Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/333

The Principal Conventions in Egyptian Sculpture. 303 to the hardness of their material and the imperfection of the tools employed. We know the connection between the funerary statues of the Egyptians and their second life ; while those statues endured, the existence of the double was safe guarded. The more solid the statue, the better its chance ; if the former was indestructible the life dependent upon it would be eternal. It was under the impulse of this idea that the Egyptians of the Ancient Empire attacked such unkindly materials as granite, diorite, and basalt. Such statues were beyond the reach of private individuals. They were reserved for royalty. Of all the works of the sculptor they were the most carefully and admirably wrought. They set the fashion, and helped to create those habits which did not lose their hold even when less rebellious substances came into use. How did they contrive to cut such hard rocks ? Even in our time it can only be done by dint of long and painful labour and with the aid of steel chisels of the finest temper. The work- man is obliged to stop every minute to renew the edge of his instrument. But it is agreed on all hands that the contemporaries of Chephren had to do without steel chisels. Egyptologists still discuss the question as to whether the Egyptians made use of iron or not, but even those who believe that its name occurs among the hieroglyphs admit that its introduction was late and its employment very restricted.^ The weapons and tools of the early Egyptians were of bronze when they were not of stone or hardened wood ; and it has never been proved that either the Egyptians or any other ancient people understood how to temper that metal in such a fashion that its hardness approached that of steel. Modern science has in vain searched for this secret."- In any case it is only in a few rare instances, and upon remains from the New Empire, that the peculiar markings left by the chisel have been discovered. Those statues and sarcophagi which have been cut from igneous rocks still bear traces which may be recognized by the eye of the connoisseur, of the processes which were employed by their makers. ' See the note of ^L Chabas, Sur k fiom dii fer chez les Anciens ^gyptiens." {Comptes Rendus de VAcademie des Inscriptions, January 21, 1874,) - Certain alloys, however, have recently been discovered which give a hardness far above that of ordinary bronze. The metal of the Uchatius gun, which has been adopted by Austria, is mixed, for instance, with a certain quantity of phosphorus.