Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/84

62 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. monument, which has been treated by time with extraordinary tenderness. Tombs have been found at Gizeh and Sakkarah, which are referred to the second and third dynasties. The king Persen, whose name occurs in some of the inscriptions upon these tombs, belongs to that remote period. In many of these tombs the ceiling is carved to represent trunks of palm-trees ; even the roughnesses of the bark being reproduced. Most of the sepul- chres in which these details have been noticed are subterranean, but they are also to be discovered in a chamber in the tomb of Ti. It is probable that if more mastabas had come down to us details of the upper part of the Stele figured on the x< >X ' .j^JJ preceding page. ^J 1 jgm ^ UwTfp-j Fig. 37. — Stele from the 4th dynasty ; drawn by Bourgoin. with their roofs intact we should find many instances of this kind of decoration.^ Our Fio-ures 38 and 39 are taken from another tomb, and show varieties of that ornament which is universally employed as a finial to the panels we have mentioned. In its most careful form it consists of two petals united by a band, which allows the deep slit characteristic of the leaves of all aquatic plants to be clearly visible. ^ This imitation of wooden roofs was noticed by the savants of the l?istifut d'Agypte. They drew a rock-cut tomb in which the ceiHng is carved to look hke the trunks of pahTi trees {Description, Antiquith, vol. v. pi. 6, figs. 3, 4, and 5). See also BAEDKKf:R, part i. p. 360.