See upon this subject M. Wolfgang Helbig's Untersuchungen ueber die
Campanische Wandmalerei. Leipsic, 1873. M. Boissier has summed up
the leading opinions in this matter in an interesting article in the Révue des
Deux Mondes, entitled Les Peintures d'Herculaneum et de Pompéi
(October 1, 1879).
Rapporto intorno i Vasi Volcenti ( Annali dell' Instituto di Corrispondenza
Archeologica, vol. iii. p. 5).
One of the first antiquaries to whom it occurred that the examination of
these little objects might lead to profitable results was the Comte de
Caylus, a savant who is in some danger of being forgotten, and who
deserves that his claims to our gratitude should be recalled to the public
mind. The work in which he has brought together the fruits of a long life
spent in travelling, in collecting, and in examining the technical processes
of the ancients, both by himself and with the help of specialists, may be
consulted with advantage ( Recueil d' Antiquites égyptiennes, étrusques,
grecques, et romains, 6 vols. 4to. 1752-64. Supplement, 1 vol. 4to. 1767).
Recherches sur les Figures de Femmes voilées dans l'Art Grec, 4to. Paris,
1873. Recherches sur un Groupe de Praxitèle, d'après les Figurines de
terre cuite, 8vo. Paris, 1875. Les Figurines antiques de terre cuite du
Musée du Louvre, 4to. 1878, Morel.
For the history of the Instituto Archeologico, the notice written for the
celebration, in 1879, of the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation, may be
consulted. It is from the pen of Michaëlis, one of the most learned of
modern German archæologists, and bears the following title: Storia dell'
Instituto Archeologico Germano, 1829-1879, strenna pubblicata nell'
occasione della festa del 21 Aprile, 1879, dalla direzione centrale dell'
Instituto Archeologico, 8vo. Roma, 1879. It was also published in German.
An article by M. Ernest Vinet in the volume entitled L'Art et l'Archéologie
(pp. 74-91, 8vo. Didier, 1874), upon the origin and labours of the Instituto,
will also be found interesting.
Léo Joubert, Essais de critique et d'histoire (Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1 vol.
1863, p. 4). We shall never cease to regret that politics have deprived
literature of this judicious and widely instructed critic.
Kunstarchæologische Werke. Berlin, Calvary, 18 mo. 1873.
Handbuch der Archæologie der Kunst, 1 vol. 8vo.
The French translation, from the pen of M. P. Nicard, forms three volumes
of the collection of handbooks known under the name of the Encyclopédie
Roret. It appeared in 1841, so that the translator was unable to make use
of the additions and corrections with which Welcker enriched the edition of
1848. But M. Nicard's edition has one great advantage over the German
versions in the complete tables with which it is provided. The best English
translation is that by J. Leitch, the second edition of which appeared in
1850.—Ed.
Stark died at Heidelberg in October, 1879. The title of his work was
identical with that of Müller: Handbuch der Archæologie der Kunst. The first
256 pages of the first volume were published in 1878 with the sub-title:
Einleitender und grundlegender Theil (Leipsic, Engelmann, 8vo). A second
instalment appeared in 1880, by which the introduction was completed.
The entire work, which will not be continued, was to have formed three
volumes. We explained its plan and made some remarks upon the part
already published in the Revue Critique of July 14, 1879.
Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, with Comparative Remarks on the Ancient
and Modern Geography of that Country (1 vol. in 8vo. London, Murray,
1821, pp. 31-33).
A Description of some Ancient Monuments with Inscriptions still existing in
Lydia and Phrygia. London, 1842, in folio.
Timæus, p. 22.
Dictionnaire archéologique de la Gaule, vol. i., Cavernes, figure 28. Al.
Bertrand, Archéologie celtique et gauloise (1 vol. 8vo. Didier, 1876, p. 68).
Schliemann, Mycenæ, see figs. 33 and 213; Cesnola, Cyprus, see pls. 44
and 46.
Archæological Survey of India, 3 vols. 1871-73.
Archæologische Zeitung, 1876, p. 90. Die Griechische Kunst in Indien.
The Louvre has lately acquired some curious examples of this art.
Histoire de l'Art; Huber's preface to his translation, p. xxxii.
The word "plastic" is used throughout this work in its widest significance,
and is not confined to works "in the round."—Ed.
Herodotus, ii. 7.
Mariette, Itineraire de la haute Égypte, p. 10 (edition of 1872, 1 vol.
Alexandria, Mourès).
The river should rise to this height upon the Nilometer at Cairo if there is to
be a "good Nile." In upper Egypt the banks of the river are much higher
than in middle Egypt. In order to flow over those banks it must rise to a
height of some eleven or twelve metres, and unless it rises more than
thirteen metres it will not have a proper effect.
This work of Champollion's, to which we are greatly indebted, is entitled:
Monuments de l'Égypte et de la Nubie, 4 vols. folio. It contains 511 plates,
partly coloured, and was published between the years 1833 and 1845. The
drawings for the plates were made by members of the great scientific
expedition of which Champollion was the head. Many of those drawings
were from the pencil of Nestor L'Hôte, one of those who have most
sympathetically rendered the Egyptian monuments.
This advantage was thoroughly appreciated by the ancients. Diodorus
Siculus, speaking of the Egyptians, says that "At the beginning of all
things, the first men were born in Egypt, in consequence of the happy
climate of the country and the physical properties of the Nile, whose
waters, by their natural fertility and their power of producing various kinds
of aliment, were well fitted to nourish the first beings who received the
breath of life.... It is evident that from the foundation of the world Egypt
was, of all countries, the most favourable to the generation of men and
women, by the excellent constitution of its soil" (i. 10).
In all ages the rod has, in Egypt, played an important part in the collection
of the taxes. In this connection M. Lieblein has quoted a passage from the
well-known letter from the chief guardian of the archives of Ameneman to
the scribe Pentaour, in which he says: "The scribe of the port arrives at the
station; he collects the tax; there are agents with rattans, and negroes with
branches of palm; they say 'Give us some corn!' and they are not to be
repulsed. The peasant is bound and sent to the canal; he is driven on with
violence, his wife is bound in his presence, his children are stripped; as for
his neighbours, they are far off and are busy over their own harvest." ( Les
Récits
de
Recolte
dans
l'ancienne
Égypte,
comme
Éléments
chronologique, in Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à
l'Archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes, t. i. p. 149).
Robiou, Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient, ch. v.
Herodotus, ii. 4.
Maspero, Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient, pp. 6 and 7. In such
general explanations as are unavoidable we shall content ourselves with
paraphrasing M. Maspero.
Their exceptional breadth of shoulder has been confirmed by an
examination of the skeletons in the mummies. See on this subject a
curious note in Bonomi's Some Observations on the Skeleton of an
Egyptian Mummy ( Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol.
iv. pp. 251-253).
Maspero, Histoire ancienne, p. 16.
Notice des principaux Monuments exposés dans les Galeries provisoires
du Musée d' Antiquités égyptiennes de S. A. le Vice-Roi, à Boulaq (1876),
No. 492. The actual statue holds the bâton in its left hand.
Notice des principaux Monuments exposés dans les Galeries provisoires
du Musée d' Antiquités égyptiennes de S. A. le Vice-Roi, à Boulaq (1876),
p. 582. With the exception of a few woodcuts from photographs the
contents of the museums at Cairo and Boulak have been reproduced from
drawings by M. J. Bourgoin. The Boulak Museum will be referred to by the
simple word Boulak. The reproductions of objects in the Louvre are all from
the pencil of M. Saint-Elme Gautier.
Maspero, Histoire ancienne, p. 17.
Histoire des Langues sémitiques, Book i. ch. ii. § 4.
See Lepsius, Ueber die Annahme eines sogenannten prehistorischen
Steinalters in Ægypten (in the Zeitschrift für Ægyptische Sprache, 1870, p.
113, et seq.).
Maspero, p. 18.
Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l'Orient, p. 53. We believe that the
division proposed by M. Maspero is, in fact, the best. It is the most
suggestive of the truth as to the successive displacements of the political
centre and the movement of history. We shall, however, have no hesitation
in making use of the terms Ancient, Middle, and New Empire, as occasion
arises.
Mariette, Aperçu de l'Histoire d'Égypte, p. 66.
Brugsch-Bey, Histoire de l'Égypt, pp. 6 and 7. Maspero's Histoire ancienne,
p. 382, may also be consulted upon the character of the Ethiopian kingdom
and the monuments of Napata. A good idea of this process of degradation
may be gained by merely glancing through the plates to part v. of Lepsius's
Denkmæler; plate 6, for example, shows what the caryatid became at
Napata.
Maspero, Histoire ancienne, p. 58. This affiliation of the king to the god
was more than a figure of speech. In an inscription which is reproduced
both at Ipsamboul and at Medinet-Abou, Ptah is made to speak in the
following terms of Rameses II. and Rameses III. respectively: "I am thy
father, as a god I have begotten thee; all thy members are divine; when I
approached thy royal mother I took upon me the form of the sacred ram of
Mendes" (line 3rd). This curious text has lately been interpreted by E.
Naville ( Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. vii. pp. 119-138). The
monarchy of the Incas was founded upon an almost identical belief.
See the account of the visit to Heliopolis of the conquering Ethiopian,
Piankhi-Mer-Amen; we shall quote the text of this famous inscription in our
chapter upon the Egyptian temple.
Fr. Lenormant, Manuel d'Histoire ancienne, t. 1, pp. 485-486. The most
celebrated of these is the famous Chamber of Ancestors from Karnak,
which is now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris.
The beaters for the great hunts which took place in the Delta and the
Fayoum were procured in the same fashion. These hunts were among the
favourite pleasures of the kings and the great lords. See Maspero, Le
Papyrus Mallet, p. 58 (in Recueil de Travaux, etc. t. 1).
The work to which we here refer is the Histoire de l'Art Égyptien d'après les
Monuments, 2 vols. folio. Arthus Bertrand, 1878. As the plates are not
numbered, we can only refer to them generally.
"The foundations of the great temple at Abydos, commenced by Seti I. and
finished by Rameses II., consist of but a single course of generally ill-
balanced masonry. Hence the settling which has taken place, and the deep
fissure which divides the building in the direction of its major axis."—
Mariette, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, p. 59. The same writer speaks of
Karnak in a similar strain: "The Pharaonic temples are built, as a rule, with
extreme carelessness. The western pylon, for instance, fell because it was
hollow, which made the inclination of the walls a source of weakness
instead of strength."— Itineraire, p. 179.
Herodotus, ii. 172. For an earlier epoch, see the history of a certain Ahmes,
son of Abouna, as it is narrated upon his sepulchral inscription, which
dates from the reign of Amosis, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty (De
Rougé, Mémoire sur l'Inscription d'Ahmes, Chef des Nautoniers, 4to. 1851,
and Brugsch, Histoire d'Égypte, t. i. p. 80). Starting as a private soldier for
the war against the Shepherds, undertaken for the re-conquest of Avaris,
he was noticed by the king for his frequent acts of gallantry, and promoted
until he finally became something in the nature of high admiral.
Louvre, c. i. Cf. Maspero, un Gouverneur de Thèbes au temps de la
douzième dynastie.
Quoted by Maspero, Conférence sur l'Histoire des Âmes dans l'Égypte
ancienne, d'après les Monuments du Musée du Louvre ( Association
scientifique de France, Bulletin hebdomadaire, No. 594; 23 Mars, 1879).
Translated by Maspero ( la Grande Inscription de Beni-Hassan in the
Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l'Archéologie égyptienne et
assyrienne (t. i. pp. 173-174)).
Brugsch-Bey, Histoire d'Égypte, pp. 14, 15.
The saying of one of the characters of Petronius might be applied to Egypt:
"This country is so thickly peopled with divinities that it is easier to find a
god than a man." The place held by religious observances in the daily life
of Egypt is clearly indicated by Herodotus (ii. 37): "The Egyptians," he
says, "are very religious; they surpass all other nations in the adoration
with which they regard their deities."
Maspero, Histoire ancienne, pp. 26, 27.
This formula frequently occurs in the texts. To cite but one occasion, we
find upon a Theban invocation to Amen, translated by P. Pierret ( Recueil
de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l'Archéologie égyptienne et
assyrienne, t. i. p. 70), at the third line of the inscription: "Sculptor, thou
modelest thine own members; thou begettest them, not having thyself
been begotten."
See the fine hymns quoted and translated by M. Maspero in his Histoire
ancienne, pp. 30-37.
Several of the bronzes which we reproduce may belong to the Ptolemaic
epoch; but they are repetitions of types and attributes which had been
fixed for many centuries by tradition. It is in this capacity chiefly that we
reproduce them, as examples of those forms which seemed to the
Egyptian imagination to offer the most satisfactory emblems of their gods.
In his work entitled Des deux Yeux du Disque solaire, M. Grébaut seems to
have very clearly indicated how far we are justified in saying that Egyptian
religious speculation at times approached monotheism ( Recueil de
Travaux, etc. , t. i. p. 120).
Herodotus, ii. 75-86.
We do not mean to say that the higher qualities of the Egyptian religion
were then altogether lost. In Roman Egypt the fetish superstitions were no
doubt predominant, but still it had not lost all that theological erudition
which it had accumulated by its own intellectual energy. In an inscription
cut in the time of Philip the Arab, we find an antique hymn transcribed in
hieroglyphs upon the wall of a temple. We find abstract and speculative
ideas in all those Egyptian books which have come down to us, in a form
which betrays the last two centuries of the Empire. Alexandria had its
Egyptian Serapeum by the side of its Greek one. Monuments are to be
found there which are Egyptian in every particular. Gnosticism was
particularly successful in Egypt, which was predestined to accept it by the
whole of its past. Certain doctrines of Plotinus are thus best explained.
More than one purely E