Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/335

 The Principal Conventions in Egyptian Sculpture. 305 edge, the sculptors of the New Empire succeeded in cutting hieroglyphs upon a certain number of works in the harder rocks. Perhaps, too, iron may by that time have come into more general use, and they may have learnt how to give it extra hardness by tempering. But when granite and kindred materials had to be cut, the work was commenced with point and hammer as above described. In the case of some of those very large figures which had been rather roughly blocked out in the first instance, the final polishing has not quite obliterated the hollows left by those rude instruments in the stone, especially where the journeyman has struck a little too hard. An instance of this may be seen on the red granite sphinx in the Louvre (Fig. 41, Vol. I.). M. Soldi is inclined to think that at one period at least the Egyptians used stone weapons rather than metal ones in their attacks upon the harder rocks. He tells us that he himself has succeeded in cuttingf oranites of various hardness with a common flint from the neighbourhood of Paris. He has done the same with diorite, both by driving off small chips from it and by pulverizing its surface with the help of jasper. " This method," he adds, " is excessively long and tedious, and the jasper, though harder than the diorite, is greatly damaged in the process. But yet it proves that a statue may be produced in such fashion, by dint of a great consumption of time and patience.'' ^ We must also remember that the hardest rocks are easier to cut when they are first drawn from the quarry, than after they have been exposed for a time to the air. The colours in the bas-reliefs are too much conventionalized to be of any use in helping us to determine the material of which Eg)^ptian implements were made. But the forms of all the tools of which we have been speaking are to be found there. A bas- relief in the tomb of Ti, in which the manufacture of sepulchral statues is shown, is the oldest monument w^hich may be quoted in support of our remarks (Fig. 250). On the left two journeymen are roughly blocking out a statue. Each holds in his left hand ^ a long and slender tool which cannot be other than a chisel ; this he strikes with a hammer. Two more are at work polishing another statue, upon which the chisel has finished its work. It is im- possible to say whether the egg-shaped tools which they use are of - It has escaped M. Perrot's notice that one is left-handed.— Ed. VOL. II. R R
 * Soldi, Les Arts Afeconnus, p. 492. (i vol. Svo, Leroux. iSSr.)