Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/198

 174 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. general effect would have been unsatisfactory. The Egyptians had no such fear. They made lavish use of gold in the decora- tion of their buildings. According to the inscription which covers the four sides of the pedestal under the obelisk of Hatasu at Karnak, the pyramidion was covered " with pure gold taken from the chiefs of the nations,'^ which seems to imply either a cap of gilded copper, like that of the obelisk at Heliopolis, or a golden sphere upon the very apex. An object of this latter kind is figured in some of the bas-reliefs at Sakkarah. Besides this there is no doubt that the obelisk in question was gilded from head to foot. " We remark, in the first place, that the beds of the hiero- glyphs were carefully polished ; secondly, that the four faces of the obelisk itself were left comparatively rough, from which we should conclude that the latter alone received this costly embellishment, the hieroglyphs preserving the natural colour of the granite." ^ In that transplantation of which the Ptolemies first set the example, the obelisk at Paris was deprived of its original pedestal, as we have seen ; it was erected in an open space of such extent that its dimensions seem almost insignificant ; it was placed upon a pedestal which, neither in dimensions nor design, has anything Egyptian about it ; and finally it was deprived of its metal finial. It can therefore Q-'ive but little idea of the effect which the obelisks produced while they still remained in the places for which they were designed. The artistic instinct of Theophile Gautier was quite alive to this fact when he penned his fanciful but charming lines on the Nostalgic d'Obdisquc. A curious fact has been ascertained in connection with the obelisks of Luxor. Their faces present a slight convexity, the total protuberance at the base being rather more than an inch and three-tenths. It is probable that the same arrangement would be found in other obelisks if they were carefully examined. Its explanation is easy. If the surfaces had been absolute planes they would have been made to appear concave by the sharpness of the corners. It was necessary, therefore, to give them a gentle entasis which should gradually diminish towards the summit, completely disappearing by the time the pyramidion was reached.- ' Mariette, Itinerah-e de hi Ilaufe-Egypte, third edition, ]). 142. 2 Description, Antiquitcs, vol. ii. p. 369. — Charles Bi.anx, Voyai:;e dans la Haute- Egypte, p. 150.