the personified elements of nature. Each element had its particular
controlling god, worshipped as such. Later on in Egyptian history the
number of gods was increased, and each city had its trinity of godlike
protectors symbolized by the propylaea of the temples. Future life was
a certainty, provided that the Ka, or spirit, did not fall a prey to
Typhon, the God of Evil, during the long wait in the tomb for the
judgment-day. The belief that the spirit rested in the body until
finally transported to the aaln fields (the Islands of the Blest,
afterward adopted by the Greeks) was one reason for the careful
preservation of the body by mummifying processes. Life itself was not
more important than death. Hence the imposing ceremonies of the
funeral and burial, the elaborate richness of the tomb and its wall
paintings. Perhaps the first Egyptian art arose through religious
observance, and certainly the first known to us was sepulchral.

ART MOTIVES: The centre of the Egyptian system was the monarch and his
supposed relatives, the gods. They arrogated to themselves the chief
thought of life, and the aim of the great bulk of the art was to
glorify monarchy or deity. The massive buildings, still standing
to-day in ruins, were built as the dwelling-places of kings or the
sanctuaries of gods. The towers symbolized deity, the sculptures and
paintings recited the functional duties of presiding spirits, or the
Pharaoh's looks and acts. Almost everything about the public buildings
in painting and sculpture was symbolic illustration, picture-written
history--written with a chisel and brush, written large that all might
read. There was no other safe way of preserving record. There were no
books; the papyrus sheet, used extensively, was frail, and the
Egyptians evidently wished their buildings, carvings, and paintings to
last into eternity. So they wrought in and upon stone. The same
hieroglyphic character of their papyrus writings appeared cut and
colored on the palace walls, and above them and beside them the
pictures ran as vignettes explanatory of the text. In a less
ostentatious way the tombs perpetuated history in a similar manner,
reciting the domestic scenes from the life of the individual, as the
temples and palaces the religious and monarchical scenes.

In one form or another it was all record of Egyptian life, but this
was not the only motive of their painting. The temples and palaces,
designed to shut out light and heat, wer