Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/320

 290 A History OF Art in Ancient Egypt and others belonging to the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. Their character may be divined from two examples. "In 1877 the Louvre obtained the stone of a ring finely engraved on each side with representations of the Pharaoh Thothmes II. It is a green jasper, quadrangular in shape. On one side the Pharaoh, designated by his name Aa-kheper-ra, has seized a lion by the tail and is about to strike it with his mace. Fig. 243. — Intaglio upon jasper. Louvre. Actual size. Fir,. 244. — Reverse of the same intaijlio. This scene is emblematic of the victorious and fearless strength of the s'overeign. Its rarity is extreme. Its significance is enforced by the word kuen or valour (Fig. 243). On the other side Thothmes is shown discharging his arrows from the commanding heieht of his chariot against the enemies who face him ; one falls backwards, another is being trampled under the feet of the king's horses (Fig. 244). Such a representation is comnion enough upon Fjg. 245. — Seal of Anuais. Louvre. Actual size. the outsides of the temples, but it is not often found upon little objects like these." ^ Sometimes the ring is all of one material, characters and figures being cut in the metal of which it consists. It is so in the case of ^ P. PiERRET, Uiie Ficrre Gravce an Noin du Roi cV Egyptc TJioiitincs II. (^Gazette ArcJieologique, 1878, p. 41). This stone is placed in Case P of the Salle Historicpie in the Louvre. M. Lenormant lias kindly placed at our disposal the cliches of the double en"ravinf' which was made for M. Pierrot's article.