Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/315

The Technique of the Bas-reliefs. 28; from two to three millimetres. It is the same with the Theban tombs. It is only in the life-size figures that the relief becomes as much as a centimetre, or a centimetre and a half in depth ; articulations, the borders of drapery, and the bounding lines of the contour, are indicated with much less salience. The processes used in Eg-ptian reliefs were three in number, one of those three, at least, being almost unknown elsewhere. The commonest of the three is the same as That in favour with the Greeks, by which the figures are left standing out from a smooth bed, which is sometimes sliehtlv hollowed in the neisfh- bourhood of their contours. When limestone was used, this method was almost always preferred, as that material allowed the beds to be dressed without any difiiculty. Sometimes, on the other hand, the figure is modelled in relief in a sunk hollow, which is from half an inch to an inch and a half deep (Fig. 240). This method of proceeding, which is peculiar to Egypt, was doubtless suggested by the desire to protect the image as much as possible. For this purpose it was singularly efficient, the hisJ'h " bed " of the relief o-uardinor it both from accidental injury, and from the eftects of weather and time. It had one disadvantage, however, in the confusing- shadows which obscured a part of the modelling. This process was used, as a rule, for the carvings on granite and basalt sarcophagi (Fig. 195. 'ol. I.). It would have cost too much time and labour to have sunk and polished the surrounding surfaces. This method, when once taken up, was extended to limestone, and thus we find, among those objects in the Louvre which were discovered in the Serapeum, a stele of extremely delicate workmanship, representing Amasis in adoration before an apis. The head of Amasis is damaged, and we have preferred to give as a specimen the fine head of Rameses II., chiselled in a slab of limestone, which is also in the Louvre (Fig. 240). In the third system the surface of the figures and the bed. or field, of the relief are kept on one level. The contours are indicated by hollow lines cut into the stone. In this case there is very little modelling. There is not enough depth to enable the sculptor to indicate different planes, and his work becomes little example of a bolder relief than usual, the scenes sculptured upon the tomb of Sabou. especially the picture showing the servants of the defunct carrying a gazelle upon their shoulders.