Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/204

 174 Egyptian Sculpture. Considerable portions of the avenues of colossal granite sphinxes leading up to the temples are still to be seen at Karnak and elsewhere; the grand seated figures of the Pharaohs guarding the entrances at Karnak, Ipsambul, etc., are in good preservation. The pair of colossal seated figures (70 feet high) erected by Amunothph III., at Medinet-Abou, one of which is the world-famed statue of Memnon; the still larger statue of Ramses II. — which was broken by Cambyses — the fragments of which remain in the court of the temple at Medinet-Abou ; and the four gigantic figures (65 feet high) of the same king carved out of the rock at Ipsambul (Fig. 9) are the most gigantic speci- mens of sculpture that were, ever executed.* It would be impossible in a work like the present merely to enumerate the various Egyptian antiquities contained in the British Museum, the Louvre, and the Berlin Museum. The principal are colossal statues, in which the arms are generally fixed to the chest and the legs connected together ; smaller statues of kings, divinities, and priests; bas-reliefs either from tombs or temples; stelce or tablets engraved with historical inscriptions either in relief or in intaglio ; sarcophagi, boxes of granite, basalt, or stone, constructed to contain mummies, and covered with hieroglyphics; pottery f of different kinds, such as studied at the Crystal Palace. t Baked earthenware {terra cotta) vases were in use in Egypt in the most remote ages. The Egyptians manufactured a red ware, a pale red or yellow ware, and a shining or polished red ware. The finest Egyptian pottery was, however, the porcelain, made of a very fine sand, loosely fused, and covered with a thick silicious glaze of various colours. A beau- tiful blue tint was sometimes given to this ware by the use of oxide of copper.
 * Reproductions on a small scale of many of these works may be