[Illustration:  Fig. 195.—­The dwarf Nemhotep, Old Empire.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 196.—­One of the Tanis Sphinxes.]

The thighs could have existed only in a rudimentary form, and Nemhotep, standing as best he can upon his misshapen feet, seems to be off his balance, and ready to fall forward upon his face.  It would be difficult to find another work of art in which the characteristics of dwarfdom are more cleverly reproduced.

The sculpture of the first Theban empire is in close connection with that of Memphis.  Methods, materials, design, composition, all are borrowed from the elder school; the only new departure being in the proportions assigned to the human figure.  From the time of the Eleventh Dynasty, the legs become longer and slighter, the hips smaller, the body and the neck more slender.  Works of this period are not to be compared with the best productions of the earlier centuries.  The wall-paintings of Siut, of Bersheh, of Beni Hasan, and of Asuan, are not equal to those in the mastabas of Sakkarah and Gizeh; nor are the most carefully-executed contemporary statues worthy to take a place beside the “Sheikh el Beled” or the “Cross-legged Scribe.”  Portrait statues of private persons, especially those found at Thebes, are, so far as I have seen, decidedly bad, the execution being rude and the expression vulgar.  The royal statues of this period, which are nearly all in black or grey granite, have been for the most part usurped by kings of later date.  Usertesen III., whose head and feet are in the Louvre, was appropriated by Amenhotep III., as the sphinx of the Louvre and the colossi of Gizeh were appropriated by Rameses II.  Many museums possess specimens of supposed Ramesside Pharaohs which, upon more careful inspection, we are compelled to ascribe to the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Dynasty.  Those of undisputed identity, such as the Sebekhotep III. of the Louvre, the Mermashiu of Tanis, the Sebekemsaf of Gizeh, and the colossi of the Isle of Argo, though very skilfully executed, are wanting in originality and vigour.  One would say, indeed, that the sculptors had purposely endeavoured to turn them all out after the one smiling and commonplace pattern.  Great is the contrast when we turn from these giant dolls to the black granite sphinxes discovered by Mariette at Tanis in 1861, and by him ascribed to the Hyksos period.  Here energy, at all events, is not lacking.  Wiry and compact, the lion body is shorter than in sphinxes of the usual type.  The head, instead of wearing the customary “klaft,” or head-gear of folded linen, is clothed with an ample mane, which also surrounds the face.  The eyes are small; the nose is aquiline and depressed at the tip; the cheekbones are prominent; the lower lip slightly protrudes.  The general effect of the face is, in short, so unlike the types we are accustomed to find in Egypt, that it has been accepted in proof of an Asiatic origin (fig. 196).  These sphinxes are unquestionably