Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/67

 The Story of Egypt 41 way his equal, his sole wife, his constant companion, enjoying every right possessed by her husband. • The Egyptians could not have left us this beautifully painted Art of the and sculptured room (the tomb-chapel) unless they had possessed Ag?— paint^ trained artists. Indeed, we can find the artist who painted^ these J."S ^id walls, where he has represented himself enjoying a plentiful feast among other people of the estate in one corner of the wall. Here he has written his name over his head, and we read in handsome hieroglyphs, " Nenekheptah, the artist." His drawings all around us show that he has not been able to overcome all the difficul- ties of placing objects having thickness and roundness on a fiat surface. Animal figures are drawn, however, with great beauty and lifelikeness (Figs. 16-20), but ''perspective" is entirely unknown to him, and objects in the background or distance are drawn of the same size as those in front. The sculptor was the greatest artist of this age. In a secret Art of the chamber alongside this chapel there is a portrait statue of the Age^— por- dead lord whose tomb we have visited. A multitude of these trait sculpture statues have been found in this cemetery. They were thought to furnish the dead with an additional body, in case the mummied body should perish. These are the earliest portraits in the history of art. They were colored in the hues of life ; the eyes were inlaid of rock crystal, and they still shine with the gleam of life. More lifelike portraits have never been produced by any age. Such statues of the kings are often superb (Fig. 23). They were set up in the temples which the Pharaoh erected. In size, the most remarkable statue of the Pyramid Age is the Great Sphinx, which stands here in this cemetery of Gizeh. The head is a portrait of Khafre, the king who built the second pyramid of Gizeh (see Plate I), and was carved from a promontory of rock which overlooked the royal city. It is the largest portrait ever wrought.^ 1 Wonderfully colored ducks and geese from an Egyptian tomb painting of the Pyramid Age will be found as headpiece of Chapter II (p. 17). 2 The art of the age of course also included architecture. Its most important achievement in the Pyramid Age was the colonnade, of which a good example will be found in the court of a pyramid-temple in Fig. 22.