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Show 122 GENERAL REMARKS ON ICONOGRAPIIY. mutilated but o.dmirable statue, in green basalt, found at Sobonnytus, (Mrr.uN, Monuments inMits, I. p. 383), and w~ich dccora~ s tho '~alle du zodiaque' of the BibliothCquo royale [ natwnale, p~bltque, ~r ~mperia. le,-as the case may be]. This torso, for Lho punty and .Or~oncss of Egyptian style, yields in nothing to the most noble r m.ar.ns of Egyptian sculpture : and I cannot forgot that one of the skllJull st arcMologu s of our day, not being able to c~st doubt up?n tho name of Nectanebo which this statue bears, sustamod tbat Lhrs H:11110 lrad been add a,'' aprl-.s-conp,' to a statue of tho time of Scsostris or of Men phtha; a gratuitous supposition, rendered alLogethcr usoloss thronO'h the obs rvaLions contn.in din this memoir." Th~ only I a able relics, of the times of tho Lagidro, now extant, arc the rose-granite statu s of PIIILADELPllUS and AusiNOB at tho Vatican; and they are po r enough. In<ligmwns art dcgoncratocl, however, still more under tho Roman dominion,eo languishing under tho Julian and Flavian emperors, and bccomi ng quite rude and barbarous soon after lladrin.n:- the last hieroglyphic royal ovals, found in Egypt, belong to the Emperor, Dccin8.90 Indigenous Egyptian civilization a.nd art, both connected with and founded upon bicroO'lyphics, expire about the same time. Snch is Lho brief history of l~gyptian art; peculiarly Tcmarkable for the constan y of its general character during 11 period of more than tlrirty-fivo centuries, no less th11n for its isolated and exclusively national development. Tho in:fluonco of foreign art and culture upon Egypt w11s always slight and prejudicial; whilst, with tho exception of Mcroo on the upper Nile-an Egyptian colony maintaining itself only so long as its original Egyptian blood remained puro,01-no foreign kingdom or people ever accepted the civilization, tho hieroglyphics and tho art of Egypt, notwithstanding that the Empire on the Nile ·was superior in culture to all those neighboring nations with whom tho Pharaohs came into contact. Phoonicia, Assyria, "Persia, and perhaps oven Grecco and EtruTia, borrowed some :forms of their art from Egypt; hut these loans arc, on tho whole, trilling, and insufliciont to stamp tho art of those nations with an Egyptian character. In Assyria, as in Greece and Etruria, art developed itself nationally, and in each region may always be considered as indigenous. eo GAu's folio .Antiquilu de la Nubie, DJ;NON, and the Great French work, contain abundant onmples of this decline. DO J,El'SIU~, Vorliiufige Nachrichl uber die Expedition, Berlin, 1849, p. 29. 8l For proofs,- AnEKEN, Rapport, in Bulletin de la Soci~te de G6ographie, Paris, Sept., 1845, pp. 171-2, 174, 179: -LEJ.>stus, Briefe, 1852, pp. 1'.1.0-9, 204, 217-9, 289, &c.: while ocular ovidouoe of this Ethiopian degradation of art may be obtained in the Dcnkmaler, Abtl1. VI. bl. 2, 4, 9, 10. GENERAL REMARKS ON ICONOGRAl'HY. 123 We have soloctod, fol' illustrating our sketch of Egyptian art statues in preference to relief~, whi ch arc always somewhat rcpug~ nant to tho taste of tho pubhc, on account of tho peculiar convention. al formation of tho eye, drawn in front-view on profile bonds. B s1d~s, 'Pypes of .Ma~lc'ind all'cady contains copious specimens of Egypt1an royal rehcf-ltkcn sf:!cs, from AAIIMBS, tho roB to rot' of Egypt, down to MENl!JPH'l'All, the probabl Pharaoh of tho Exodus, including also tho SJLESHONKS (Sltishalc), HA.DAKB and 'l'mHAKAS, so familiar to tho readers of tho Bible. The authority of thos portraits (taken ~rin c ipal.ly from Rosc llini) is sufficionLiy estab lished by tho inscripttOilB wlnch accompany them on tho originals ·ulpLurcs; their £i.tithfulness may easily be tested in any of tho largo collections of Europe, and pri11cipufly in 1£gypt, among tho monuments; for it is a remarkable fact, Lhat wherever a relief was sunk into the rock, rccoruino- tho de '<lR of some individual Pha1·aoh, whether on th pylonos of the temples, along tho wallf:! of tombs, and amid palatial d.ocomtions or c~ti sc ll cd upon .some tablet on tho remotest borders of th J~mpiro, lll f:! fcaLurcs, pmnted or sculptured, 11rc always tho sa.mo, and may be rccogn izcd evcrywhero throughout J£gypt. It has, th r fore, often been asl d, by what moans Egyptian artists could attain su •h a uniformity at a time when no coins were as yet struck, and tho art of engraving likenesses (uot seals, &c.,) was unknown. It was very plausibly suggested, that an ofll ·ia.l pattern of the royal physiognomy, carved in wood, may ca ily have boon circuln.tcd 11ll ovor the valley of tlro Nile. The l~oman crnpcl'ors probably noglcctod tho continuance of such customs, perhaps under belief tlrat tltcit· coins might co r1voy a sufficient idea of their features. The Egypti11ns, however, remain unacquainted with the portraits of thoi1· Roman rulers, whose effigies on Egyptian anu lower-Nubian mon urncnts 11ro altogether conventional, without any attempt at pot'traying indiviuuality and r semblance to tho Romau Auto ·eats; whoso very name, as wo sec at Kalabsho and 11t Dondoea, was often unknown to natives of the ilc.O'.I As a co llateral confirmation of the suggestion about tho circulation of regal port.rait-pattel'ns, we refer to some analogous I rccocdings uudol' Queen Elizabeth, whieh we translate from tho l''ronch of the Abbes De la Ohau and Lc .13Jond,0 : 1 not being able to lay our hands upon tho original document mentioned by them. "1'ho excessive sensitiveness of Queon Elizo.both about boauty," say the loarnod French arcllooologists, "gavo birth to a most pcouli!lr order in council, signod by tho socreta.ry o~ L•:TRONN F., "Sur l'absonoo du Mot Antocrator"- }flmoireB tt Doctlmtnll, Paris, 1849, pp. 1-8 :-CuAAli'OLLJON-FJor~AO, Ji'ouritr et Napollon, l'Egypt~ ct lucent iourl, Paris, 1844, pp. G3- 5. oa Pierre1 ura.vles du Cabinet Orlean1, II. p. 194. |