Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/148

 126 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. from the bark ; baskets and even boats from the stalk/ As for the processes by which the precious fabric which the Greeks called fic^Xos was obtained they will be found fully described in the paper of Dureau de-la- Malle Sur le Papyrus et la Fabrication du Papier? Our v^qx^ paper is derived irom papyrus, and forms a slight but everlasting monument to the great services rendered to civilization by the inventive genius of the Egyptians. The importation of the papyrus, which followed the establishment of direct relations between Greece and Egypt in the time of the Salt princes,'^ exercised the greatest influence upon the development of Greek thought. It created prose composition, and with it history, philosophy, and science. The two plants which we have mentioned were so specially reverenced by the Egyptians that they constituted them severally into the signs by which the two great divisions of the country were indicated in their writings. Tq papyrtcs w^as the emblem of the Delta, in whose lazy waters it luxuriated, and the lotus that of the Thebaid.^ Besides this testimony to their importance, the careful descrip- tions left by the ancient travellers in Egypt, Herodotus and Strabo, also show the estimation in which these two plants were held by the Egyptians ; the palm alone could contest their well- earned supremacy. It is easy, then, to understand how the artist and ornamentist were led to make use of their graceful forms. We have already pointed out many instances of such employment, and we are far from underrating its importance, but we have yet to explain the method followed, and the kind and degree of imitation which the Egyptian artist allowed himself The lotus especially has been found everywhere by writers upon Egypt.^ The pointed leaves painted upon the lower parts ^ PiERRET, Dictionnaire d' Archeologie Egyptienne, see Fa/>jr?/s. Upon the different varieties of papyrus, see also Wilkinson, vol. ii. p. 121 ; pp. 179-189 ; and Ebers, ALgypten, pp. 126, 127. ^ Memoires de P Academic des Inscriptions, vol. xix. p. 140, with one plate. 3 Egger, Des Origines de la Frose dans la Litt'erature Grecque. {Memoires de Litt'erature Ancienne, xi.) ^ Description de PEgypte ; Hist. Naturelle, o. ii. p. 311. Antiqiates, vol. i. Description generate de Thebes, p. 133: "Who can doubt that they wished to imitate the lotus in its entirety? The shaft of the column is the stem, the capital the flower, and, still more obviously, the lower part of the column seems to us an exact representation of that of the lotus and of plants in general."
 * Maspero, Histoire Anciemie, p. 8.