a word, painting was in Egypt the mere
humble servant of architecture and sculpture. We must not dream of
comparing it with our own, or even with that of the Greeks; but if we take
it simply for what it is, accepting it in the secondary place assigned to
it, we cannot fail to recognise its unusual merits. Egyptian painting
excelled in the sense of monumental decoration, and if we ever revert to
the fashion of colouring the _facades_ of our houses and our public
edifices, we shall lose nothing by studying Egyptian methods or reproducing
Egyptian processes.

[35] The late T. Deveria ingeniously conjectured that "Ba-en-pet" (iron of
heaven) might mean the ferruginous substance of meteoric stones. See
_Melanges d'Archeologie Egyptienne et Assyrienne_, vol. i.--
A.B.E.

[36] The traces of tools upon the masonry show the use of bronze and
jewel-points.--A.B.E.

[37] Many such trial-pieces were found by Petrie in the ruins of a
sculptor's house at Tell el Amarna.

[38] A similar collection was found by Mr. F. Ll. Griffith at Tell
Gemayemi, in 1886, during his excavations for the Egypt Exploration
Fund. See Mr. Petrie's _Tanis_. Part II., Egypt Exploration
Fund.--A.B.E.

[39] Mr. Loftie's collection contains, however, an interesting piece of
trial-work consisting of the head of a Ptolemaic queen in red
granite.--A.B.E.

[40] For pigments used at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, see Petrie's
_Medum_.

[41] The rose-coloured, or rather crimson, flesh-tints are also to be seen
at El Kab, and in the famous speos at Beit el Wally, both _tempo_
Nineteenth Dynasty.--A.B.E.

3.--WORKS OF SCULPTURE.

[Illustration: Fig. 183.--The Great Sphinx of Gizeh.]

To this day, the most ancient statue known is a colossus--namely, the Great
Sphinx of Gizeh. It was already in existence in the time of Khufu (Cheops),
and perhaps we should not be far wrong if we ventured to ascribe it to the
generations before Mena, called in the priestly chronicles "the Servants
of Horus." Hewn in the living rock at the extreme verge of the Libyan
plateau, it seems, as the representative of Horus, to uprear its head in
order to be the first to catch sight of his father, Ra, the rising sun,
across the valley (fig. 183). For centuries the sands have buried it to the
chin, yet without protecting it from ruin. Its battered body preserves but
the general form of a lion's body. The paws and br