Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/415

 392 History of Art in Antiquity. head? were shaved. The efTort to reproduce with minute pre> cision one of the many varieties of the quaint, hieratic head-dresses of the Delta is very evident The one he chose was the diadem Egyptologists call haies, which appears as the exclusive attribute of Thot in the older monuments ; but from the twentieth dynasty it invariably forms the head-gear of kings and gods alike. Is the execution of this bas-relief to be carried back to the reign of Cyrus, as at first sight the legend which accompanied it would tempt one to do ? We think not The idea of a kind of hypothesis is not likely to have been started until after the death of the king. Moreover, the Egyptian elements about it are helpful in setting us on the right scent ; in the time of Cyrus Persia had no relation with Egypt It might even be supposed that the forms in question were derived from one of those Egyptian or pseudo-Egyptian articles, such as Phoenicia imported everywhere, but is it not more natural to believe that the idea of these borrowings was suggested by those figures of princes and deities with which the edifices of Egypt were covered ? In this case, the sculpture would date in the reign of Cambyses, perhaps still later. The son of Cyrus must have wished to put a finishing hand to such constructions as had been commenced by his father, and the notion of investing him with something of the outward appearance of the great Pharaohs of a former age was probably conceived during his Egyptian expe- dition. If it should be urged that the last days of Cambyses were spent amidst too much disquiet and turmoil to have permitted him to give his attention to a work of this kind, we can fall back on Darius as a likely person. By his victory over the Magi, he had brought back the crown into the family of the Achaemenidae, when he must have been anxious to do homage to the hero whose honours had devolved upon him. In order to appear before the world as the rightful heir, what better device could be imagined than dutifully to complete an edifice left unfinished by his illustrious kinsman, and exhibit his effigy in a fashion that should enhance the glory of his name ? True, the style of this work greatly differs from that of the sculptures at Persepolis, nor is the treatment of the drapery in the same taste. Its author had received no lessons except from Assyria and Egypt ; he still belonged to the group of artists who had been entrusted with the erection and decoration of the palaces of the first two kings. Yet it is just possible that the old school. Digitized by Google