Egyptian Art by Maspero G

Author:Maspero, G.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-317-94958-9
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

AN UNKNOWN FIGURE AND THE COW HATHOR.

IV

The two forms of Hathor welcoming the dead are not each confined to the province in which it was born. They gradually spread over the whole country, not without experiencing diverse fortunes. Hathor in the tree was reserved for papyri, stelæ, and bas-reliefs. The first idea was scarcely suitable for statuary, and the cleverest sculptor would have been embarrassed to derive a large tree from the stone, a goddess lost in the branches, a person in prayer before the tree and before the goddess. But it lent itself to painting, and some of the vignettes in which it is expressed in the excellent copies of the “Book of the Dead” or on the walls of the Theban hypogeums, show us the admirable way in which the designers of the new empire used it. Nothing could be more varied or skilful than the relations they establish between the woman and the sycamore on the one hand and the dead person on the other. He is sometimes accompanied by his soul, a big hawk with human head and arms, which mimics his slightest gestures: while the double receives the elixir of youth in his clasped hands, the soul turns a runnel aside for his own benefit, and greedily drinks from it. Colour adds its charm to the composition, and the replicas of the subject to be seen at Cheîkh Abd-el-Gournah in the hypogeums of the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties would obtain a place of honour in our museums, if it was permitted to detach them and mount them in separate panels.

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