DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6552#0171
APPENDIX.
137
and dignity which characterised the nobler productions of the
epochs of Rameses the Great, Thothmes the Third, or the Osir-
tasens; neither did they possess the rude grandeur of the era of
the family of Cheops. It is to the period of the rule of the
Psammetici, and to the floating interval between them and the
commencement of the Lagidee, that the fabrication of this colossal
monolith of Syenite is to be attributed. It is of inferior execution
— the hieroglyphics and figures being cut in a slighter intaglio
than ordinary, and possessing none of the sharp squareness of
execution which characterises the monuments of the Ptolemies.
As a work of art, it is worse than the coffin of Ilapimen, while
the titles of the deceased, who is mentioned as belonging to the
" temples of the quarter of the white wall," or Acropolis of the
southern Metropolis, indicate an approximation to the era of the
Ptolemies, under whom the Memphian functionaries seem espe-
cially to have flourished. As all the sarcophagi appear fabricated
upon one general model, varied slightly according to the taste of
the relatives of the deceased or dictation of the priests, who had
the especial charge of the embalming, it will be as well to notice
the type, more or less followed out, upon which they were con-
structed. The body of the deceased, embalmed and swathed after
the model of Osiris, was generally taken as the form for the sar-
cophagus, which was thus made to resemble a mummy of broad
proportions ; and on the sides, or at the head and foot, were
always sculptured, either in compartments or else diffused over
the whole, the various deities under whose care the body of the
Osirian was supposed especially to be. Throughout the text,
an analogy, not always quite complete, was kept up between
Osiris and the deceased; and the various rituals and prayers
which the deities or the defunct uttered had universally reference
to a similar object. Thus Netpe, the wife of Seb, the Egyptian
Saturn, was often depicted upon the lower part of the chest of the
body, addressing the dead as her son, over whom she spread her
wings, Isis and Nephthys were represented kneeling and de-
ploring, as at the bier of Osiris, while the inferior genii of the
Amenti appeared around the sides of their embalmed father, and
a host of principal deities uttered consolatory exhortations to the
deceased, or announced, as in the sarcophagus of Ilapimen, the
particular members of the body which were under their especial
charge.3
3 See the interior, white tlie deities are represented round the whole of the body.
137
and dignity which characterised the nobler productions of the
epochs of Rameses the Great, Thothmes the Third, or the Osir-
tasens; neither did they possess the rude grandeur of the era of
the family of Cheops. It is to the period of the rule of the
Psammetici, and to the floating interval between them and the
commencement of the Lagidee, that the fabrication of this colossal
monolith of Syenite is to be attributed. It is of inferior execution
— the hieroglyphics and figures being cut in a slighter intaglio
than ordinary, and possessing none of the sharp squareness of
execution which characterises the monuments of the Ptolemies.
As a work of art, it is worse than the coffin of Ilapimen, while
the titles of the deceased, who is mentioned as belonging to the
" temples of the quarter of the white wall," or Acropolis of the
southern Metropolis, indicate an approximation to the era of the
Ptolemies, under whom the Memphian functionaries seem espe-
cially to have flourished. As all the sarcophagi appear fabricated
upon one general model, varied slightly according to the taste of
the relatives of the deceased or dictation of the priests, who had
the especial charge of the embalming, it will be as well to notice
the type, more or less followed out, upon which they were con-
structed. The body of the deceased, embalmed and swathed after
the model of Osiris, was generally taken as the form for the sar-
cophagus, which was thus made to resemble a mummy of broad
proportions ; and on the sides, or at the head and foot, were
always sculptured, either in compartments or else diffused over
the whole, the various deities under whose care the body of the
Osirian was supposed especially to be. Throughout the text,
an analogy, not always quite complete, was kept up between
Osiris and the deceased; and the various rituals and prayers
which the deities or the defunct uttered had universally reference
to a similar object. Thus Netpe, the wife of Seb, the Egyptian
Saturn, was often depicted upon the lower part of the chest of the
body, addressing the dead as her son, over whom she spread her
wings, Isis and Nephthys were represented kneeling and de-
ploring, as at the bier of Osiris, while the inferior genii of the
Amenti appeared around the sides of their embalmed father, and
a host of principal deities uttered consolatory exhortations to the
deceased, or announced, as in the sarcophagus of Ilapimen, the
particular members of the body which were under their especial
charge.3
3 See the interior, white tlie deities are represented round the whole of the body.