observed and handed down the traditions which obtained in the time of the Pyramids, and more especially those of the first Theban period; even the few fragments that have come down to us of the works of these artists in the age of the Ramessides recall rather the style of the VIth and XIIth dynasties than that of their Theban contemporaries.  Their style, brought to perfection by evident imitation of the old Memphite masters, pleases us by its somewhat severe elegance, the taste shown in the choice of detail, and the extraordinary skill displayed in the working of the stone.  The Memphites had by preference used limestone for their sculpture, the Thebans red and grey granite or sandstone; but the artists of the age of Psammetichus unhesitatingly attacked basalt, breccia, or serpentine, and obtained marvellous effects from these finely grained materials of regular and even texture.  The artistic renaissance which they brought to its height had been already inaugurated under the Ethiopians, and many of the statues we possess of the reign of Taharqa are examples of excellent workmanship.  That of Amenertas was over-praised at the time of its discovery; the face, half buried by the wig which we usually associate with the statues of the goddesses, has a dull and vacant expression in spite of its set smile, and the modelling of the figure is rather weak, but nevertheless there is something easy and refined in the gracefulness of the statue as a whole.

[358.jpg Chieck Beled—­Gizeh Museum]

A statuette of another “Divine Spouse,” though mutilated and unfinished, is pleasing from its greater breadth of style, although such breadth is rarely found in the works of this school, which toned down, elongated, and attenuated the figure till it often lost in vigour what it gained in distinction.  The one point in which the Saite artists made a real advance, was in the treatment of the heads of their models.

[Illustration:  359.jpg MEMPHITE BAS-RELIEF OF THE SAITE EPOCH]

Drawn by Boudier, from a heliogravure in Mariette.  The bas- relief was worked into the masonry of a house in Memphis in the Byzantine period, and it was in order to fit it to the course below that the masons bevelled the lower part of it.

The expression is often refined and idealised as in the case of older works, but occasionally the portraiture is exact even to coarseness.  It was not the idealised likeness of Montumihait which the artist wished to portray, but Montumihait himself, with his low forehead, his small close-set eyes, his thin cheeks, and the deep lines about his nose and mouth.  And besides this, the wrinkles, the crows’ feet, the cranial projections, the shape of ear and neck, are brought out with minute fidelity.  A statue was no longer, as in earlier days, merely a piece of sacred stone, the support of the divine or human double, in which artistic value was an accessory of no importance and was esteemed only as a guarantee of resemblance:  without losing aught of its religious significance, a statue henceforward became a work of art, admired and prized for the manner in which the sculptor faithfully represented his model, as well as for its mystic utility.