter, Ammon, or Zeus. Mut, or La- tona, " the mother," mistress of the heavens, was the wife of Amenra. Her double relation to Amenra 22 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. as both mother and wife, probably symbolised the primeval birth of day out of night, and the since equal reign of the two. Khem, the generator, the god of Panoplis, is known as the Greek Pan. Khnum, Noum, Kneph, or Chnubis, the god of .the Thebaid (Upper Egypt) and Ethiopia, typifies the creative Spirit. His name signified director : he was the moving principle of the stream, resident in the midst of the pure waters. He is represented in his creative office as fashioning gods and men on a potter's wheel or furnace. This coincidence with the Mosaic account of the creation of man out of clay is especially remarkable, since the worship of Khnum was practised in Egypt hundreds of years before the time of Moses, as the inscriptions on the first pyramid, B.C. 2450, and at Wady Megara, bear witness. His wife Sati was called the " Sun- beam " and " Arrow." Neith, or Minerva, " a secondary manifestation of Mut," was the goddess of Sai's, whence her worship is supposed to have been transferred to Athens. She is represented in green, a sign that she was connected with the under- world, and invisible to mortals; a festival of " Burning Lamps " was held in her honour. Ptah, or Yulcan, was the god of Memphis. He was dwarfed and deformed the great mechanist. Among the second and third orders of deities were Chons, or Hercules, " the Pursuer," son of Mut and Amenra, with whom he forms the Theban triad ; Athor, or Yenus "of handsome countenance," mis- tress of dancing and sports, goddess of beauty, love, TILE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 23 and pleasure ; Pasht (Artemis or Diana), goddess of chastity, cleanser from impurities, mistress of the goddesses, and beloved by Ptah, worshipped at Bubastis in Lower Egypt she is represented with the head of a lioness or a cat. Thoth, or Mercury, the ibis -headed, was the god of language and literature, the reputed inventor of writing, the " scribe of the gods," and recorder of the final judg- ment ; at his festival the people eat honey and eggs, exclaiming, " How sweet a thing is Truth !" Ma, allied to Thoth, was the goddess of justice and truth ; her emblem was the ostrich -feather. Nefer-atum (Atum) was the " regulator of the two worlds ;" he was sometimes depicted with the lily and plumes on his head. The hawk -headed god of war, Munt-Ea or Mars, has for his emblems plumes and the sun's disc ; he was the " vanquisher of Typhon." The crocodile-headed Sebak or Sevek, was "the devourer" or the scavenger of nature. Bald-headed Imouth or ^Esculapius, was the physician or " giver of life." Anubis (represented with the head of a dog or jackal) was the god of embalming, an art which he is said to have invented : he takes a very prominent place in the oldest sepulchral inscriptions. Nephthys, the sister of Isis, and her constant companion, was called " mistress of the house." Thoueris, a manifestation of Yenus, was a hippopotamus-headed goddess, the reputed mistress of Typhon. The four "Genii of the Amenti " were the guardian spirits of the embalmed dead. We have left to the last the best-beloved group 24 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. of the Egyptian gods Osiris, his wife Isis, and their son Horus. Osiris and Typhon (who was sometimes called Set, Seth, or Besa, and represented with an ass's head) were brothers, the former being the type of good, the latter of evil. In early times they were both adored as gods throughout Upper and Lower Egypt ; for evil was not at first identified with sin or wickedness. The Osirian myth was the great " mystery " of the Egyptian religion. Osiris is fabled to have come upon earth for the benefit of mankind, with the title of "manifester of good and truth," to have been put to death through the malice ol Typhon the Wicked One, to have risen from the dead, and to have become the judge of all. He is called the ineffable Osiris, the son who having fought on earth the battle of his father the lord o of the invisible World had risen and become the only being in the firmament. As judge of the dead he received the soul of the perfect or the justified, purified and blessed, to himself. Apis, the bull of Memphis, sacred to Ptah, was also, according to Plutarch, " the fair and beautiful image of the soul of Osiris." The lion typified Horus his son, " the avenger of his father." The worship of Osiris and Isis was universal and popular in Egypt from the earliest times. Before recounting the names of the sacred animals, it may be mentioned that probably, one cause of the frequent representation of the gods under the forms, or with the heads of animals, is that, according to the popular myth, they were accustomed to disguise THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 25 themselves thus, in order to escape the evil eye of Typhon their common enemy. The hawk was sacred to the solar deities; the jackal, which abounds in Egypt, to Anubis ; the cat to Pasht ; the shrewmouse to Mut ; Apis, as before mentioned, to Ptah ; the cow to Athor ; the vulture to Muntra ; the ibis to Thoth ; and the sow was the emblem of Typhon. Other sacred animals, real or invented, were the dog-headed monkey or cynocephalus, the sphinx, the griffin, the ichneumon, the tiny enemy of crocodiles and serpents ; the ram, the oryx, the ibex, the goose ; the latus and other fishes ; the ureus, or cobra di capello snake, emblem of the goddesses and of royalty ; the crocodile, scorpion, toad, frog, and scarabaBus or beetle. The origin of animal worship among the Egyptians is impenetrably obscure. Strabo says that all the people adored certain of the animals in common three among the land animals, the ox, the dog, the cat ; two among birds, the hawk and the ibis ; and two among fishes, a kind of carp, and the sturgeon ; and that the worship of other animals was peculiar to certain cities. Probably each city worshipped the animal emblematic of its tutelary god. This de- grading form of worship attained its height in the degenerate period of Egypt's history, when it had be- come subject in succession to the Greek and Roman dominions. Dr. Birch considers that as animals are so frequently employed in the hieroglyphic texts to express words of action, they probably symbolised, according to their nature, some quality or function of the deity. Thus, the sheep would signify meekness, 26 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. the dog-headed monkey adroitness, the jackal anger ; and these qualities and powers would be suggested by their heads when placed on the human forms of the gods. He also believes that the animals in Egyptian temples were employed instead of statues, and adored by the worshippers. The individual animal thus selected from its class for worship was supposed to be an incarnation of the divinity it re- presented, while the whole species was respected as emblematic of the god. Wherever we may turn among the Egyptian remains, the strange and mysterious hieroglyphic inscriptions will meet our eyes. It may be of some interest to the reader, therefore, to learn from Dr. Birch's valuable elucidation of the principles of hiero- glyphic writing (in his new edition of Bunsen's " Egypt "), how simply and naturally it originated. At first a thought was expressed by the figure or fact with which it naturally corresponded; thus, for example, two eyes indicated the verb to see ; a man standing on his head signified to invert, to turn up- side down; an ass-headed god holding clubs was no inappropriate symbol for the verb to terrify ; and a hand holding a reed would be easily understood to be writing. A woman seated, playing on a tam- bourine, was (we suppose) an accurate representation of the Egyptian's idea of joy or pleasure; and a jug stood for beer. These symbols were the first essay at the visible expression of thought; but in time the inconvenience of so slow a process became felt, and the first marks or lines of the object-drawing THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 27 were made to stand for the ivhole object as if, having agreed that the drawing of a jug should stand for beer, we were for the sake of speed to agree further that a drawing of the handle only of the jug should be sufficient to suggest primarily the jug to the eye, and thence beer to the mind. Thus, by the first process of abbreviation, the hieroglyphics were the hints or suggestions of pictures, which had to be com- pleted by imagination, ere they became intelligible. The sign, however, being constantly written, became less and less like even that small part of the picture which it was intended to represent; and it was so unlike the thing it actually signified, that its original design soon dropped out of view, and it came to seem no more to those who used it than an arbitrary symbol for a word, like our 8f for and. The handle of the jug, hastily written, would turn into a curved line, which would from long association have ac- quired the fixed meaning of "beer," while it would have ceased to possess any pictorial significance what- ever. Thus were formed the hieroglyphic signs for a great number of words, which were also used alphabetically, and combined and modified into com- pound words, continuing, however, to be read in combination as they were separately spoken, in this unlike the letters of our alphabet. The employment of words alphabetically was especially useful in the writing of proper names. Upon this system the priests soon based a short -hand of their own, apparently for the purpose of secrecy. It was more quickly written and less easy to read than the hiero- 28 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, glyphic, and was called after its inventors, the " Hieratic." The running, or cursive hand, more rapid and less angular than the preceding two, was invented for the use of all, being especially needed by the trading part of the community. This was the people's style the Demotic or Enchorial. It is graceful and flowing, and was probably almost as quickly written as our own running - hand. The hieroglyphic, the hieratic, and the demotic forms, were sometimes used in one and the same writing or inscription. Few Egyptian writings have been discovered ; one, however, there is, which is proved on compe- tent authority to have been written before any other known book in the world. It is the " Ritual of the Dead," the " inspired work " of the Egyptians, portions of which, mixed up with glosses and com- mentaries on the text, have been found of the date of 2250 B.C. (Eleventh Dynasty). It is a wonderful evidence of the depth and intensity of the " religious sense " among the Egyptians. Their confident ex- pectation of immortality contrasts strangely with the uncertain and unhopeful feeling of the Greek and Roman about the invisible world. The dead were honoured as greater than the living, because they were nearer to the true life ; and, as the past has over- shadowed the lives of other nations, so the shadow of the future fell over the life of Egypt. Thus, of its many remains, the most important, those which tell us most of the LIFE of the people, are the sculptured dwellings of its dead. The doctrine of the MATERIAL THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 29 resurrection involved the most careful preservation of the body, and brought about such a matter-of-fact realisation of the life to come in the daily habits of the people as has perhaps never been known else- where. Immediately after death came the judgment of men on the deeds done in the body. An inqui- sition was held over the embalmed body, before its descent into the tomb, as to the conduct of the dead, 'and the condition of his affairs. Accusations were allowed to be brought against him, and if it were proved that he had lived unworthily, or had died in debt to any man, the judges who conducted the inquisition in their public capacity interdicted the rites of interment ; the body was carried back to its former abode, and remained there until the relations of the dead had made atonement for his offences, or had paid his debts. Not even kings and priests were exempt from this inquisition. The " Ritual of the Dead" professes to reveal also the judgment passed upon men in the unseen world. It is called " The Book of the Euler of the Hidden Place/' and its origin is spoken of as being the greatest of mysteries. One of the most acute Egyptologists of modern times, whose authority is of the greatest* weight with every thoughtful student of Egypt, has justly remarked that, " The problems which this Ritual proposes to every one w r ho pretends to take an interest in the history of the human mind and the destinies of our race are of the highest range." The following is part of a summary given by Dr. Birch : 30 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. " The principal ideas connected with the earlier part of the Ritual are the living after death and the being born again as the sun, which typified the Egyptian resurrection. The soul is here spoken of as the greatest of things in creation. The deceased goes in like the hawk, and conies out as the phoenix or heron, and enters the great or celestial gate ; having passed through the roads of darkness, he comes forth with justification, and eats, drinks, and performs the other functions of life, as if he were still among the living ; the corruption of the deceased is wiped out of his heart. One chapter contains a group of prayers addressed to the midday and the setting sun, within the cabin of whose boat the soul eternally traverses the celestial ether." * We quote the "Trial Scene" from Sir GL Wilkinson's description : " Seated on his throne, accompanied by Isis and Nephthys, with the four Genii of^Amenti, who stand on a lotus growing from the waters, in the centre of the divine abode, Osiris receives the account of the actions of the deceased, recorded by Thoth. Horus, his sou, introduces the deceased into his presence, bringing with him the tablet of Thoth, after his actions have been weighed in the scales of Truth. To Anubis, who is styled the 'director of the weight,' belongs this duty ; and, assisted by Horus, he places in one scale the feather or the figure of Thmei (Ma), the Goddess of Truth, and in the other a vase emblematic of the virtuous actions of the judged. A Cynocephalus, the emblem of the ibis -headed god, sits on the upper part of the balance; and Cerberus, the guardian of the palace of Osiris, is present. Sometimes also Harpocrates, the symbol of resuscitation and a new birth, is seated on a crook of Osiris, before the god of letters expressive of the idea entertained by the Egyptians and other philosophers, that nothing created was ever annihilated; and that to cease to be, was only to assume another form, dissolution being merely the passage to reproduc- tion. " Some of the figures of the dead are represented wearing round their necks the same emblem which appears in the scales after they have passed their ordeal, and are deemed worthy of admission into the presence of Osiris; the purport of which is, that they are justi- fied by their works, weighed, and not ' found wanting.' " The Hermetic books (as the Eitual is also called) close with an injunction on whatsoever priest might possess them, that he should let no one see the THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 31 sacred ritual, for that would be detestable; but should learn it, hide it, and make (perform ?) it. The doctrines of duty and accountability, which appear thus to have been wrought into the very sub- stance of life, seem not altogether to have failed of effect. The Egyptians, though courageous, as their foreign conquests attest, were mild and humane, at least for their times. Women and children were respected, polygamy was apparently unusual, if not prohibited, and a happy domestic life was not uncommon, if we may judge from the tablet sculp- tures, where the husband, wife, and children, are so often pleasantly grouped. It is some evidence of the internal peace and order of the empire, that women occasionally ruled over it, either in their own right or as regents during a minority ; for in a condition of society where might is right, it is found that a woman's hand cannot hold violence in check, and women are not suffered to reign. Our knowledge of Egypt is drawn from many sources. Manetho (260 B.C.), a priest of Heliopolis, or On, compiled a history of his country in Greek, from the records that he found in the Egyptian temples. It is from this that the received lists of the kings are mainly taken. Something is told us by other ancient writers, Greek and Koman; but, on the whole, Egypt was to the ancient, as it has been to the modern world, scarcely more than a "name of awe and mystery." The story of its monuments was graven on their surface but in unintelligible characters and, at once inviting and baffling re- 32 A HANDY-BOOK OF TEE BRITISH MUSEUM. search, Egypt seemed to have no fitter emblem than its Sphinx, ever propounding a riddle which no man ever guessed! By the discovery of the famous Bo- setta stone, however, the hieroglyphic cypher ceased to be a secret. There are three -kinds of writing on this tablet. At the top is the hieroglyphic, used both symbolically and alphabetically or literally; in the middle is the demotic, or popular form of writing ; and beneath is a GREEK inscription. It was (as is proved) rightly conjectured by Dr. Young, that each of these inscriptions had the same meaning. He therefore tried by comparison and inference, arguing from the known to the unknown cha- racters, to discover the key to the latter; and it is to his success in this endeavour that we owe most of our knowledge of Egypt. ( 1 ) The key once obtained by means of the Greek inscription which told Dr. Young what to look for in the Egyptian it has been used ever since to unlock new doors of knowledge by zealous and patient explorers and excavators ; and more is known to-day of the social and public life of Egypt than the classical ancients ever knew. Space would fail to tell of all the students of Egyptology to whom the public is indebted. Lepsius, Brugsch, Bunsen, Birch, Wilkinson, and Poole, are those of whose information the author has most frequently and gratefully availed himself. The dates here given are those which appear most reasonable ; but it is (*) It should be mentioned that, although Young found out the principle, it was Champollioii who really discovered the construction and meaning of the hieroglyphics. OB- THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. impossible always to reconcile conflicting statements on the difficult point of Egyptian chronology. Egyptian architecture and sculpture have this advantage (in common with ancient art-works, but not, unfortunately, with modern), that the sculpture was designed with reference to the architecture ; while our statuary is placed in unsuitable sur- roundings, and looked at solely with reference to its own merits. An Egyptian statue, whether of a man or of a symbolic animal, was generally one of a series, and the series was an approach to some magnificent temple or monument, or, at least, the sculptures were in definite and appropriate relation to some building, save in the rare case when they them- selves assumed the proportions of a building (like the colossal figures of the elder and younger Memnon). It would, therefore, be unfair, in looking at the Egyptian remains, to judge of these sculptures which were really parts of a large design as if they had been intended, like our own, separately to impress the mind. We should rather try to imagine for ourselves the noble porticoes to which they be- longed, the temples which they guarded, and thus to understand something of their grandeur, and even sublimity, when in such positions. The Sphinx face is remarkable for its strangely mingled expression. Power, gentleness, reserve, thought, have all been traced in it. Was it not also the ideal of the African type ? As Raphael's Madonnas were glorified likenesses of Italian women, as the Greek gods were idealised Greeks, and a 34 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. Dutch painter's Madonna is Dutch in type, so the poor lentil-eating African sculptors seem to have expressed in this one countenance all the possibilities of their strong and patient race. If there be any true analogy between the child- hood of an individual and that of the world, does it not seem to receive apt illustration from the character of Egyptian architecture? It is (it appears to us) child-like in its realistic and minute representation of what is familiar ; child-like also in its ideal or imagi- native art, namely, in its invention of impossibilities griffins, sphinxes, and so on which it works out into detail with the sober make-believe of a child. Is not the Egyptian love of vastness for its own sake also a note of the world's magnificent childhood. No idea fastens more powerfully on a child's imagination than that of size or bigness. Most of the remains we shall examine come from the gigantic tombs of kings, or from those of private persons. These last are extremely interesting, as it was the habit of the Egyptians to carve and some- times paint upon the slabs of the tomb scenes and inscriptions in commemoration of their lost friends' life on earth. The remarkable dryness and purity of the air has preserved the greater number in sin- gular freshness. THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 35 II. NOKTHEKN EGYPTIAN VESTIBULE. SCULPTURE. Dynasty IV.-XVIII. The earliest examples of Egyptian sculpture are to be found in the "Northern Egyptian Vestibule;" and so far as at present known these earliest Egyptian sculptures are also the earliest now extant in the world. First, we observe three fragments of the casing, or covering stones, of the great pyramid (No. 56) ; near these are sepulchral monuments taken from tombs in the neighbourhood of the pyramid (Nos. 527 535); and at the entrance of the northern vestibule are two false doors (ISFos. 157 159), also taken from a tomb at Grizeh. All of these are grouped together, as belonging to the earliest period (the fourth dynasty) to which existing Egyptian remains can be traced. According to the latest calculations, based on the written and architectural evidence of the monuments themselves, their date may be placed about 2450 B.C. The greatest of the three great pyramids was princi- pally the work of the time of Pharaoh Khufu, Cheops, or Suphis, the second king of the Memphite fourth dynasty a royal house whose origin is fixed by Wilkinson at the distance of four thousand three hundred years from our time, and by Bunsen and others even earlier. The brother of Cheops, Chephren or Shafra, reigned together with him for some time; the names of both are found in the cursive D 2 36 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. Egyptian hand on many of the stones of the pyramid ; and there is proof that these names must have been written before the blocks were fixed in their places. During his travels in Egypt between B.C. 460 and 455 B.C. Herodotus visited the Pyramids, and gathered much interesting information about them from the priests and guides of the country. What ne was told is pretty well known : That Cheops, on his accession to the throne, plunged into all manner of wickedness, closed the temples, forbade sacrifices, and compelled the Egyptians to build his pyramid; that for twenty years a hundred thousand men were always at work upon it, one such army being relieved by another every three months ; that ten years had been previously expended in making the causeway, remains of which are still to be seen, for conveying the stones up to their places a cause- way which Herodotus thought to be a performance not inferior to the Great Pyramid itself ; and that he learned, through an interpreter, from a hieroglyphic inscription on the pyramid, that 1,600 talents of silver had been expended on the radishes, onions, and garlic consumed by the labourers who constructed it. This Babel -like edifice, built of calcareous stone obtained from its site and the mountain on the east of the Nile, behind Toora and Masarah, stands on more than thirteen acres of land, the surface of the four sides of the pyramid being over twenty-one acres in extent. A French engineer computed that the stones used in this edifice would be sufficient to build a wall of 1,800 miles, one foot thick, and ten feet high, round THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 37 France. Its base, a square, was originally 756 feet on each side, and its perpendicular height 480 feet 9 inches 120 higher than St. Paul's, and 278 higher than the Monument of London. The construction of the three Great Pyramids is said to reveal a knowledge of astronomical and geographical science most surprisingly accurate, when we remember that fifteen hundred years after, the science of the Greeks was in its very infancy. It also exhibits, in the opinion of Mr. Piazzi Srnyth, whose excavations have lately been attracting attention, some remarkable coincidences of belief between the builders of the pyramid and the Hebrew patriarchs. In the interior of the Great Pyramid are two chambers, unfinished, but intended, the best authorities think, the one for the tomb of Cheops, the other for that of Chephren. The following translation of an inscription of the age of Cheops is important as containing an allusion to the pyramid, and valuable as an example of the style of inscriptions at this period. It is from De Rouge's "Monuments:" " The living Horus, the Conductor, the King Chufu (Suphis) the Living; he designed the temple of Isis, the Ruler of the Pyramid near the house of the Sphinx, above the north-west of the house of Osiris, Lord of Rusta (Rosetta) ; he built his pyramid near the temple of that goddess." In the immediate vicinity of the great Pyramid stand two others, not quite so large, the one erected by Chephren, the other by Mycerinus, the remains of whose coffin and of whose body (it is supposed) are exhibited in the " First Egyptian Room " of the 38 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. Museum. Near by are numerous tombs enclosing the remains of princes, and other distinguished con- temporaries of the above-named Pharaohs, in which many interesting sculptures have been found. The following sketch of his first sight of the Pyramids is given us by Lepsius, who was one of a scientific expedition sent to Egypt in 1842 by the Prussian Government : " It is impossible to describe the scene that met our view when we emerged from the avenues of date- trees and acacias ; the sun rose on the left behind the Moqattam hills, and illuminated the summits of the pyramids in front, which lay before us in the plain like gigantic rock-crystals. All were overpowered, and felt the solemn influence of the splendour and grandeur of this morning scene. About thirty Bedouins gathered around us, and waited for the moment when we should ascend the pyramids, in order to raise us, with their strong brown arms, up the steps, which are between three and four feet high. Scarcely had the signal for departure been given, than immediately each of us was surrounded by several Bedouins, who dragged us up the rough steep path to the summit, as in a whirlwind. A few minutes later, and our flag was unfurled on the summit of the oldest and highest of human works that is known. The panoramic view of the landscape spread out at our feet next riveted our attention. On the one side the Nile valley, a wide sea of overflowed waters, intersected by long serpentine dams, here and there broken by villages rising above its surface like islands, and by cultivated promontories filling the whole plain of the valley that extended to the opposite Moqattam hills, on whose most northerly point the citadel of Cairo rises above the town stretched out at their base. On the other side, the Libyan desert, a still more wonderful sea of sandy plains and barren rocky hills, boundless, colourless, noiseless, enlivened by no creature, no plants, no trace of the presence of man, not even by tombs ; and between both, the ruined Necropolis, whose general position and simple outline lay spread out clearly and distinctly as on a map. What a spectacle, and what recollections did it call forth! When Abraham came to Egypt for the first time, he saw these very pyramids, which had been already built many centuries before his coming. In the plain before us lay ancient Memphis, the residence of the kings on whose tombs we were then standing; there dwelt Joseph, and ruled the and under one of the most powerful and wisest Pharaohs of the THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 39 newly-restored monarchy. Farther away, to the left of the Mo- qattam hills, where the fruitful low ground extends on the eastern arm of the Nile, beyond Heliopolis, distinguished by its obelisk, begins the blest region of Goshen, out of which Moses led his people to the Syrian desert. It would not, indeed, be difficult from our position to recognise that ancient fig-tree on the road to Heliopolis, at Matarieh, under whose shade, according to the tradition of the country, Mary rested with the infant Christ. How many thousand pilgrims of all nations have since visited these wonders of the world, down to ourselves, who, the youngest in time, are yet but the pre- decessors of many other thousands who will succeed us ascend these pyramids, and contemplate them with astonishment." The great Sphinx had also been carved before the close of the fourth dynasty, as we learn from the above inscription of the time of Cheops. This andro- sphinx, or man-headed lion, seems in its watchful repose the fit guardian of the Great Pyramid, from which it is distant about a quarter of a mile eastward. It is 190 feet long, and sixty -two feet high in front. We need not dwell upon the expression of the face, with which the representations in the Crystal Palace have made every reader familiar, and which has be- come the type to our imaginations of all that is secret and inscrutable. A fragment of the Sphinx will be found in another room of the Museum. But now, leaving the casing-stones of the Pyramid, we come to the glazed case of sepulchral monuments from the neighbouring tombs. Here the boldness of the incised hieroglyphics unsurpassed in this respect by any later specimens we possess evidences a degree of artistic skill that we are surprised to find in so remote an era. The portion of a wall of a tomb (No. 527) of the fourth dynasty, B.C. 2450, contains a dedication to the 40 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. deity under the form of Anubis, the god supposed to have watched over the bodies of the embalmed. Anubis is generally represented with the head of a dog or jackal. This dedication is in memory of Ankh-haf, a treasury clerk, who is seated with his wife Neferset at a table spread with viands for the dead. No. 528 represents Eu and his wife Tent in a similar position. The two false doors (Nos. 157, 157*) should next be examined. They resemble in archi- tectural character most of the earliest tombs found at Grizeh. In these companion-slabs, Teta, an officer of state under King Chephren, the builder of the second Great Pyramid, sits with his wife Tebt at a table or altar of offerings, the children being also present. The lady Tebt is seen with her right hand on her heart, as if vowing eternal fidelity to Teta, who stands opposite to her ; she is clothed in the simple tightly- fitting dress commonly worn by the Egyptian women, and has ornaments round her neck, her hair hanging loosely over her shoulders. Stepping back into the vestibule again for a moment, we see in the middle of this hall the statue of an officer (head wanting) from a tomb near the pyramids. Just behind him is a small seated statue of one Betmes, who held an important office in his day, according to the hieroglyphs upon his shenti, or apron, and who is equipped with the 7iab, hoe, or pickaxe, for the per- formance of certain mystical labours in the peaceful fields and isles of the departed. Both these statues belong to the fourth dynasty, and are excellently wrought. There is grace in the erect bearing of the THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 41 standing 1 figure ; and Betmes, with his thick crop of hair parted in the centre, has one of the most agree- able profiles to be seen in any early Egyptian col- lection. This statue is in syenite, but it looks like a bronze. In these two figures we have ample illustration that the earliest sculptors of the land of Kham, though bound by technicalities that were not favourable to the development of expression , could throw grace, feeling, and almost humour, into their works. The Museum is not rich in remains of the time of the fourth Pharaonic dynasty. Lepsius, however, and other excavators in the valley of the Nile, furnish us in their works with copies of the monuments and tombs of that age, which greatly facilitate our understanding of the mode of life of primitive Egyptians. It can have differed little from that of later generations. A writer on the subject has said " In the tombs of the pyramid period are represented the same fowling and fishing scenes ; the rearing of cattle and wild animals of the desert; the scribes using the same kind of reed for writing on the papyrus an inventory of the estate which was to be presented to the owner; the same boats, though rigged with a double mast instead of the single one of later times ; the same mode of preparing for the entertainment of guests ; the same introduction of music and dancing ; the same trades, as glass-blowers, cabinet-makers, and others ; as well as similar agricultural scenes, imple- ments, and granaries." Of the fifth dynasty we possess no important 42 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. specimens of sculpture. Under the first window, in the NORTHERN EGYPTIAN G-ALLERY are examples of the art of the times of the Pharaohs, from the sixth to the twelfth. No. 455, coloured, is a very good speci- men of animal sculpture. It is a seated jackal, the living emblem of Anubis, who was the "natural" son of Osiris and Nephthys, hut still the beloved of Isis the wife of Osiris. Here Anubis is fulfilling his office of " the good guardian," the opener of the disc of the sun, of which his father Osiris was the eternal soul. No. 143 is a piece of richly- coloured carving, in bas- relief, from the ancient city of Abydos, taken from the tombstone of a military commander. The three seated women are his wife Netnub, his mother, and his nurse, all beautifully executed. In the tablet of Akarur (131), also from Abydos, the figures are well designed and chiseled. No. 196 represents Kati-emsaf and his family ; two of the figures are nude, and the expression of the group leads us to suppose that they are "treating each other with freedom of recrimi- nation." No. 112 is dedicated to Osiris, as the great judge of the dead, and to Anubis, as the watchdog of the embalmed body, on behalf of Pepisetheb, an officer of one of the Pharaohs belonging to the sixth dynasty. No. 159 is the largest and finest in this group of sculpture ; it has been rather roughly used, but the excellent workmanship of the figures is still apparent ; it is considered to be a very ancient monument, and contains, as well as a dedication to Osiris, a prayer for Rutkar, a priest, who sits by his spouse Ata ; a domestic scene is before them, in which a calf and its THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 43 mother are prominent objects. The slab 162 is of an early date ; it was erected to the memory of Ameni, a military officer, and bears reference to several festivals. These monuments are mostly of calcareous stone ; and are equal in design and execution to those of the first period (fourth dynasty). It is not unlikely that while the sculptors of the eleventh dynasty, seated on their three-legged stools in a shady spot by the banks of the flowing Nile, worked leisurely but carefully at some newly-ordered tombstones, occa- sionally ejaculating hopes that the beloved Osiris, the " I know the Gate," would conduct them through the passage from death to life, when their time should come, they may have heard of the arrival of the patriarch Abram, and of the " grievous famine " in the land of Canaan, which had driven him and his into the luxuriant country. Abram and Sarai gazed upon the pyramids and temples, and they may even have noticed the very tablets on the tombs that are now before our modern eyes. What Pharaoh was then ruling in Egypt is not yet certainly known ; there is, however, hardly any doubt that he was one of the Hanntefs of the eleventh dynasty, perhaps that one whose handsomely-decorated coffin is to be seen in the mummy-room of the Museum. The period of the twelfth dynasty was also one of cultivation and prosperity, Amenemha I., the first of this house, began to build, as a tomb for himself, in the Arsinoite province, the marvellous Labyrinth, which was added to by succeeding monarchs. Of this receptacle for the remains of kings and of sacred 44 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. crocodiles, Herodotus says that if all the walls and other great works of the Greeks could be put together in one, they would not equal it, either as regards the labour or expense bestowed upon its structure. The upper chambers he saw with his own eyes, and found to excel all other human productions ; the passages through the houses, and the varied wind- ings of the paths across the courts, excited in him infinite admiration, as he passed from courts to chambers, and from chambers to colonnades, and from the colonnades to fresh houses, and again from these into courts unseen before. The roof was throughout of stone, like the walls ; and the walls were carved all over with figures ; every court was surrounded by a colonnade, and was built of white stones, exquisitely fitted together. The famous Osirtasen I., the ori- ginal Sesostris, prototype of Barneses II., succeeded Amenemha I. His sway not only extended over all Egypt, but over part of Ethiopia, where he built a great fortress at Semneh, to protect the frontier of the Pharaohs. It was in the reign of Osirtasen I. that Joseph was brought into Egypt and sold to Potiphar, a captain of the royal guard ; and it was this Pharaoh who elevated Joseph to the office of shallit, grand vizier, or regent, over the whole land, after the inter- pretation of the two dreams. The Egyptian name of Joseph, Zaphnath-paaneah, must have been recorded thousands of times ; but from the nature of his office, it is likely to have been inscribed more fre- quently on papyrus than on stone. There is every reason to expect that, as the study of Egyptian THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 45 antiquities becomes more extended, his name will be discovered. Of Osirtasen himself, however, we have a few memorials; the beautiful tablet 572, to which, with others, attention will be presently drawn, was exe- cuted during his reign. It should be added, that under the twelfth dynasty the great reservoir or lake for the waters of the Nile was excavated at Moeris, beyond the Sakkarah pyramids. This was a yet more astonishing work, says the Father of History, than the wonderful labyrinth; and Diodorus states that the queens of Egypt derived a part of their pin- money from its valuable fisheries. The finest speci- mens of the monumental work of this period to be seen in the British Museum, and probably in Europe, are those displayed in the Northern Vesti- bule. Here, the long glazed case labelled " Sepul- chral Tablets," contains, chiefly, sculptured and coloured representations of altars, with offerings upon them dedicated to Osiris, " The rising and the setting Sun, and the final judge of all," for the persons figured or named in the slabs (Nos. 557 to 575). No. 558 is a very finely- worked bas-relief, the tablet of Nemki, a chief who lived under the twelfth dynasty, and whom Joseph may have known. He stands before his table of offerings first-fruits and firstlings for the revered Osiris holding his left hand to his heart. The various offerings, the vase under the table, the hand to the right, em- blematic of industry, and the explanatory picture- words on the top of the stone, are all highly 46 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. finished. Yet this tablet was put up nearly 4,000 years ago, "to the memory of Nemki." No. 560 is the figure of the architect Herkhen, seated in a simple but elegant chair. No. 562 is, we think, the most exquisite example of tomb- sculpture which our collection contains. It is the figure of Hanntef, who died in the reign of Osirtasen I., and was also contemporary with Joseph. He leans forward on a stick, as if expecting some event it may be the return of his spirit to the deity, which to the Egyptian was the status omnium bonorum aggregations perfectus. This bas-relief evinces con- siderable anatomical skill on the part of the sculptor ; we observe the protrusion of the muscles of the chest, caused by throwing the weight of the body on the staff, and the consequent treatment of the knees, legs, feet, &c., which is admirable. The hiero- glyphics on this beautifully - preserved tablet of Hanntef are cited by Dr. Birch in proof of the belief of the Egyptians at this period in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. " The inscriptions of the twelfth dynasty," he says, " are filled with extracts from the Hermetic books or rituals, accord- ing to the formula? of which, to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, bury the dead, loyally serve the king, formed the chief duties of a pious man and faithful subject." In 565, the women are painted yellow and the men red ; and we shall find them thus distinguished in almost all Egyptian paintings. Several colours are introduced into the tablet of Sebekaau (566), who THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 47 sits at a well -spread table of offerings, his wife stand- ing before him holding a lotus-flower, the emblem of the renewal of youth. "Sebek" was a popular component of proper names after the twelfth dynasty, probably because the queen Sebek-nefru (Scemiophris) whose signet-ring will be found in the first Egyp- tian Eoom was beloved by the people. In 567, the double outline for the ear, eye, lips, &c., is notice- able. 568 is the tablet of Nuharsi. The four large portraits are carefully wrought, and the action of the figure on the extreme left is good ; on the altar are various articles of food. 571, the tablet of Senathar, represents a group of several figures, and is in excellent preservation. Crossing to the other side of the vestibule, we see in No. 101 a tablet elaborately sculptured, to the memory of a gentleman of the twelfth dynasty, Nebpu-Osirtasen. He held office in the reigns of Osirtasen I. and Amenemha III., a proof that the three Pharaohs who intervened did not hold the sceptre long. The high rank of the men standing in this group is denoted by the unusual length of their robes. Just under this tablet, at the side, is one of the most elaborately -wrought bas-reliefs in this series (580). There is delicate finish in the close-fitting wig of Sebeksen, his girdle, fluted robe, and armlets; in the long pendent head-dress of his wife, and the massive necklaces of both ; vigour in the moulding of his figure, and grace in the quiet erect bearing of the woman. She holds offerings in her hand, and other offerings are on the altar. The tablet 48 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 579 is remarkable and interesting, because, being unfinished, it snows us how the sculptors of the twelfth dynasty were accustomed to work. Vertical and horizontal lines in red paint were first drawn upon the tablet, and the squares thus formed helped to preserve the canon of proportion. The outlines of the figures or objects to be represented were then traced in black, and the fixed number of squares given to each part. The sculptor then began to work with his metal tools. This tablet was erected in memory of Userur, a sculptor; and we may reason- ably conjecture, from its unfinished state, that it was his own work, and that death having stopped his hand before he was able to complete it, his family determined that the tablet should be put up just as it had been left. The unfinished portion is at the bottom. The two male figures on the left are sketched out in the black outline, and two of Userur's daughters, who precede them, are also partially sketched. Traces of the red squares are seen in the upper row of figures, and red and black lines in the five rows of hieroglyphics above. 585 is the tablet of Serannut, a superintendent of the offerings of all the gods, under the twelfth dynasty. Following this is the gem of the painted tablets (586). The variety and mellowness of the colours still thick upon the bas-relief, and the skill displayed in the carving and arrangement of the figures are conspicuous on a mere cursory view of this tablet. It is sacred to the memory of Atai, son of Sebeksi, a super- intendent of the shrines of Amenra (the One THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 49 Universal Force). Its date is the fourteenth year of Osirtasen I. ; Sebeksi was, therefore, contemporary with Joseph; and the portraits of the ladies here may help us to imagine Joseph's wife Asenath. In the upper stage or story Atai is seated with his wife Aura on the double chair in use among the Egyptians ; they have a table of offerings before them, groaning, one might say, under the weight of viands, which are all minutely represented. A youth places a second bird upon the table, and a little boy brings his simple but acceptable offerings of a flower and a very small bird. These are the sons Hantef and Amenemha. In the lower story, where the subject is continued, Atai rests upon a staff, surveying his daughters Sebeksi and Usersi, two handsome Egyptian girls, who bear offerings of flowers in their hands, and wear a somewhat extravagant head - dress. Above this family group are four rows of hieroglyphics, coloured light blue, giving a brief history of Atai. In No. 587, the monument of Amenemha, the variety of vases is worth notice. Before quitting this early section of the Egyptian department, three statues in dark granite and basalt should be examined. No. 100 is the seated figure, nearly life-size, of Mentuaa, a military officer of high rank, or a priest, under the eleventh dynasty, which held its court at Thebes. The face has been "re- stored;" the muscles of the breast, arms, and back, which is unsupported, are expressed ; the chest is broad ; the hands, one of which holds the folded sash of office, are placed upon the knees; the dress is E 50 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. the short fluted tunic. This statue, with those of Betmes and the headless chief, and the tablets just inspected, all belong to the first period of Egyptian sculpture, which was more realistic, on a smaller scale, and less influenced by the religion of the country than the sculpture of the eighteenth and succeeding dynasties. No. 777 is the statue of Ameni, also a functionary of the eleventh dynasty. He is seated on the ground ; the profile is here, as in most of the portraits, much more pleasing than the fall face. No. 462 is a statuette of Amenemha, a governor of the west of Egypt during the twelfth dynasty. He is seated upon a throne dedicated to Osiris, holding the sash of office ; the figure is good. III. NOBTHEKN GALLBEY. STATUARY. BAS-RELIEFS. FRESCO PAINTINGS. Dynasty XVIII. The monuments we shall next examine will be chiefly those of the eighteenth and succeeding dynasties, little being comparatively known of the dynasties that fill up the interval between the twelfth and eighteenth. The thirteenth dynasty fixed its capital at Thebes, but was driven thence into Ethiopia by a pastoral race which invaded the country on the north-east. The fourteenth dynasty was Zoite. The fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth, were composed of shepherd or Arab kings, called EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. PHARAOH AMENOPIIIS III., STATUE OF PASHT, THE GODDESS OF "MEMNO*." BETMES, CHASTITY. An Officer of State imfler Statue No. 63, inscribed with the (From the Memnonium, at Thebes, the 4th Pharaonic name of SHISHAK. 18th Dynasty.) Dynasty. (From a Tomb iiear the Pyramids of Gizeh.) (From Karnak, 22nd Dynasty.) THE TRIAL SCENE (gee page 30). From the Vignette in the Papyrus of Petharpiia. (Ptolemaic Period.) THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. Hykso.s, who introduced horses and chariots into t. During the time some hundreds of years of their domination, they cruelly treated the Egyp- tians, and insulted their religion, hut the general_ condition of the country does not appear to have suffered very considerably. Amosis, the first king of the eighteenth dynasty, drove this detested race out of Egypt, and took possession of both Upper and Lower Egypt. He was a wise as well as warlike monarch ; he it was who introduced the system of registration, bv which every person in the land of the Pharaohs was required to appear once a year before the governor of his district, and to prove that he got an honest livelihood, on pain of death if he failed to do so. Solon borrowed this law for the Greeks ; and Herodotus wrote of it with praise. Amr g suc- ceeded by Amenophis I., who extended the frontier of Egypt, and enlarged the already extensive temple at Karnak. The former married Aahmes-nefert-ari, an Ethiopian, who was known as the " black queen ;" the latter, the fair lady Sat-en-aha-mes. The full- length portrait of Aahmes on the fresco from Gourneh, in the Hay collection, represents a tall, finely-proportioned, handsome woman. Both queens are portrayed on the tablet (297) of Judge Amen-men of Thebes, whose patron was Amenophis I. ( 1 ) As (!) At the time of the purchase of the Hay collection for the Museum (November. vras reported that this black queen was no other than that " Pharaoh's daughter " who adopted Moses. This could not be. Moses was not born till many rears ater Aahmes- nefert-ari. not. according to Brugsch, till B.C. 1401, in the of the reign of Barneses II. 52 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. examples of the artistic skill of this time the reader should examine Nos. 186, part of the tomb of Pai ; 317, the tablet of Hara, who worships the now deified Amenophis I. ; 591, Pasheti's altar ; and 594, a tablet in the shape of an altar of libations. Thothmes I. and II. reigned between Amenophis I. and the third Thothmes, whose colossal head we find in the hall of statuary. So many of the Egyptian remains in the Museum have been discovered among the ruins of Thebes, that it may be well that we should know something about this great city before proceeding farther. Four villages, Karnak and Luxor on the east, and Gourneh and Medinet-Abou (Memnonium?) on the west of the river Nile, form the site of the " hundred- gated " Thebes, of which Homer sang. It is said to have extended, in the time of its splendour, above twenty-three miles, and to have been able upon any emergency, to send out against an enemy twenty thousand fighting men, and two hundred chariots, from each of its gates. This was the Biblical " No/' or "No-Ammon," and the Greek " Diospolis ;" so called because Zeus or Jupiter (who was originally the great Egyptian god, Ammon, or Amenra) was worshipped there. Anciently it was the capital of the whole country ; and more recently, of Upper Egypt. Belzoni, who excavated the head of Thothmes III. at Karnak, says that Thebes appeared to him like " a city of giants, who, after a long conflict, were all destroyed, leaving the ruins of their various temples as the only proofs of their former THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 53 existence." Of this enormous city Karnak preserves the largest and the finest specimens of architecture. One of its twelve great approaches was an avenue of guardian sphinxes, upwards of 6,500 feet long; and its celebrated " Hall of Columns," the wonder of every visitor, has 144 stupendous supports, some twenty- six, some even thirty-four feet in circumference. The hall was roofed with massive slabs of stone ; its width was about 338 feet, its depth 170 feet. Champollion, the well-known Egyptologist, speaks of it thus : " The imagination, which in Europe rises far above our porticoes, sinks abashed at the foot of the one hundred and forty columns of the hypostyle hall of Karnak ;" and Professor Long has computed that four such churches as St. Martin's-in-the-Fields might stand side by side in the area of this hall, without occupying the whole space. But this im- posing court covers only one-seventh part of the area enclosed by the walls of the great temple of Karnak, which was ornamented with obelisks seventy feet high or more, and with seated and standing statues, chiefly in granite, from twenty to thirty feet in height. Thebes was the work of various dynasties and ages. Even the Ptolemies appear in the list of the later conquerors who contributed to the magnificence of its temple ; but its greatest works were owing to the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty. We now turn to the long case of sepulchral tablets and other monuments of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth dynasties. In this compartment the work varies in merit. 556 is a roughly-executed 54 .1 HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. example of the nineteenth dynasty ; but 551, a large tablet of the previous dynasty, when boldness had become a characteristic of Egyptian sculpture, shows skill both of design and engraving. It is sacred to o o o the memory of Haremhebi, a royal scribe and standard-bearer, who prays first to Ea, the hawk- headed god with a disc or sun on his head, giver of light for the blessed in the next life ; next to Thoth, the ibis -headed scribe of the gods, who recorded the final judgment passed on the dead ; and, thirdly, to the goddess Ma, who wears in her hair an ostrich feather, the emblem of truth and justice. The complete figure of Haremhebi is seen in the door- jambs (550 552) ; in the latter it is beautifully traced in outline : he is habited in the curiously-arranged fluted robe, worn on great occasions. The gods and goddess have been coloured, the last very carefully, her dress being red. The figure of the goddess is simple and pleasing, such as we should expect a representation of Truth to be in the childhood of art. The slab contains, besides, twenty-five rows of hieroglyphics. In 555 the Theban judge Shaem- bekhen adores Ea, the solar deity, and Athor or Yenus under the form of a cow ; in the upper part is the ark of the sun, an important feature in Egyptian worship. The judge was held in high esteem by the Egyptians. Justice was administered without payment and without respect of persons, on principles of common sense and equity ; and the Pharaoh himself could officiate as judge with no loss of dignity. The larger Egyptian statuary must now occupy our THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 55 attention. A lofty gallery, the best in the Museum, 330 feet long, and about forty in breadth, has been provided for it. This gallery is filled with a collec- tion, unrivalled as a whole in Europe, of sculpture of various sizes, executed under various dynasties, begin- ning with the eighteenth. Let us stand under the great red granite head of the Pharaoh Thothmes III., and take a general survey of what there is to be seen. Close to us is an outstretched arm of the same colossal proportions as the head of Thothmes ; here, are colossal heads and seated figures, wrought in light, dark, and black stone ; there, red granite lions, and a huge ram's head. We catch a glimpse of two giant faces between the columns in the central saloon ; kneeling, sitting, and standing figures, some with altars before them, are seen farther down : a monster scaraba3us or beetle, tapering obelisks, ponderous sarcophagi, and, last of all, the famous E-osetta stone fill up the distance. Flanking all these, which present every shade of sombre colour, are hundreds of smaller objects, some of which are too far from our present stand-point to be seen distinctly. Waagen, the German art- critic, says in reference to this assemblage : " The ancient Egyptians were certainly a people endowed with a mighty will', and carrying that will into effect with wonderful energy ; for, while a hundred other nations have disappeared from the face of the earth, without leaving behind them even the slightest trace of their existence, innumerable forms, bearing the impress of incredible labour, and that in the most durable materials gigantic crystal- lisations, as it were, of primeval civilisation give us even now a clear view of the manner of their existence, and after the lapse of more than 4,000 years stand before us as perfect in preservation as if the last stroke had been put to them only yesterday !" 56 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM For the possession of some of these remarkable monuments the nation is indebted to the generosity of foreign travellers Burckhardt, Belzoni, Caviglia for that of others to the liberality of George III., Sir J. G. Wilkinson (who has given us so much valuable information about the Egyptians), Sir J. Bo wring, Sir Henry Ellis, who preceded Mr. Panizzi in the prin- cipal librarianship of the Museum, Colonel Howard Yyse, one of the excavators of the great pyramids, and many others. Numerous specimens have also been purchased from the collectors, Mr. Salt, Mr. Sams, Sr. Anastasi, Sr. Athanasi, Mr. Barker, Mr. Hay, and others, with the funds which the House of Commons, alive to the importance of securing ancient historical monuments for the country, has most wisely voted from year to year for the use of the Museum. For those given to us by George III., we are in the first place indebted to the French savants who collected them in Egypt, and next to the British troops, who fairly won them by their victory in the memorable battle of Alexandria, on the 21st of March, 1801, inasmuch as on the capitulation of that city, a few months after, the antiquities came into the possession of our army. The gallery is divided into three apartments, called respectively, the Northern Gallery, the Central Saloon, and the Southern Gallery. We avail our- selves of these divisions in our description; and beginning with the Northern Gallery, with which we have been already occupied, turn our attention to the colossal head by which we have been standing (No. 15). It was found at Karnak, and is THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 57 part of a statue of the eighteenth dynasty, erected in honour of one of the greatest kings that ever wore the the pschent of Egypt. Thothmes III. succeeded to the Pharaonic power in 1574 B.C. (an absolute date according to Bunsen), when death put an end to the regency of his sister or mother-in-law, whom Thothmes so much disliked that he had her name erased from the monuments on which it had been inscribed, and his own substituted. He did not take the whole power upon himself till 1552 B.C., his brother Thothmes II. having occupied the throne with him for twenty-two years. Egyptian records tell us that he was great both in peace and in war ; he carried his arms far into Ethiopia, into the Sinaitic peninsula on the north-east of Egypt, and even into Syria and Bactria. In the great but ill-fated Nineveh he is said to have reared a monument to acquaint posterity with his visit. He extended and beautified southern Thebes, the seat of his empire, and added the granite sanctuary to the Karnak palace. In Lower as well as in Upper Egypt, numerous buildings of considerable architectural merit were erected by his command, and others that had fallen into decay were restored. Very fine obelisks were set up in various cities during his reign. The well-known " Cleopatra's Needle," now lying in the mud at Alexandria of which there is a fragment at the side of the head ot Thothmes is one of them ; and there are several still entire. The name of Thothmes III. has been found on more bricks and votive beetles (scarabsei) than that of any other Pharaoh, a proof of the extensive 58 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. nature of his building operations, of his popularity, and of the length of his reign, about forty-seven years. The head of Thothmes is a good example of the second period of Egyptian art, in which a large and massive style almost entirely supplanted the delicate bas-relief work of a former time. This head differs in type from that of Eameses II., which we shall presently examine ; the thick lips, the peculiar curving and breadth of the nose, and the full cheek, indicate a Nubian origin, and it is especially inte- resting on this account, as types of the primitive Ethiopian race are no longer to be met with. Thothmes is represented as in early life ; the expression is calm and benevolent, rather than highly intelligent. The mutilation of the left ear, the chin, and royal beard, or beard- case, does not materially detract from the worth of the sculpture. Such mutilation of statues was a frequent practice of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians, who, regarding the beard as the hallowed token of manhood, delighted to insult a conquered nation by thus disfiguring its venerated images. Thus we find Jeremiah prophesying (xliii. 13) that Nebuchadrezzar, the Babylonian king, should break the images of Beth-shemesh, in the land of Egypt ; and this very head of Thothmes may have been one of those thus broken by the soldiers of the army of "the hammer of the whole earth." The covering of the head, called ihepschent, occupies a very large portion of the composition. This pschent was a combination of two caps, one on the other the tesJir, the red cap or crown of Lower Egypt, and the hut, a conical cap THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 59 with a knob, the crown of Upper Egypt and denoted the Pharaoh's supremacy over both provinces. The fractured ornament on the front of the teshr, the under cap, represented a serpent, an emblem of regal authority. The whole is in red granite, mottled with white and black, and has a lustrous polish still shining upon it, which sets off admirably the clear cutting of this massive work. The left arm, with a portion of the shoulder belonging to the same statue of Thothmes, lies close by (55) ; its execution is on a par with that of the head ; the hand, which is rather small, probably held a staff. This statue, about twenty-six feet in height, stood erect, with one foot slightly in advance, and with the arms at rest by the sides, against one of the square columns or pilasters of the granite sanctuary at Thebes (or Karnak). We observe in connection with this period two of the curious statues of the " squatting design," also from Thebes that of the good-looking Prince Anebni (55 a), and that of Banofre (48). We gather from the rendering given by Dr. Birch of the blue- coloured inscription on the former monument, that it was erected by the orders of the Queen Eegent before referred to, and by her brother Thothmes III., " As a royal offering to Amenra, lord of the thrones of the world ; to Osiris, ruler of eternity ; and to Anubis, resident in the divine abode, the director of the em- balming, lord of To-sor, for the sake of obtaining the gift of an abode, well provided with oxen and geese, clothes and incense, wax, and all other good and pure things (all set out on their tables at the end of every 60 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. day) . . .for the royal son and prince Anebni, the victorious chief, celebrator, or bard of his god, show- ing his love for his lord by his performances, serving his lord on his journeys in the north and south," &c. This is a good example of the usual style of dedi- catory inscriptions. The offertory for Anebni, if one THE MILITARY CHIEF BANOFKE. 18t7i Dynasty. Thebes. may so call it, mentioned on the pedestal, consists of a vast quantity of flesh, fowl, wine, incense, wax, clothes, plants, as well as all other gifts, all kinds of divine incense, and all other good and pure things. A somewhat similar invocation is on the companion statue of Banofre, who was a military chief at the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty ; this statue is in black basalt, while that of Anebni is in limestone. THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 61 We may here observe another statue in the same attitude (512), that of the officer Nebta, dedicated to Amenra. In the fragment 103 we see an Egyptian scribe seated at his work with his ink- slab tied to his left leg ; he is Amenhept, the chamberlain of a princess, and evidently a king's favourite, for his statue was originally placed, by royal command, in the temple of the greatest of the gods, Amenra. We might suppose that the " left colossal leg from the statue of a deity or king/' in red granite, placed behind the head of Thothmes, belonged to the same figure ; but there is no evidence to lead to this con- clusion, and the label is silent as to the place of its discovery. From the grooving at the side of the leg we may infer that the foot was firmly put upon the ground. Near this fragment is a red granite stele, or memorial pillar, from Karnak, about five feet and a half high, on which Thothmes III. (eighteenth dynasty) is represented at both sides with Munt-ra (the hawk-headed god, Mars), and Athor or Venus (the female figure with the heifer's horns holding a disc). They are hand in hand. Thothmes, by the aid of Munt-ra, obtains victories, for which he is re- warded by the favours of Athor. This monument has been much injured, but its fine polish still remains. ( l ) In the statuette 168 the same Pharaoh is seen kneel- ing on his nine enemies (signified by nine bows), and attributing his victories to the hawk -headed warrior- god. The head of this statue bears no resemblance to (*) Bonomi supposes that these figures of deities were re-cut after their demolition by the disc worshippers. 62 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE ^BRITISH MUSEUM. Thothmes III., and it will be at once perceived that it has been artificially joined on to the rest of the figure. Few memorials have come down to us of the short and comparatively unimportant reigns of Amenophis II. and Thothmes IV., the successors of Thothmes III. (eighteenth dynasty). The family group (31), however, is contemporary with Amenophis II. It represents the priest Atu seated beside his sister, probably sister- wife, Hanur, a priestess ; they clasp each other with one arm; their son Neferhebf, also a priest of the deified Amenophis II., sits between them on a low stool. Red paint lies thickly on the priests, and yellow paint upon the priestess. To the successor of Amenophis II. (Thothmes IY.) is attri- buted the erection of the small temple between the fore- paws of the great Sphinx, wherein he is seen adoring that vigilant monster. From this temple Captain Caviglia brought and presented to the Museum the small lions (439 and 441), the head of a sphinx (464), and the hawk (437). The piece of limestone (58), is a portion of the beard of the Great Sphinx itself; and 443 is part of the urseus or sacred serpent, which ornamented its forehead. In the one we can just make out the chequer- work or plaits of the beard, and in the other the thick frog-like throat, and one eye. Traces of red ochre are visible on these frag- ments ; the Sphinx having been originally coloured red and yellow. The fourth Thothmes' queen was the Mautemua whose sacred shrine, in the form of a boat or ark, which originally held a small statue of her, is ex- THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. . 03 hibited in the gallery (43), near the head of the great Thothmes. She was an Ethiopian, of the same race as the " Stranger-kings," who ruled Egypt shortly after the time of Amenophis TIT., and who were so thoroughly detested by the Egyptian people, whose gods they forsook, that after they had been driven away, all the monuments they had erected in the country were demolished. Just before Thothmes IV. died, his famous son Memnon, or Amenophis III., was born, about 1403 B.C., according to Wilkinson, but much earlier according to some other chronologists. The birth of this prince forms the subject of a picture on the walls of the palace at Luxor. Mautemua was regent of Egypt until her son was old enough to reign. In consequence of his mother's origin he was called "The Ethiopian Memnon;" and although he became one of the most famous of their kings, he never ceased to be regarded by the Egyptians as a foreigner. There is a curious proof of this feeling ' in the fact that at his death the Egyptians laid his body in a tomb at Thebes, apart from the Pharaohs his ancestors. He achieved great victories in war ; nor did he neglect the internal affairs of his immense empire. The monuments of Memnon's greatness are to be seen to this day, not only in his own country, but in distant parts of Africa and in Asia. He made con- siderable additions to the temple at Karnak, and founded the palace at Luxor ;(*) and the avenue of ( l ) For the sake of convenience the Theban remains (spread over so large an area) are designated by the names, of the modern villages where they are discovered. 64 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. sphinxes, the statues of the goddess Pasht, and the two colossi which this gallery contains, owe their construction to him. He built small temples on the island of Elephantine, one of which was dedicated to Noum, the creator, and ornamented with beautiful bas-reliefs. A temple of his erection has been dis- covered at Soleb, in Ethiopia, near the third cataract, which attests how far his conquests were extended. In one of the registers of these conquests the prisoners are reckoned thus: "Living captives, 150 head; chil- dren, 110 head; negroes, 350 head; negroes, 55 head; children, 265 head : total living, 930 head ;" and so on. Some memorials of his reign are worth our examination in detail. First we may observe the representations of Pasht, (" Sekhet ") Bubastis, or Diana. Upwards of thirty statues, busts, or portions of statues, of this lioness- headed goddess are to be seen in one division alone of the gallery. She was a favourite object of worship among the Egyptians ; perhaps the most brilliant festival of their year was held in her honour at Bubastis, in the Delta ; and almost every kind of distinction was ascribed to her. She seems to have received the titles that belonged by right to Mut the mother, " Mistress of the heaven," and " Eegent of the world." The seated statues of the goddess, which probably formed the colonnade of some temple, each represent her in a different character or manifestation. In No. 60, she is seen, a black figure, seated on a throne. She almost invariably wears a disc on her head, fronted by a serpent, typifying her association THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 65 with the sun ; and she grasps in one hand the anM, an emblem of life. In the erect statues, she holds before her the lotus -headed sceptre, a symbol of sovereignty. The two finest representations of Pasht in this attitude are Nos. 76 and 80, placed at each side of the door of the Egyptian gallery. There is an expression of purity and repose in the face and attitude of these, which well accords with the characteristic attribute of the goddess. Many of the seated figures, in which the hands rest on the lap, are also truthful in ex- pression; and the details the ornaments on the breast, the collar, and the wrist and ankle ornaments are, in some instances, worked out with elaborate finish. Tor specimens of the seated figures, the reader should see Nos. 57, 518, 16, 63 (engraved in this work), and 517; and for other examples of the erect figure, Nos. 41, 45, and 49. The lower part of a statue of Pasht (95) is in the best style of Egyptian art. Nearly all the figures, busts, and fragments of the statues of this goddess are in black granite, and most of them retain their original polish. Many statues of Amenophis III. himself are in existence. The heads, 6, and 4, were discovered in the rear of the famous " Vocal Memnon," and are of the same material. No. 4 is an earlier portrait than No. 6, in which the part of the face below the eyes is a good deal sunk. This head is so Ethiopian in type, and so unlike the portraits of the Pharaohs generally, that it may be concluded to be a good likeness of Memnon ; especially when it is considered that while the Egyptian artists usually 66 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. represented their divinities by conventional and in- variable types, they appear to have endeavoured to make faithful likenesses of the features of their kings. The flat round cap worn by Amenophis is the teskr, or crown of Lower Egypt ; but the conical cap may have originally surmounted it. No. 30, a bust of COLUMN OF PHARAOH AMENOPHIS III. Memnon in early life, is disfigured by mutilations : he wears a wig and collar. It is in nummulite lime- stone, and was brought from Thebes. In this, as in the other colossal heads, a fanciful rim indicates the eyes and eyebrows. No 64 is a remarkable column, erected by Memnon. Though smaller in size than many similar works, it is yet sufficiently impressive THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 67 to enable us to imagine what grandeur and stability would be imparted to the temples by colonnades or avenues of these granite pillars ; and what a strange charm to the flat eastern landscape by the lonely column which commemorated the victories of some warlike king. This column, found in a house at Cairo, is made of four pieces of granite, carved into the likeness of a bundle of papyrus-reeds tied to- gether, the buds forming the capital of the pillar. It is inscribed with beautifully cut hieroglyphics, and the ovals by which the names of kings were fenced round, contain that of Amenophis III. and those of Menephtah and Setnecht, two Pharaohs who seem to have added their names to it in order that they might share Memnon's immortality. Stand- ing on a red granite pedestal by Memnon's column is a sandstone tablet, from Semneh, recording some of his Ethiopian conquests. The large and boldly-executed head (140) in grey granite, belonged to the cover of a sarcophagus ; it was found in the Biban-el-Molook quarter of Thebes. The small statue of Sururu, who held the post of scribe to Amenophis III. (503) is noticeable for its fine workmanship, and the metallic appearance of the granite. The attitude in which Arneferu, guardian of the temple of Amenra, and his wife Apu, are grouped, is interesting. The best seated colossal statue in the collection is that numbered 21. (An .engraving of it is given at the beginning of this section.) No. 14 is similar, but smaller. They are copies of the two enormous statues F 2 68 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. of Amenopkis III., (the "elder," and the "younger" or " vocal " Memnon), which for so many generations have been seated in chairs on the plain of Thebes ; exciting the wonder of visitors, and the terror of the people. '* ' It is believed,' wrote Strabo, of the vocal Memnon, ' that once a day a noise as of a slight blow issues from the part of the statue which remains in the seat and on its base. When I was there with ^Elius Gallus, who had numerous friends and soldiers about him, I heard a noise at the first hour (of the day), but whether proceeding from the base or from the colossus, or produced on purpose by some of those standing around the base, I cannot confidently assert; for from the uncertainty of the cause, I am inclined to believe anything rather than that stones disposed in that manner could send forth sound.'" And Pausanias wrote that this then broken statue " Daily at sunrise produced a sound, which you might best compare to the snapping of a harp or lute- string." The vocal Memnon was the more northern of the two seated colossi ; and many persons have supposed that the sound was caused by the sun's rays falling upon the statue ; others that the wind sighing through the nooks and crevices of the stone may have caused it; while some, thinking it was produced by trickery, profess to have discovered the cavity where the Theban priest concealed himself, that he might strike upon the granite, and produce the magical note. The seated Memnon in the British o Museum (21) was excavated by Belzoni, whose name one is glad to find inscribed on the everlasting granite. " The most perfect composure and regularity of posture," as Miiller the art-critic observes, " charac- terise this great work, and render it almost the ideal THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 69 expression of Egyptian art." Nos. 1 and 34, two red granite lions couchant, are equally remarkable with Memnon's statue, being examples (the best in Europe) of Egyptian animal sculpture. They once guarded the gate of a brick-built temple or palace at Mount Barkal, in Upper Nubia. On the pedestal of the first there is a dedication by Amenophis III. to his grandfather. Amenophis caused them to be made for the city of Soleb ; thence they were taken by Tirhaka to his Ethiopian capital many hundred years after ; and it was from this place that Lord Prudhoe brought them in 1832. The hieroglyphs, cut in the bib-like manes of the lions, relate the names and titles of Amenasro, an Ethiopian prince, and convict him at the same time of desiring to o appropriate what did not belong to him, and of giving his own people credit for what they could not do. No. 34 was also re-dedicated by Amentuanch, a successor of Amenophis; and if we may judge from the obliterated oval, some other prince sought to acquire an easy fame in the same manner. Waagen writes of these lions that they are " Perfect models of architectonic sculpture. The action is true to nature, and yet at the same time admirably corresponds with the severe rectilinear architectonic style of Egyptian art ; all the principal proportions are correct ; the forms very much simplified, according to a certain rule ; at the same time, with a fine feeling for what is most characteristic in nature, everything is retained which expresses the grandeur of the lion. Add to this," he continues, "the greatest sharpness and TO A HANDY- BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. precision in the working of the hard stone, the most beautiful and durable polish of the surface, and you have before you the chief elements of that grandeur of effect which characterises the best specimens of Egyptian sculpture/' The last colossal work we have to notice in this division of the gallery is the Ham's head, in sand- stone (7). It is about four feet and a half long, and belonged to one of the crio- sphinxes forming the avenue to the temple at Karnak of Haremhebi (Horus), the son and successor of Amenophis III. (eighteenth dynasty). The character of the Egyptian being known to us, it is easy to understand that the brute embodiment of meekness and quiet would seem to him a not inapt form in which to see and adore the calm and blessed gods. Ammon, greatest of gods, is even seen in his metamorphosis as Noum the creator, hiding his divinity under the ram's head. Herodotus has related the fable by which the Theban priests explained this personification of Jupiter. Hercules once greatly desired to see Jove, but Jove was unwilling to reveal himself; but as Hercules persisted in his wish, Jove adopted a device, by which he was half revealed and half concealed ; having flayed a ram and cut off its head, he covered himself with its fleece, and held the head before him, and thus appeared to Hercules. " And it is for this cause," says Herodotus, " that the Thebans do not sacrifice rams, but consider them sacred animals." Sheep were, indeed, commonly bred for the sake of their wool by the Egyptians, but not used for food. Near the THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 71 ram's head are two small figures in alto-rilievo, repre- senting Haremhebi (Horns), son of Memnon, nnder the protection of the god Amenra, or perhaps of Idem (5). From this figure, it is said, the Greeks and Romans copied their god Priapns. In 75 and 102 may be seen the mutilated life-size statue of Memnon; he stands before an altar with offerings from the river; the altar is highly ornamented. "We may observe here a small bust of an officer of state, from a seated group, as an excellent example of the eighteenth dynasty; and a Cynocephalus, or dog- headed monkey, sacred to Thoth and Chons. Many valuable tablets and frescoes of various periods in Egyptian art are exhibited on the walls of this division of the Egyptian gallery. No. 213 (window compartments 3, 4) is the tablet of Mentu- hept, who, seated with his wife, receives the offerings of his family and household (period, twelfth fifteenth dynasty). No. 148 is the tablet of Neferha, a superintendent of the builders of the palaces of Thothmes IY. at Abydos ; he invokes the favour of Osiris, his wife Isis, and Amenra. On the sand- stone slab 153, eight deities are sculptured, sitting four and four, back to back. On the left, Pharaoh Thothmes III. makes offerings to Amenra, chief of the gods, to Mut, mistress of the heavens, to Chons, their son, prince of the heavens, and to beautiful Athor. On the right, Amenophis I. adores Amenra (ram-headed)., Noum, the creator (also ram-headed), his consort Sati, the sunbeam, with the conical crown, and his wife Anucis, with the head-dress of feathers. 72 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. No. 430 is a fragment from the side of a very an- cient tomb (of the fourth or sixth dynasty), and re- presents a procession of servants and the slaughtering of animals. It is from Sakkarah, whence the French obtained so many choice specimens of Egyptian art. 155 is the tablet of one Thothmes, who, as gate- keeper of Memphis, held a dignified office. He is invoking Osiris and Isis : the family is also seen performing acts of worship. In the next recess (7, 8) the tablets are con- tinued ; most of them are badly executed. Here also begin the famous Theban fresco-paintings, which interest visitors and students alike. They are in stucco ; the figures are drawn with the usual precision, attention to details, and want of perspective, and painted in red, black, yellow, and white. Nearly all of them are from the tomb of Amenemheb, a clerk of one of the royal granaries, scenes from whose life and occupations they depict. To such drawings as these biographies in stucco and paint we owe much of our knowledge of the arts of the early Egyptians. No. 169 represents an Inspection of Cattle. Short-horned bulls, chiefly red, white, and black spotted white, appear to have been brought to the priest, whose foot, or toe, one of the four drovers kneels and kisses. They are probably an offering to the gods, or an allotment for the priests ; or they may have been brought that a bull with the essential marks might be found among their number to replace the last sacred bull Apis- each bull thus worshipped being (if it had not died before that age) drowned on completing its twenty- THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT 73 fifth year, and another being chosen in its stead. Below, the cattle are being sorted, and a scribe is sitting down taking stock. No. 170 is a Scribe of the Royal Granaries Fowling in the royal preserves near a bank of rushes (papyri) by the water-side. This was a favourite sport of Egyptian gentlemen. He AN EGYPTIAN FOWLING. stands in a punt made of papyrus, which has been hauled-to, with a richly- attired lady behind him ; a little girl sits in the boat, holding firmly on by the right leg of the scribe, and with the other clutching a lotus plant. The scribe fells the game attracted by the call-birds he holds out in his right hand with the short curved, serpent-headed throw-stick, which he grasps in his left. A cat is employed instead of a 74 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. dog, and takes a prominent part in the sport ; she has just caught some birds which the quacking decoy- duck on the he&d of the punt has lured within her spring. There is consternation among the feathered tribe ; butterflies are on the wing ; fishes are darting off, alarmed by the noise and the skimming shadows. No. 171 -Inspection of Geese. Some are being counted, others sorted, and the young ones put in baskets, probably for the temple uses, as geese, very abundant in the Nile valley, were consumed in large quantities by the Egyptian priests. The barely-fledged goslings, and the mother-goose on the right, enjoy immunity, and look unconcernedly on, their time not having come. Eggs are also counted; one clerk, with his writing-palette under his arm, places his reckoning on a stand where eggs have been placed in baskets. Specimens of the baskets and boxes seen in this paint- ing are exhibited in the first Egyptian room. No. 173 A Scribe of the Itoyal Granaries, seated on an elaborately-carved chair. This may be the scribe Amenemheb himself. No. 174 'Bringing of Corn and Animals. The corn is tied up in bundles ; two hares are removed by the ears, a young one has been put in a net, and a gazelle is carried in the arms of one of the men. No. 175 A Musical Entertainment, in which several handsome and well-dressed women, holding the lotus -flower, which it was the custom to present to each guest on arrival, are listening to the music of the guitar and double flute. Q No. 176 (*) A mummied figure was handed to guests at a banquet, to remind them of death and eternity ; the lotus-flower was probably presented THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 75 Chariots and Cultivation of Corn. We might suppose from this picture that when the "Egyptians were not at war, they employed their light chariots in the peaceful arts. They are here used probably to carry away the corn. Two horses are being pulled up, two mules (?) are baiting. The scene on the left has been variously interpreted. It appears to represent a bald-headed man weeding corn, and in the act of moistening his left hand to give him a firmer hold of the hoe which he holds in his right. This was no doubt the most toilsome of the peasant's labours ; for in no country in the world is it more easy than in Egypt to raise a harvest. After the periodical overflow and gradual retiring of the Nile, the seed was scattered over the rich black soil of the banks ; light cattle were turned out to tread the seed in ; harvest-time soon arrived ; and then the threshing was done by oxen walking over the strewed field, and treading out the grain from the ear. No. 177 Fish-pond, containing seven fishes, seven water -fowl, and six lotus -flowers. Around the pond are fruit-trees, which have supplied the basket of the woman, or goddess, in the right-hand corner. The painting reminds us of the frescoes of the Chinese. No. 179, 181 Musical Entertain- ment. In the upper compartment of the former, the company look at the two female dancers below, one of whom dances vigorously to the music of an orchestra of four handsome graceful women, with in remembrance of Osiris, the Rising and Setting Sun, as that flower rises out of the water when the sun's rays strike it, and falls back at sunset. 76 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. elaborate head-dresses and collar ornaments, and ele- gant dresses. The only instrument used seems to be the double pipe or flute ; but most likely the three who seem to be clapping hands are playing small bronze cymbals, and singing or humming. The dancing-girls wear scarcely any clothing. Their dancing probably resembled that of the Egyptian women who to this day wander about from place to place following the same art. The chief peculiarity of the dance consists in their moving, without walking. The soles of their feet slide along the ground without being once raised off it ; and at other times the feet are hesitatingly jerked along, as if tied together. They move perfectly upright, and keep time by snap- ping their fingers to the sound of the tambourines. The company in the picture consists of two ladies, elegantly dressed, and six or seven gentlemen, who are enjoying the scent of the freshly- gathered lotus (the beautiful water-flower which is seen in the hot- house tanks at Kew). A female attendant, or dancing- girl, waits upon the company. Two of the chairs are of handsome construction, and cushioned ; the rest are like the white-painted substantially-supported speci- mens in the Museum. In 181, more of the company is seen. Above, three of the female attendants bring refreshments for the ladies from the well-stocked side- board on the left ; while two men-servants wait on the gentlemen. In the lower compartment are seated eight ladies, who wear a gorgeous head-dress. A gentleman, probably the master of the house, sits on a chair apart, attended by a youth. ~No. 180 repre- THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 77 sents A Table of Offerings. Here are the much-loved flowers of the land in vases and on graceful stands ; baskets of fruit, the head and leg of an ox, a goose, cakes, and other oblations. Of the four Theban frescoes lately exhibited (July, 1869), one shows us Egyptian artificers sitting on their favourite low stools, busily engaged at their benches in the manu- facture of articles of jewellery chains, necklaces, collars, &c. Three of the men use the bow for drilling holes, and one is occupied at a furnace. Sistra, dishes, boxes or cabinets, vases, &c., appear, from the paintings, to be amongst the other articles turned out by the men. The three remaining frescoes represent Asiatics and negroes bringing tribute to one of the Pharaohs. They are all pretty well drawn, and nicely preserved, especially that with the Asiatics. Mr. Danby Seymour presented them in 1869. In our examination of these frescoes, we have passed a slab of the greatest historical importance the so-called tablet of Abydos. It was one of the monuments which Pharaoh Eameses II. (nineteenth dynasty) dedicated to the memory of his ancestors, and contains a record of the kings of Egypt up to the nineteenth dynasty. Monuments distinctly de- claring the succession of the Pharaohs are so rare that this tablet is almost invaluable. There is nothing specially interesting in its appearance, only a repeti-' tion of yellow-coloured trays or ovals, black crouching figures, birds, insects, crowns, globes, indented lines, and things that look like skates. The invariable Egyptian practice of fencing round the names of 78 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. kings by " trays " or " ovals " greatly facilitates the reading of these and other hieroglyphs. When this tablet was first seen by Mr. Banks in 1818, on a wall among the ruins of the ancient This, much of it that is now broken away was still remaining. A French consul in Egypt, M. Mimaut, made it his property, and the British Museum acquired it at the sale of his collection in 1837, for 500 a trifling sum when we consider the importance of this record, which, with Manetho, has formed the groundwork of most of the later histories of Egypt. Close by is the tablet (138), on which is engraved, in the hieratic writing of the Egyptians, a public act relating to the endowment of the temple of Amenra, in the city of Kark. No. 803 is a fragment from the side of a tomb representing priests and scribes with offerings. In the next window (23 5) are several small jars with carved heads. These vases, which the Egyptians used to place at the side of their dead, will be described when we come to the mummies. No. 303 is the highly- coloured tablet of Kahu, who lived under the eighteenth dynasty, and was keeper of the storehouse in which the offerings made to Ammon were depo- sited. No. 191 deviates, both in its very high relief and its treatment of the subject, from the usual style of the sepulchral monuments. It is the adoration by Kaha and his family, seen in the lower part of the tablet, of the nude goddess who stands upon the lion, and whose name is Ken, the Chiun of Scripture (a manifestation of Venus) of the god Khem, and of the strange god Eenpu, to the right ; also of the THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 79 goddess Anaita, below, who wears the conical cap of Osiris, and holds a battle-axe in an attitude of menace. No. 194 is a kind of hieroglyphical puzzle, the inscription, in squares, being readable either hori- zontally or vertically ; it was placed in a Theban temple of the goddess Mut, to whom the adorations are made. No. 149 is a very good tablet of the nineteenth dynasty period, sacred to the memory of Baennaa, clerk at one of the royal quarries, and dedicated to Osiris, Isis, the mother - goddess, and Nephthys, the sister-goddess. On the other side of the gallery are more sepul- chral tablets. We will begin at the window com- partments 5, 6. No. 206 is a very ancient tablet, probably more than four thousand years old, out of place here, owing to want of room. It was put up for Mentuemmatu, who is painted red the woman, coloured yellow, is his wife Eensankhu. No. 830 is the tablet of Sebakaau, who superintended the linen in one of the palaces of the twelfth dynasty. The large tablet, 828, is that of Mentusa, a scribe or secretary of high rank ; we are told that he was born in the reign of Amenemha I., held office under the first' Osirtasen, and died during the rule of Amen- emha II. (twelfth dynasty). No. 145 is a red granite fragment discovered at Alexandria, near the base of Pompey's Pillar. The figure of the god Turn, who gives " the sweet breath of his nostril " (eternal life) to a monarch of the eighteenth dynasty, is a good sample of monumental work. 200 is the over-crowded memorial of the sculptor Anuphept and 80 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE .BRITISH MUSEUM. his family, which, judging from the execution, is more likely to have belonged to the fifteenth than the twelfth dynasty. The finely-sculptured stone, SEPULCHRAL TABLET OP THE PltlEST AMENHETP. 902, was erected in memory of Amenhetp, who lived under Thothmes IV. (eighteenth dynasty), and was a high priest of Anhar, or Onouris that is, of Typhon in his warlike capacity. Part of the name THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 81 has been erased from the hieroglyphics on this stone. A very interesting tablet is that of Ruma, " scribe of the troops " a position answering some- what to that of adjutant-general among ourselves. The beautiful temple of Sethos I., the Setheum, at Abydos, was under his particular charge. At the head of the stone the jackal-headed Anubis sits on the mystical gates of the north and the south ;. in the middle part, Ruma, his wife, and three sons, pre- sent offerings to the triad, Osiris, Isis, and Horns ; below, the scribe and his wife receive the offerings of their family and relatives. The tablet 307 is that of Mahu, an officer who carried the Pharaoh's bow in those times his principal weapon. Mahu wears the double dress, and, with his sister Neferari, makes presents to Osiris, in order to dispose the eternal arbiter to temper judgment with mercy, and to induce him to receive to himself at last the soul of his devout worshipper. The goddess Nupe, the protectress of the soul, stands in hjsr sycamore fig-tree at the bottom, dispensing the bread and water of life. The large figure in the door-jamb from Memphis (160) is that of Ptahmes, a royal secretary, in the act of addressing the gods ; beneath, funeral honours are being paid to his embalmed body. HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. IV. CENTRAL SALOON. COLOSSAL AND OTHER STATUARY. Dynasty XTX. THE antiquities in the Central Saloon principally be- long to the most illustrious period of Egypt's history, that in which it was ruled over by the great kings of the nineteenth dynasty. Eameses I. was the first of this line; to him succeeded his son Seti, or Sethos, I., also called Menephtah (the beloved of Ptah), who, it is supposed, was the famous " Osymandyas," com- memorated by the Greek writers. Seti seems to have set himself the task of restoring Egypt to what it was in the time of Memnon (Amenophis III.). His conquests extended to Canaan, Syria, Arabia, distant parts of Asia, Nubia, and the more southern country. He added considerably to the number and grandeur of the monuments in his empire. Of these may be particularised the Hall of Karnak, the Temple erected in memory of his father (Eameses I.), and his own splendid tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Sethos was succeeded by his still more illustrious son, Eameses II., or Sesostris. Under the united reigns of these two monarchs Egypt was the chief among the nations, and reached the height of its internal prosperity. The story is told that the father of Eameses commanded that all the boys who were born in his dominions on the same day as his son should be carefully brought up and educated with him ; thus, when Eameses grew to man's estate, he TllK EUYVTIAS DKPAHTMEXT. S3 ' was surrounded by proved friends, who, as ministers and military officers, faithfully served him and their country. Eameses has left substantial monuments of his triumphs in the scenes of his many and wide- spread conquests, as well as in Egypt and Ethiopia. 11AMESES II. (SESOSTRIS). (From one of the colossal statues in Nubia.) On the walls of the temple erected by him at Beit-el-Walee, in Nubia, some records of his victories may be seen, executed in bas-relief. Casts of some of these will be found in the first Egyptian room. More large sculptures have endured to our time of his than of any other reign. Of these the largest are in the rock temples of Aboo-Simbel or Ibsamboul, in Nubia. A cast from the head of one of the colossal statues 84 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. of Eameses at this place, may be seen in the Egyptian vestibule, over the east doorway. It is recorded that captives taken in battle were compelled to become brick-makers, builders, and sculptors ; and they were no doubt largely employed on the many canals which were excavated during this reign, and in other forced works. Probably they also helped in the construction of the fleet, which was un- usually large for that time. Hameses for some years reigned jointly with his father ; the whole length of his reign is reckoned to have been nearly seventy years. Herodotus relates that even Darius freely acknow- ledged the superiority of this monarch. Darius desired to place a statue of himself in front of the colossi of Eameses at Memphis, but a priest of Ptah resisted him, saying : " Darius has not equalled the achievements of Sesostris (Eameses) the Egyptian ; for while Sesostris subdued quite as many nations as ever Darius has brought under, he likewise conquered the Scythians, whom Darius has failed to master; it is not fair, therefore, that he should erect his statue in front of the offerings of a king whose deeds he has been unable to surpass :" and Darius confessed that the priest's argument was just. In the reign of Eameses II. (B.C. 1392) Bunsen places the birth of Moses. We should mention at the same time that Wilkinson has placed his death in 1451 B.C., in the reign of Amenophis II., which both Eosellini and Champollion have put down as begun, the one, in 1729, the other, in 1723, B.C. The difficulty of dealing with Egyptian chronology will THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 85 be apparent from this one instance. But a scholar no less profound than Bunsen Brugsch has also placed the date of the birth of Moses in the reign of Barneses II. in the sixth year, 1401 B.C. And on the concurrent testimony of two such men, we cannot withhold our belief from their statement that Moses was born in the reign of this Barneses, and adopted by his daughter, however opinions may vary as to the actual date B.C. of Barneses II.'s reign. Moses was probably educated at the principal sacer- dotal college, where he must have become " learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians/' their history, religion, laws, and literature, and also familiar with the monuments that enriched the country, many of which, now in the Museum, his eyes, as well as ours, may have looked upon. No known portraits of the princess who nourished Moses for her own son exist ; but a statue of her young brother, Shaaemuab, is in the Museum. At the entrance of the Central Saloon is a small statue under glass of the Ethiopian prince Pa-ur (70$) kneeling before an altar with a ram's head typical of the living soul upon it. Opposite is the sacred scribe Biaai (46) seated on the ground, holding in his left hand an ear of corn, and in his right the symbol of life. The inscription on the breast-plate tells us that he officiated under Barneses II. The erect red granite statue (61), placed between the columns, represents one of the Pharaohs, apparently in the act of walking, but whether the second Barneses or his successor, Menephtah, cannot be determined; SO A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. both names appear one on the shoulder, the other on the chest, while a third has been erased from the. belt. The head wears the crown of Upper Egypt ; the kingly beard has been broken off. Sharpe and others incline to the belief that this statue really represents Menephtah. It was during the reign of this Pharaoh that, in the opinion of the fore- most Egyptian scholars, Moses returned to Egypt from Midian to fulfil his divine mission. Bunsen records his opinion that the exode of the Israelites took place in the spring of the year 1320 B.C. ; that, indeed, "it is the only possible time for the exodus, according to the monuments." And Brugsch says that this great event in the history of the Jewish race occurred in one of the last six years of the reign of Menephtah, between 1327 and 1321 B.C. We may behold, then, in this statue of the beloved of Phtah, the Pharaoh out of whose hand the children of Israel were delivered by such strange and fearful ways ; the king, at once weak and wilful, who willed, and willed not, till every house in Egypt was bur- dened with a corpse ; who, repenting as soon as he had let them go, pursued the Israelites in their night, and with his horses, his chariots, and his horsemen, was drowned in the midst of the Eed Sea^ 1 ) " Pharaoh" is commonly described as resolute and inflexible, but in thoughtfully reading the words (') See Exodus xiv. But the tomb of Menephtah is seen at the present day in Egypt, in the Biban-el-Molook. This does not, how- ever, set aside the fact that he was drowned in the Bed Sea. In Exodus xiv. 30, we read that, " Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore." It is not likely that they were all left there un- THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 87 of Moses we gain the impression of a hard but feeble- minded man ; one whom only fear could compel to cease from oppression, but who was easily amenable to fear. And in the statue before us, these charac- teristics may be discerned. It certainly contrasts in this respect with the colossal portrait of Barneses, who died while Moses kept the flocks of Jethro^ 1 ) It is not improbable that Moses was known to Sesostris, as well as to his successor, and that, as the adopted son of the king's daughter, he held some appointment in the household of Barneses II., until, having slain an Egyptian, and the law of the country imperatively demanding his life, he fled into the land of Midian. No. 854 is a specimen of wood-carving brought from the tombs of the kings at Thebes, which have yielded so many valuable and interesting relics. It is evidently of the same age as the granite statue, but much decayed. It represents Seti, or Sethos, I. There are two other wooden statues, numbered 853 and b, in the Central Saloon, brought from the Theban tombs. The three carvings may have belonged to the long series which the Theban priests showed to Herodotus on his visit to the inner sanctuary, and also to Hecatseus, when he came to them to inquire concerning his ancestry. It is related that Hecataeus would fain have believed that he was a descendant of the gods, but the priests, who kept the genealogical records of their houses buried; and Meriephtah's body was probably found and interred in the valley of the kings ; if not, the tomb may have been erected in memoriam. ( ] ) See Exodus ii. 23; and iii. 1. 88 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. with great care, and could trace back their ancestry for many generations, convinced him, on a reference to the rolls, that his sixteenth ancestor might have been a piromis, son of a piromis (gentleman, son of a gentle- man) ' but was certainly neither god nor hero. The block in red granite lying behind the carving (854) is from a colossal Priapic figure. No. 51 represents one of the treasury clerks of Barneses II. invoking Osiris, Isis, and Horus, who appear on the shrine he holds. Behind this sculpture are fragments of large hieroglyphics, raised and coloured on white and yellow grounds, from the magnificent sepulchre of Sethos I., in the valley at Thebes. No. 107 represents Merau, a royal scribe, and a military officer under the nine- teenth dynasty, seated before an altar. The huge busts of Eameses II. (or the Great), the Sesostris of the Greeks, now demand our attention. No. 19 be- longs to the best period of Egyptian colossal art ; it is at the same time the largest and the finest specimen of massive sculpture in the British Museum many critics go so far as to say, in Europe. Sculptured a thousand years before the Greek Phidias began to carve himself a lasting name, and above three thou- sand years before our time, it is yet characterised by qualities that we have been used to attribute exclusively to works of Grecian origin, and expresses grandeur, majesty, and divine composure. Owing to the bad light in which this head is placed, it is only on a very fine day that the features can be clearly distinguished ; they are of a more Asiatic type than those of Thothmes III., whose bust fronts that of Eameses THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 89 from the northern gallery. The face of Sesostris is handsome and intelligent, and seems not unlikely to have been a faithful portrait of the magnanimous king. We are indebted to an accident for the excellent preservation of the features : when broken off from the trunk, the head fell face downwards, and thus lay safely embedded in the surrounding sand. The en- throned statue of Amenophis III., already noticed, will convey an idea of that of Rameses, which was, when whole, twenty-four feet in height. The bust is about nine feet high, and weighs from ten to twelve tons ; it has been wrought out of one piece of granite of two colours, the lighter, of a reddish tint, being given to the upper part, as far as the chin, and the darker to the lower part. It has a head-rest at the back, running down which are two rows of hieroglyphics ; these in which the bird and feathers are the most conspicuous are to the effect that Eameses was a most illustrious prince, greatly beloved of the gods. The royal head-dress gives dignity to the face, but it is very heavy behind ; it is surmounted by a crown of simple form, decorated with small serpents, symbols of imperial authority. A portion of the crown has been broken away, but the royal beard, or beard-case for the Egyptians shaved off their beards and wore false ones is uninjured. This colossal work was removed with difficulty by Belzoni from one of the court-yards of the " Memnonium," a "Mausoleum" at Thebes, under the directions of Mr. Consul-General Salt, and of Burckhardt the well- known traveller, by both of whom it was presented 90 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. to the nation in 1817. Fourteen poles, four rollers, four palm-leaf ropes, and some Arab muscle, constituted the entire motive-power at Belzoni's command; but with thus little he managed to get the mass to the river's bank, a distance of more than a mile. It was then apprehended that the weight of the bust would sink the Nile boat that was to carry it to Alexandria, and the national jealousy of some foreign savants placed other difficulties in the way of our obtaining this great work ; fears, however, proved unfounded, difficulties ' were dispelled, and the bust reached England in safety. At the side of the sculpture No. 19 is a cast from the head of one of the colossi of Barneses at Meet- Eaheeneh, a village not far from the pyramids, which marks the central portion of the site of ancient Memphis. Murray's " Handbook for Egypt " informs us that the total height of the original statue the face of which is still perfectly preserved may be estimated at forty-two feet eight inches, without the pedestal. " It was discovered by Signor Caviglia and Mr. Sloane, by whom it was given to the British Museum, on condition of its being taken to England ; but the fear of the expense seems to have hitherto prevented its removal. When the Turks have burnt it for lime it will be regretted." We should notice in connection with this head, the red granite fist of one of these colossi, which lies between the columns in the gallery on the left. Its wrist is eighty inches round. Close by is the bust of a woman, probably a queen, wrought in white stone. THE EGYPTJ AX DEPARTMENT. 91 It is valuable as one of the few colossal busts of Egyptian women which have as yet been found. On the opposite side of the Central Saloon is No. 67, the upper part of a statue of Eameses II., in the character of the ineffable Osiris, wearing the pschent over the royal wig. The flail and the crook symbols of majesty and dominion crossed, and reach- ing to his shoulders, are the insignia of his office. On the shoulders and down the back is the hieroglyphic story of the sculpture. It was found at the island of Elephantine, near Philse. No. 78 is a ponderous granite coffin-lid, which once covered the remains of Setau, a prince of Ethiopia, during the reign of Sesostris. ~No. 27 is the lower part of a dark granite statue of Eameses II., kneeling and holding a shrine, on the top of which is the sacred beetle. No 109 is a small seated statue of the same, much disfigured, and having the lower part restored. No. 106 is another colossal fist in red granite, superior in truth- fulness of modelling to that of Thothmes III. In company with this is an inscribed fragment from the column of Diocletian at Alexandria, better known as Pompey's Pillar. This beautifully-polished column, ninety-five feet high, and nine feet in diameter in the shaft, is the admiration of all who visit the famous capital of Lower Egypt. Some years ago some English sailors, fresh ashore, and bent on adventure, determined to climb it, and actually succeeded in making the first known ascent, by the aid of a rope, which, fastened to the end of a kite, they had contrived to throw over the summit. No. 857 is a red granite lion dedicated 92 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, to Eameses II., obtained from Benha-el-asal. It resembles the Prudhoe lions in treatment, but is very much mutilated, especially in front. No. 25, one of the acquisitions of the British army in Egypt, is a fragment, in black granite, from Abydos, of a kneel- ing figure of an officer of state. No. 42, Sesostris supplicating the gods before an altar, is natural in expression, but not remarkable for technical excellence. The kneeling posture here made use of was one in favour with Egyptian sculptors, or rather, with the priests, who determined the designs of the sculptors, and probably were their chief employers in works of this kind. In a similar example, No. 96, Eameses II., with a somewhat painful expression on his face, kneels at an altar for divine libations, which is supported by a vase. It is in limestone the lower part restored and was found on a plain at Abydos. The massive granite sarcophagus, No. 18, is that of the standard- bearer, Peneterhent, who lived under the nineteenth dynasty. V. SOUTHEKN GALLERY. STATUARY. SARCOPHAGI. WALL SCULPTURE. Dynasty XIX. to the Roman occupation. THE entrance to the southern part of the Egyptian gallery is guarded by two griffins, or gryphons (11 and 13), the fabulous animals which, by the union of the lion's body with the head of the hawk or eagle, were held fitly to symbolise the strength and vigilance THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 93 of the warrior god, Muntra, or Mars. These examples were both found by Belzoni in the great Ibsamboul temple. The dog-headed baboon (40), standing in ado- ration to the moon, is from the same place. Between, the columns here, is placed No. 93, the upper part of a statue of a queen, wearing the graceful head-dress of Athor, the goddess of beauty. (It is a curious fact that the fashion of 1868 availed itself of this ancient head-dress, by copying from it the pretty oval trimmings which adorned the front of last year's bonnets.) The graceful curving of the horns of the ram (see the large head 7) may have, in the first instance, suggested this style as the appropriate decoration of Athor, for that animal was sacred to her, as " daughter of the sun," as well as to the other solar deities. On the opposite side are two sacrificial basins (108 and 28). The former, oblong in shape, and made of granite, contains a dedication to Amenra and Ptah on behalf of Neferba, one of the chief officers of state of Barneses II. (nineteenth dynasty). A little figure said to be that of this same royal functionary looks over into the basin. In the front, two priests in long robes stand before sacred emblems, each having a crescent-headed rest (ouols) at the nape of the neck, to indicate that a long-continued prayer is being engaged in. The latter basin (28) is cir- cular, in sandstone, and is dedicated to Athor, in her manifestation as Thoueris, the hippopotamus-headed goddess, inhabiting the centre of the pure waters, and the chosen divinity of Theban lawyers ; her head figures in front of the basin. The small erect statue 94 A HAXDY-UOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. in breccia, shouldering two long standards, emblems of military dignity, and in the act of marching forward, represents one of the governors of Memphis, Shaa- .emuab or uas, the fourth son of Sesostris, and a standard-bearer in the Egyptian army. It was found at Asyoot ; the colour of the marble is considered to resemble the complexion of the Thebans. No. 476 is the square sepulchral shrine, or naos, in limestone, of Euka, who was an ensign, or a " superintendent of the standard-bearers," in the Egyptian army during the nineteenth dynasty. Facing this, and of the same period (460), is another Afahu, an architect of public works at southern Thebes, who, painted red, sits beside his sister, Seba, painted yellow; the de- dication is to several divinities. No. 36, a larger example, in limestone, is the shrine of an officer of high rank, with his wife or sister, probably both. They are seated in chairs of elegant design ; their hands are clasped; the robes are long and carefully fluted. The officer wears sandals, fastened to the feet by means of a bridge or broad band running over the instep from the sides of the sole, and by a cord fixed to the front, drawn between the big toe and the next, and tied to the instep-piece. The absence of colossal figures becomes observable in this part of the gallery, and a decline in the skill of the Egyptian sculptor begins, we think, to show itself. On the other side of the gallery is (26) a figure, in light-brown sandstone, of Seti II. (called, like Seti I., Menephtah, or the Beloved of Phtah) ; he sits on an inscribed throne, holding an altar with a THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT 95 ram's head upon it, a propitiation to the Maker Khnum, or to Amenra. It was discovered by Belzoni at Karnak. The lower limbs appear much too long, whether from the sculptor's want of skill, or from disproportion in the original, cannot be determined. We cannot well overlook the giant beetle fourteen feet round in dark greenish granite in the middle of the gallery (74). As a colossal work it is considered excellent. It was removed from Egypt to Constantinople under a Byzantine emperor, and thence to England by Lord Elgin. This insect was held sacred by the Egyptians to the Creator or Unigenitor, on account of some supposed peculiarities in its structure and habits, and was worshipped in most parts of Egypt as the emblem of Chepher. Many images of it, in all sorts of material, and applied to various purposes, have been found in the country, and are now seen in modern collections. It was commonly used in ornamentation ; and, inscribed with an extract from the ceremonial books, was frequently placed upon the mummied body. Several Pharaohs, mostly bearing the name of Rameses, fill up the interval between the reigns of Menephtah and Shishak, to whose era the monu- ments we next examine belong. The daughter of one of these was married to Solomon, her dowry being the city of Grezer, which the Pharaoh took from the Canaanites. Sheshonk I., the Shishak of Scrip- ture, was the first king of the twenty-second dynasty (B.C. 990), and an Assyrian by birth. We read in Scripture that, in the fifth year of 96 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. the reign of Behoboam, this same Pharaoh came up against Jerusalem with 1,200 chariots and 60,000 horsemen, besides a numberless host of Lubims, Sukkiims, and Ethiopians, and " took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house, 3 ' and the shields of gold which Solomon made, and which Eehoboam was obliged to replace by shields of brass. This inroad is duly recorded on the walls of the great temple of Karnak. The Egyptian remains are indeed full of such confirmations of Biblical history. As Stuart Poole, the well-known Egyptologist, has said in his " Horse jEgyptiacse," " The monuments of Egypt in no man- ner on no point contradict the Bible, but confirm it. Some have asserted that they disprove that sacred book ; and others have insinuated that they weaken its authority. The monuments completely disprove both these ideas; and their venerable records most forcibly warn us, not only against the disbelief of sacred history, but also against distrusting too much the narratives of ancient profane history, and even tradition." The two statues of Pasht from Karnak [630 an ^ 517], in dark granite, bear the name of Shishak ; but they so strikingly resemble those we have already noticed as executed under the eighteenth dynasty, that one is inclined to believe that this un- scrupulous king may have wrongfully affixed his name to what was really the work of his predecessors. (*) See Engraving. THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 97 Another large statue, ascribed to the same dynasty, and dedicated by Sheshonk, or Shishak, high priest of Ameiira, and son of Osorkon I., is that of Hapi or Hapimoou, in sandstone, from Karnak (8). Hapimoou, the god of the Nile, was annually invoked with very imposing ceremonies. Dr. Birch says : " The ancient name of this river was Hapimoou the Numerous Waters which may imply the stream inundating the country. The Nile was represented by the Egyptians as in the present instance, and androgynous, his form distinguished for its embonpoint, with the addition of female breasts, to indicate that the river was the nurse and support of Egypt, which it nourished with its waters, circulating life and fertility over the plains. . . . The Nile is represented often, as in this statue, holding an altar, upon which are the circular and oval cakes of bread, gourds, the head, haunch, ribs. &c., of a calf. Pendant from this altar, which is grooved with a spout in front for libations, are lotus-flowers, maize, and water- fowl, the produce of the river. On his right side, before his leg, arc flowers of the papyrus, through which the god is walking." This statue is fairly executed, and the decorations of the altar will repay a few minutes' close inspection. The first and second Takeloths were also kings of the twenty-second dynasty ; in the twenty -third (B.C. 818) they were followed by more of the Shishak family. Bocchcris the Wise (B.C. 734) was the most famous king of the twenty-fourth dynasty, and the last, for his kingdom was invaded by the Ethiopians, and, after an unavailing struggle in its defence, ho was defeated and slain. We possess a memento of the reign of the Nubian conqueror of Egypt, Sabacos or Shebek, who founded the twenty-fifth dynasty, in the slab 135"*, relating to the god Ptah, and to the contests of Horus and Typhon in the region of Osiris. Tirhakah, the H 98 A HANDY-HOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. illustrious Ethiopian (B.C. 714) also belonged to this dynasty. He successfully resisted the invasions of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, but was conquered by Esar-haddon, the son of Sennacherib, and subse- quently by Assurbanipal. Some bronze plates in- scribed with the name of Tirhakah are exhibited in the First Egyptian Koom. The conquest and spoliation of Egypt by Esar- haddoii are duly recorded in the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions. (') He divided the country into twenty districts, and gave a king to each. Egypt was sub- ject to Assyria till B.C. 668, when Tirhakah endea- voured to regain his kingdom, but was defeated in a great battle by the brave young Assurbanipal. At last, however, Tirhakah succeeded in regaining Upper Egypt, where he soon afterwards died. His death is thus poetically described in the Assyrian chronicle of Assurbanipal : " The might of the ser- vants of Assur, my lord, swept over him, and he went to his region of night." Urdamane succeeded Tirha- kah in Upper Egypt, and made war upon the lower province ; but he was defeated and punished by Assurbanipal, who, in his revenge, ravaged the whole country, and Thebes more especially, as the capital of his enemy. Egypt thus became again entirely subject to Assyria, and remained so till the time of Psammetichus I., the restorer of the Egyptian line of kings, and the founder of the twenty-sixth dynasty. Thus an interval of 300 years elapsed between the ( ] ) See the interesting paper by Mr. Geo. Smith, in Lepsius's " ^eitschrift" for Sept. and "Nov., 1868. THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. QQ execution of the statue of the Nile which we last examined about B.C. 990 and that which we now turn to, No. Ill on the opposite side (twenty-sixth dynasty, B.C. 064). It was a time which, beginning with prosperity and foreign conquest, ended with domestic invasion and manifold distress ; such a time, latterly, of disgrace and disaster as, perhaps, Egypt had never experienced since its first invasion by the "Shepherd Kings." This large black granite figure (No. Ill), represents Uaprehet, or Apries, the " functionary with various offices," who kneels and holds a small shrine like a cabinet before him, with a little erect statue of Osiris in front. It is an example of the wonderful change, worthy to be called a Renaissance, which came over the spirit of Egyptian art at this date. This change was probably due in part to the new vigour which freedom breathed into the people ; in part also, doubt- less, to the beneficial knowledge they had acquired of other styles of art during their subjection to a foreign yoke.O The inscriptions on the pedestal are scarcely if at all inferior to those of the best period for sharp and fine engraving. The statue is unusually bulky and round of limb ; and, as the smaller examples of this period exhibit similar peculiarities, we must suppose that they represent a fashion then prevalent in Egyptian art. The statue was obtained from the neighbourhood of the ( J ) The Assyrian king and king-maker, Esar-haddon, caused statues of himself to be set up in diTerent parts of Egypt on its subjugation by him. H 2 100 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. Natron lakes, to the north of the great pyramids. No. 20 is a basalt slab well carved and designed. It was found between two columns of a temple at Alexandria. It is worn down at the back, and looks as if it had been used as a paving-stone. We may refer to this slab for illustration of the fine ar- tistic feeling which sprang up at the Kenaissance, and was peculiar to this, the third period of Egyp- tian sculpture. The man here represented making offerings of conical-shaped cakes to the door-keeper of the gates of the Egyptian Elysium, is the famous and en- lightened Psammetichus I. himself, in whose person the Egyptian line of Saite( 1 ) kings was restored. He threw off the Assyrian yoke (B.C. 664), and united the dismembered country; but not without the aid of mercenaries, supplied by Gyges, King of Lydia. Assurbanipal says, in one of his cuneiform inscrip- tions, that he prayed to Assur and Istar his deities, that for the aid thus given, the dead body of Gryges might be thrown before his enemies, and his servants carried into captivity ; and he further says that the deities heard his prayer, that these things came to pass, and that the Cimmerian enemy swept the whole of Lydia. Psammetichus deeply offended his Egyptian troops by employing and favouring these foreign auxiliaries, so that when a favourable op- portunity arrived, 240,000 soldiers immigrated to Ethiopia. Psammetichus pursued after and came up with the deserters, and entreated them not to forsake ( J ) So called from their capital, Sa'is, in Lower Egypt. THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 101 their country ; but they persisted in their purpose, unmoved by his appeals. After this grievous loss of population, Psammeti- chus I. turned his attention, amongst other things, to the embellishment and extension of the temples of Thebes, Memphis, and other cities, and erected a special edifice for the worship of the bull Apis. The arts again flourished, and the nation almost en- joyed afresh the '' good old times" of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. The Greek foreigners obtained a firm footing in the country, and were held in high esteem by Psammetichus. He even went so far as to have some Egyptian children instructed in the Greek language ; and allowed Greeks to come to Egypt to study the various institutions of the country ; and many of those great changes in the arts, manners, and customs of the Egyptians, which afterwards became so conspicuous, may be referred to Grecian influence. His reign lasted fifty-four years. Before describing remains of a later date, we must continue our slight chronological outline. Psammetichus I. was followed by his son Necho, the sailor king, who first, it is said, undertook to explore the African coast. For this purpose he had some ships or triremes specially fitted out, and manned with Phoenician seamen. He considerably improved the commerce of the country, and tried to re-open the canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, but without more than a partial success ; 120,000 labourers were lost in the attempt. This is the Pharaoh-nechoh mentioned in the 2nd of 102 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, Kings, who " went up against the king of Assyria, to the river Euphrates/' slew Josiah, and made Eliakim king in his stead ; and from whom, shortly after, ^Nebuchadrezzar took part of his foreign pos- sessions, confining him to Egypt. Psammetichus II. succeeded Necho (B.C. 594). In this Pharaoh's reign came the ambassadors from Elis to consult about the Olympic games. Some of the temples in Thebes and Lower Egypt were enlarged by him. He made war upon the Ethiopians, and died shortly after, having reigned only six years. Specimens of the sculpture of his time have descended to us ; the figures are remarkable for roundness and bulkiness (see 489, 491). After him came A pries, the Pharaoh-hophra mentioned by Jeremiah (B.C. 588). According to Herodotus, his reign began prosperously. He sent an army against Sidon. and with his powerful fleet was able to encounter the king of Tyre in a sea-fight ; and, according to Diodorus, he took Sidon by storm, and reduced the whole of the Phomician coast. But his suc- cesses seem to have been fatal to his character, and he became cruel and tyrannical. His contempo- rary, Ezekiel, calls him " the great dragon that lieth in the midst of the rivers." His tyranny estranged the affection of his subjects, and at Gyrene, whither he had sent an army on an unsuccessful and, there- fore, unpopular expedition, the troops broke into open revolt. He despatched Amasis, his friend, to reason with the men, and bring them back to their allegi- ance ; but Amasis, betraying his king, placed himself THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 103 at the head of the troops, and marched against Apries. An act of excessive cruelty hastened the king's downfall. Patarbemis, a courtier, was sent to Amasis to persuade him to lay down his arms. Amasis refused to listen to the courtier, and on the return of Patarhemis without Amasis, the king, in his anger and disappointment, ordered that the nose and ears of his unfortunate messenger should be cut off. The Egyptians, hitherto faithful, were disgusted at this outrage, and many went over at once to the party of Amasis. King Apries brought out his 30,000 Carian and Ionian mercenaries from Sa'is. A battle was fought, and he was defeated and taken prisoner. After a short confinement in his own palace, he was strangled, and his remains were buried in the royal temple in his favourite city of Sais. Thus were fulfilled the words of Jeremiah, in which retribution is prophesied to come upon Pharaoh-hophra for his treachery to his Jewish allies. Other accounts, how- ever, relate that Amasis was set on the throne by Nebuchadrezzar, after the latter had defeated Apries. Amasis, not being of the royal blood, was at first unpopular among the Egyptians ; but he is said to have overcome their prejudices and gained their confidence by the following ingenious device. He converted his golden foot-pan into the image of one of the gods, which, in course of time, the people wor- shipped. He then told them the origin of the image, and remarked : "It had gone with him as with the foot-pan. If he was a private person formerly, yet now he had come to be their king, and so lie bade 104 A HAXDY-ROOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. them honour and reverence him ; " and they did so accordingly. It was the habit of Amasis to transact all the business that was brought before him in the early part of the day, and to indulge for the rest of the day in drinking and feasting with his guests. For this he was expostulated with ; but, according to Herodotus, he was ready with an answer. " Bow- men/' said the Pharaoh, " bend their bows when they wish to shoot, unbrace them when the shooting is over. Were they kept always strung they would break, and fail the archer in time of need. So it is with men. If they give themselves constantly to serious work, and never indulge awhile in pastime or sport, they lose their senses, and become mad or moody. Knowing this, I divide my life between pastime and business." Egypt nourished exceedingly under the rule of this " common man " of great common sense. Herodotus tells us that in the time of Amasis there were 20,000 inhabited cities in Egypt. He made one important conquest, that of the island of Cyprus ; but his energies were chiefly given to the internal affairs of his country. The monuments which he erected were of the most beautiful description, especially those with which he enriched Sai's, his favourite city. He built the gate- way of the Temple of Minerva, at Sais, remarkable for its extent and height, and presented a large number of colossal statues and several sphinxes to the temple, besides immense blocks of stone for repairs. The monolithic temple of Sais was also his work. It took 2,000 .men three years to convey THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 105 this single block from the quarry at Elephantine, in Upper Egypt, to its resting-place a distance of ahout 700 miles. Amasis presented a recumbent mono- lithic statue 75 feet long to the temple of Phtah at Memphis; he built the temple of Isis in that city, and, in addition, placed offerings in numerous temples. The Greeks were greatly favoured by Amasis; and amongst other privileges, were allowed to erect a Hellenium to their gods. The close of his life was disturbed by the invasion of the Persians. The sepulchral altar dedicated by him at Sa'is to Osiris, the judge of the dead, is now in the Egyptian Gral- lery (94). His daughter, the Queen Tasetenhesi, is represented in the unfinished statue No. 775. We have now reached that part of the gallery which is occupied chiefly by the Sarcophagi the receptacles for the embalmed bodies of Egypt's greatest and wealthiest. The black basalt sarco- phagus, 86, was prepared for Hanata, an officer of the palace of Apries or Hophra. Hieroglyphics are inscribed on the edge, and inside is placed a small kneeling statue of Hanata (134); he holds a small shrine of Neith, or Minerva, the Mistress of Sai's. No. 32 is a magnificent sarcophagus : it once held the remains of the queen of Amasis, who was the daughter of Psammetichus III. and his con- sort Nitocris. Her name was Aiikhsenpiraneferhat. Both the sarcophagus and its cover are in excellent condition, and are carved over with hieroglyphics and figures. The carving on the outside of the lid represents the queen as the goddess Athor (Yenus), 106 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. with the flail, and crook or crosier, of Osiris ; that on the inside, represents a goddess with arms out- stretched, and with three discs or planets (symbolising the heavens, to which the face of the dead would he turned) marked upon her; that on tLc hottom of the chest is Athor again, with a bird on her head. This sarcophagus was discovered in an excavation 130 feet deep, made near Thebes, behind the palace of Barneses II. In the window 48 and 49 is the sepulchral tablet of this queen ; she adores the god Amenra ; her chamberlain, Sheshonk or Shishak, attends her. The tablet was also found at Thebes. The black granite sarcophagus, 23, is that of Hapimen, a royal scribe under the twenty-sixth dynasty. This ponderous sepulchre was found at Cairo, where it 'had been used by the Turks as the basin of a fountain near one of their mosques. It became a meeting-place for lovers, and was known as "The Lovers' Fountain," and, at the same time, its waters were said to be a cure for hapless love. The edge of the sarcophagus has been used as a grind- stone, as we see by the grooves and scratches at the top. The hole in the head received the fountain- tube. In the carving outside, a pair of eyes overlooks a kind of fence, a symbol of the omnipercipience and omnipresence of Glod. The figures are those of Anubis, whose profile has been altered ; of the -four guardian spirits of the embalmed body, and of Isis and Nephthys, who are each rolling a globe along. Numerous divinities are ranged round the inside, and at the bottom a goddess with outstretched THE EGYPTIAN DEPARTMENT. 107 arms receives the dead. The hieroglyphics on the exterior consist of the full description of Hapimen, addresses to the deities, and the 77th chapter of the Eitual, " the Book of the Euler of the Hidden Place/' in which the deceased announces, in meta- phorical language, that he has raised himself as a hawk, coming out of his egg, has brought his heart out of the hill of the east, and alighted in the cabin; and requesting, at the entreaty of certain companions of the gods, that glory may be given to him, rises and makes himself entirely as a good hawk of gold. No. 2 is the much less pretentious coffin of Petenesi, a bard of the twenty- sixth dynasty. It is in ar- ragonite marble, mummy-shaped, and in good pre- servation. The hieroglyphics down the front are in this case also descriptive of the metamorphosis of the dead into a golden hawk. The date of the small re-painted sarcophagus opposite this is not known. At the close of the reign of Amasis, and under the leadership of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, the Persians had reduced Egypt to a province of Persia. The twenty-seventh dynasty (B.C. 525) was composed of Persian rulers Cambyses and his seven successors. Cambyses is reputed to have taken Pelusium by the unfair stratagem of putting in the vanguard of his army a number of cats and dogs (sacred to Pasht and Anubis), which, of course, the Egyptian soldiers did not dare to kill ; and when he was established as king over Egypt, to have taken delight in showing liis contempt for the Egyptian religion : at the same time he adopted some Egyptian 108 A HANDY-BOOK OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. manners and customs. Throughout this period the people made strenuous and repeated efforts (in which they were assisted by the Greeks) to free themselves from the Persian yoke, and finally succeeded in ex- pelling their conquerors. Amyrta3us became Pharaoh on the expulsion of the Persians, and was the first of the twenty-eighth dynasty (B.C. 411). In the twenty- ninth dynasty were Nepherites, Acoris, Psammuthis, Muthis, and Nepherites II. The first reigned six years; the second thirteen; the others ruled only two years and four months in all. The temples of the gods and the internal affairs of the country were not entirely neglected during the unsettled times we have spoken of. The first king of the thirtieth dynasty was Nectanebes ; his coffin (No. 10) is the largest in the gallery; his likeness is given in the small statue with Amenra, No. 70