Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/410

 374 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. decoration are in the store-rooms of the Boulak Museum. They deserve more publicity than they have received. Most of them are purely decorative in character and bear designs of which an idea may be gained from three pieces of faience which are now in the British Museum. Two have graceful rosettes, while the third is covered with a pattern resembling a spider's web (Figs. 303—305).^ Certain buildings in Memphis seem to have been decorated in the same fashion. " The most curious thing brought by me from Mitrahineh," writes Jomard, "is a fragment of enamelled and sculptured terra-cotta, which probably belonged to a wall lined with that fine material. It is remarkable for the brilliant blue, the blue of the lapis-lazuli, which covers it The outlines of the hieroglyphs are as firm, and their edges as sharp as if they were the work of a skilful carver, and had never been subjected to the heat of a furnace. They are of blue stucco, inlaid into the Figs. 303 — 305. — Enamelled earthenware plaques in the British Museum. body of the enamel. I look upon this kind of decoration as analogous to that of the Cairo divans, in which we see walls covered with earthenware tiles which are painted with various ornameaits and subjects." ^ Now that attention has been attracted to this kind of decoration, traces of it will no doubt be found at many other points of Ancient Egypt.^ ^ I am told that a circular base, like that of a column of a table for offerings, was discovered in the same building. It is entirely covered with this same faience. 2 Descriptio7i^ Aiitiquitcs, vol. v. p. 543, and Atlas, vol. v. plate 87, Fig. i. ^ The collection of M. Gustave Posno, which will, we hope, be soon absorbed into that of the Louvre, contains many enamelled bricks from decorative compositions like those in the stepped pyramid and the temple of Rameses III. (Nos. 8, 9, 11, 20, 58, 59, 60, 61 of the Catalogue published at Cairo in 1874). One of these, which has a yellow enamel, bears in relief the oval and the royal banner of Papi, of the sixth dynasty. Another has the name Seti I. ; others those of Rameses III. and Sheshonk. The reliefs upon which prisoners' heads appear must have come from Tell-el-Yahoudeh.