aps, have prevailed, had Egyptian art not been
directed into a new channel by the Macedonian conquest, and by centuries of
intercourse with the Greeks.

[Illustration: Fig. 206.--Head of a scribe. Saite work.]

[Illustration: Fig. 207.--Colossus of Alexander II.]

The new departure was of slow development. Sculptors began by clothing the
successors of Alexander in Egyptian garb and transforming them into
Pharaohs, just as they had in olden time transformed the Hyksos and the
Persians. Works dating from the reigns of the first Ptolemies scarcely
differ from those of the best Saite period, and it is only here and there
that we detect traces of Greek influence. Thus, the colossus of Alexander
II., at Gizeh (fig. 207), wears a flowing head-dress, from beneath which
his crisp curls have found their way. Soon, however, the sight of Greek
masterpieces led the Egyptians of Alexandria, of Memphis, and of the cities
of the Delta to modify their artistic methods. Then arose a mixed school,
which combined certain elements of the national art with certain other
elements borrowed from Hellenic art. The Alexandrian Isis of the Gizeh
Museum is clad as the Isis of Pharaonic times; but she has lost the old
slender shape and straitened bearing. A mutilated effigy of a Prince of
Siut, also at Gizeh, would almost pass for an indifferent Greek statue.

[Illustration: Fig. 208.--Statue of Hor, Graeco-Egyptian.]

[Illustration: Fig. 209.--Group from Naga.]

The most forcible work of this hybrid class which has come down to us is
the portrait-statue of one Hor (fig. 208), discovered in 1881 at the foot
of Kom ed Damas, the site of the tomb of Alexander. The head is good,
though in a somewhat dry style. The long, pinched nose, the close-set eyes,
the small mouth with drawn-in corners, the square chin,--every feature, in
short, contributes to give a hard and obstinate character to the face. The
hair is closely cropped, yet not so closely as to prevent it from dividing
naturally into thick, short curls. The body, clothed in the chlamys, is
awkwardly shapen, and too narrow for the head. One arm hangs pendent; the
other is brought round to the front; the feet are lost. All these monuments
are the results of few excavations; and I do not doubt that the soil of
Alexandria would yield many such, if it could be methodically explored. The
school which produced them continued to draw nearer and nearer to the
schools of Greece, and the stiff manner, wh