f
granaries with the peasants bringing in the corn, models of bakers and
brewers at work, boats with their crews, etc., just as we find them
in the XIth and XIIth Dynasty tombs at el-Bersha and Beni Hasan. These
models, too, were supposed to be transformed by magic into actual
workmen who would work for the deceased, heap up grain for her, brew
beer for her, ferry her over the ghostly Nile into the tomb-world, or
perform any other services required.

Some of the stone sarcophagi of the priestesses are very elaborately
decorated with carved and painted reliefs depicting each deceased
receiving offerings from priests, one of whom milks the holy cows of
Hathor to give her milk. The sarcophagi were let down into the tomb in
pieces and there joined together, and they have been removed in the same
way. The finest is a unique example of XIth Dynasty art, and it is now
preserved in the Museum of Cairo.

[Illustration: 330.jpg CASES OF ANTIQUITIES LEAVING DER EL-BAHARI FOR
TRANSPORT TO CAIRO.]

In memory of the priestesses there were erected on the platform behind
the pyramid a number of small shrines, which were decorated with the
most delicately coloured carvings in high relief, representing chiefly
the same subjects as those on the sarcophagi. The peculiar style of
these reliefs was previously unknown. In connection with them a most
interesting possibility presents itself.

[Illustration: 331.jpg SHIPPING CASES OF ANTIQUITIES ON BOARD THE NILE
STEAMER AT LUXOR, FOR THE EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND.]

We know the name of the chief artist of Mentuhetep's reign. He was
called Mertisen, and he thus describes himself on his tombstone from
Abydos, now in the Louvre: "I was an artist skilled in my art. I knew
my art, how to represent the forms of going forth and returning, so that
each limb may be in its proper place. I knew how the figure of a man
should walk and the carriage of a woman, the poising of the arm to
bring the hippopotamus low, the going of the runner. I knew how to make
amulets, which enable us to go without fire burning us and without the
flood washing us away. No man could do this but I, and the eldest son
of my body. Him has the god decreed to excel in art, and I have seen
the perfections of the work of his hands in every kind of rare stone,
in gold and silver, in ivory and ebony." Now since Mertisen and his son
were the chief artists of their day, it is more than probable that they
were employed to decorate their