[259] DE ROUGÉ, _Notice des Monuments Exposés au Rez-de-chaussée_, No. 91.
[260] DE ROUGÉ, _Notice des Monuments Exposés au Rez-de-chaussée_, No. 94.
[Illustration: FIG. 229--Statue of Horus, Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]
Not less remarkable is the headless statue of a personage called Horus, which dates from about the same period (Fig. 229).[261] It is of black granite and yet both limbs and torso are as delicately modelled as if they were of the softest limestone. The attitude of the arms is unusually easy and natural, and the whole figure is freer and less constrained than anything we find in the ancient statues. There is, too, a certain spirit of innovation discoverable in the feet. The toes are well separated and slightly bent, instead of being flat and close together.
[Illustration: FIG. 230.--Bas-relief from Memphis. Length forty inches, height ten inches, Boulak. Drawn by Bourgoin.]
[Illustration: FIG. 231.--Continuation of Fig. 230.]
The same style, taste, and general tendency are to be found in the steles and in the decoration of the tombs. In a few sepulchral bas-reliefs we can detect a desire to imitate the compositions on the walls of the mastabas. Such attempts were quite natural, and we need feel no surprise that the Egyptians in their decline should have turned to the artistic form and motives which had been invented in their distant and vigorous youth. The old age of many other races has shown the same tendency in their arts and literature.
The beautiful band of sculpture in low relief which was found, together with another very similar to it, at Mitrahineh, upon the site of ancient Memphis, might easily be taken at first sight for a production of the early centuries (Figs. 230 and 231). It formed the lintel to the door of a house dating from the Greek or Roman period, for which purpose it had doubtless been carried off from some tomb.[262] At one end a dignified individual is seated upon a low-backed chair, in his left hand he holds the long wand of office, in his right a ribbon. His name and titles are engraved in front of him: he was a writer, and was called Psemethek-nefer-sam. A scribe bends respectfully before him and introduces a procession of men, women, and children, who bring offerings of various kinds, jars of liquid, coffers, flowers, birds, and calves led by a string. It is the favourite theme of the mastabas over again. The attitudes are similar, but the execution is different. There is a lack of firmness and rotundity in the modelling, and considerably more striving after elegance. The children especially should be noticed; the fashion in which they all turn towards their elders betrays a desire on the part of the artist to give freshness and piquancy to his composition.