ons of the best workmen of the XIIth dynasty, but they had
perfected the technical details, and had learned to combine form and
colour with a greater skill. The pectorals of Prince Khamoisit and the
Lord Psaru,now in the Louvre, but which were originally placed in the
tomb of the Apis in the time of Ramses II., are splendid examples.

[Illustration: 345.jpg PECTORAL OF RAMSES II.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the jewel in the Louvre.

The most common form of these represents in miniature the front of a
temple with a moulded or flat border, surmounted by a curved cornice.
In one of them, which was doubtless a present from the king himself, the
cartouche, containing the first name of the Pharaoh-Usirmari, appears
just below the frieze, and serves as a centre for the design within the
frame. The wings of the ram-headed sparrow-hawk, the emblem of Amonra,
are so displayed as to support it, while a large urseus and a vulture
beneath embracing both the sparrow-hawk and the cartouche with outspread
wings give the idea of divine protection. Two _didu_, each of them
filling one of the lower corners, symbolise duration. The framework of
the design is made up of divisions marked out in gold, and filled either
with coloured enamels or pieces of polished stone. The general effect is
one of elegance, refinement, and harmony, the three principal elements
of the design becoming enlarged from the top downwards in a deftly
adjusted gradation. The dead-gold of the cartouche in the upper centre
is set off below by the brightly variegated and slightly undulating band
of colours of the sparrow-hawk, while the urseus and vulture, associated
together with one pair of wings, envelope the upper portions in a
half-circle of enamels, of which the shades pass from red through
green to a dull blue, with a freedom of handling and a skill in the
manipulation of colour which do honour to the artist. It was not his
fault if there is still an element of stiffness in the appearance of the
pectoral as a whole, for the form which religious tradition had imposed
upon the jewel was so rigid that no artifice could completely get over
this defect. It is a type which arose out of the same mental concepts
as had given birth to Egyptian architecture and sculpture--monumental in
character, and appearing often as if designed for colossal rather than
ordinary beings. The dimensions, too overpowering for the decoration of
normal men or women, would find an appr