Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/334

 304 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. " Granite," says M. Soldi, " is most easily worked by ham- mering its surface. To begin with, a heavy tool called a point is brought into play. This is driven into the material by repeated blows from the hammer, starring the surface of the granite, and driving off pieces on all sides. We believe that this point was the habitual instrument of the Egyptians, not only in roughing out their blocks, but even in modelling a head-dress or sinking a hieroglyph. Such a tool could not trace clear and firm contours like those of the chisel, and the peculiar character of its workman- ship is to be easily recognized in the broken and irregular outline of many of the monuments in the Louvre." Another tool employed upon granite in these days is a kind of hammer, the head of which consists of several points symmetrically arranged. We may judge of its effects by the appearance of our curb stones, which are dressed by it ; there is nothing to show that it was used by the Egyptians. A kind of hatchet with two blades is also used for the same work, and it appears to have been employed by the Egyptians, " who used it hammer fashion, beating the surface of the material, and driving off chips of various sizes according to the weight of the instrument. By these means the desired form could be given with sufficient rapidity and precision to make the chisel superfluous." Most of the Egyptian statues in hard stone seem to have been modelled by the help of an instrument of this kind. " The surfaces produced by such tools as these had to be polished, the sketchy roughness left by the point had to be taken down ; we find therefore that the Egyptians always polished their statues." The Egyptians do not seem to have known either the file or the rasp, a variety of file which is now greatly employed. The dry markings left by those tools are nowhere to be seen. In the case of broad surfaces it is probable that a polish was given by hand boards sprinkled with powdered sandstone and wetted through a hole in the middle. Flat stones may have sometimes replaced these wooden disks. When a more brilliant polish was required, emery must have been used. This substance was found in abundance in the islands of the Archipelago, and must have been brought to Egypt by the Phoenicians. Without it the Egyptian artists could not have produced their engraved gems. By dint of continually retempering the bronze and renewing its