DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55201#0096
SEASON OF I922-I923
83
still raises some echo of the laugh which must have greeted it twenty-
five hundred years ago. In more professional mood we have the master
of the harper or of the horse working with straight edge and ruling
pen, laying out the lines of the funeral barque in absolute symmetry,
and elsewhere we can see how the sculptor followed these lines through
every stage to the cameo finish of the completed reliefs.
The tomb of Nesy-pe-ka-shuti had long been used as a quarry, and
little of its decorations remained in place. For the Egyptian Govern-
ment to rebuild the tomb on the spot would have been a serious under-
taking, with the cliff in a state where it might collapse at any time.
Furthermore, even rebuilt, it was doubtful whether an adequate
proportion of the scenes could be patched together out of the myriad
fragments to justify such an expenditure. These fragments therefore
fell to our share, and though even after long effort we may never suc-
ceed in reconstituting anything like the complete mastaba chambers
we already possess, we know that we can adequately show in the Mu-
seum the archaistic sculpture of the Saite period and, even more
interesting, its technique from the first lay-out by the draughtsman,
through each stage of its carving to the finished work.
83
still raises some echo of the laugh which must have greeted it twenty-
five hundred years ago. In more professional mood we have the master
of the harper or of the horse working with straight edge and ruling
pen, laying out the lines of the funeral barque in absolute symmetry,
and elsewhere we can see how the sculptor followed these lines through
every stage to the cameo finish of the completed reliefs.
The tomb of Nesy-pe-ka-shuti had long been used as a quarry, and
little of its decorations remained in place. For the Egyptian Govern-
ment to rebuild the tomb on the spot would have been a serious under-
taking, with the cliff in a state where it might collapse at any time.
Furthermore, even rebuilt, it was doubtful whether an adequate
proportion of the scenes could be patched together out of the myriad
fragments to justify such an expenditure. These fragments therefore
fell to our share, and though even after long effort we may never suc-
ceed in reconstituting anything like the complete mastaba chambers
we already possess, we know that we can adequately show in the Mu-
seum the archaistic sculpture of the Saite period and, even more
interesting, its technique from the first lay-out by the draughtsman,
through each stage of its carving to the finished work.