ities. Judging
from the results of our excavations in the Memphite necropolis alone, it is
possible to determine the characteristics of both sculpture and painting in
the time of Seneferu and his successors with as much exactness as if we
were already in possession of all the monuments which the valley of the
Nile yet holds in reserve for future explorers.

[Illustration: Fig. 184.--Panel from tomb of Hesi.]

The lesser folk of the art-world excelled in the manipulation of brush and
chisel, and that their skill was of a high order is testified by the
thousands of tableaux they have left behind them. The relief is low; the
colour sober; the composition learned. Architecture, trees, vegetation,
irregularities of ground, are summarily indicated, and are introduced only
when necessary to the due interpretation of the scene represented. Men and
animals, on the other hand, are rendered with a wealth of detail, a truth
of character, and sometimes a force of treatment, to which the later
schools of Egyptian art rarely attained. Six wooden panels from the tomb of
Hesi in the Gizeh Museum represent perhaps the finest known specimens of
this branch of art. Mariette ascribed them to the Third Dynasty, and he may
perhaps have been right; though for my own part I incline to date them from
the Fifth Dynasty. In these panels there is nothing that can be called a
"subject." Hesi either sits or stands (fig. 184), and has four or five
columns of hieroglyphs above his head; but the firmness of line, the
subtlety of modelling, the ease of execution, are unequalled. Never has
wood been cut with a more delicate chisel or a firmer hand.

The variety of attitude and gesture which we so much admire in the Egyptian
bas-relief is lacking to the statues. A mourner weeping, a woman bruising
corn for bread, a baker rolling dough, are subjects as rare in the round as
they are common in bas-relief. In sculpture, the figure is generally
represented either standing with the feet side by side and quite still, or
with one leg advanced in the act of walking; or seated upon a chair or a
cube; or kneeling; or, still more frequently, sitting on the ground cross-
legged, as the fellahin are wont to sit to this day. This intentional
monotony of style would be inexplicable if we were ignorant of the purpose
for which such statues were intended. They represent the dead man for whom
the tomb was made, his family, his servants, his slaves, and his kinsfolk.
The mas