Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/283

Sculpture under the Second Tiieban Empire. DJ imao-es of the domestic animals to whom they were accustomed in Hfe. The difference can be seen, however, without going back to the Ancient Empire. Compare the great historical bas-reliefs of the temples and royal cenotaphs with the more modest decorations of certain priv-ate sepulchres, such as those which were found in the tomb of Chamhati, superintendent of the royal domains under the eighteenth dynasty (Fig. 218). The sculptors return with pleasure to those scenes of country life of which the pyramid builders were so fond. The fragment we reproduce shows the long row of labourers bending over their hoes, the sower casting his seed, the oxen attached to the plough and slowly cutting the furrow Fig. 218. — Bas-relief from the tomb of Chamhati, Boulak. under the whip and voice of their drivers. Neither men nor beasts are drawn with as sure a hand as in the tomb of Ti, but yet the whole appears more sincere than productions of a more official kind. The oldest and most faithful assistant to the Egy^ptian fellah, the draught ox, is at least much more like nature than the charger of the Theban battle pictures. The dangers of routine and of a conventional mode of work seem now and then to have been felt by the Theban artists. They appear to have set themselves deliberately to rouse attention and interest by introducing foreign types into their eternal battle pieces, and by insisting upon their differences of feature, of complexion, of arms and costume. They were also fond of