Of The Book of Knowing That which is in Hades we have no examples earlier than the time of the Twentieth Dynasty, and these are poor enough in point of workmanship, the figures being little better than dot-and-line forms, badly proportioned and hastily scrawled.  The extant specimens of The Book of the Dead are so numerous that a history of the art of miniature painting in ancient Egypt might be compiled from this source alone.  The earliest date from the Eighteenth Dynasty, the more recent being contemporary with the first Caesars.  The oldest copies are for the most part remarkably fine in execution.  Each chapter has its vignette representing a god in human or animal form, a sacred emblem, or the deceased in adoration before a divinity.  These little subjects are sometimes ranged horizontally at the top of the text, which is written in vertical columns (fig. 162); sometimes, like the illuminated capitals in our mediaeval manuscripts, they are scattered throughout the pages.  At certain points, large subjects fill the space from top to bottom of the papyrus.  The burial scene comes at the beginning; the judgment of the soul about the middle; and the arrival of the deceased in the Fields of Aalu at the end of the work.  In these, the artist seized the opportunity to display his skill, and show what he could do.  We here see the mummy of Hunefer placed upright before his stela and his tomb (fig. 163).  The women of his family bewail him; the men and the priest present offerings.  The papyri of the princes and princesses of the family of Pinotem in the Museum of Gizeh show that the best traditions of the art were yet in force at Thebes in the time of the Twenty-first Dynasty.  Under the succeeding dynasties, that art fell into rapid decadence, and during some centuries the drawings continue to be coarse and valueless.  The collapse of the Persian rule produced a period of Renaissance.  Tombs of the Greek time have yielded papyri with vignettes carefully executed in a dry and minute style which offers a singular contrast to the breadth and boldness of the Pharaonic ages.  The broad-tipped reed-pen was thrown aside for the pen with a fine point, and the scribes vied with each other as to which should trace the most attenuated lines.  The details with which they overloaded their figures, the elaboration of the beard and the hair, and the folds of the garments, are sometimes so minute that it is scarcely possible to distinguish them without a magnifying glass.  Precious as these documents are, they give a very insufficient idea of the ability and technical methods of the artists of ancient Egypt.  It is to the walls of their temples and tombs that we must turn, if we desire to study their principles of composition.

[Illustration:  Figs. 164 and 165.—­Scenes from the tomb of Khnumhotep at Beni Hasan, Twelfth Dynasty.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 166.—­From a tomb-painting in the British Museum, Eighteenth Dynasty.]