a bronze cup in which the perfumes were burned, and boomerangs engraved with figures of gods and fantastic animals, were also made of ivory.  Some of these objects are works of fine art; as for instance at Gizeh, a poignard-handle in the form of a lion; the plaques in bas-relief which adorn the draught-box of one Tuai, who lived towards the end of the Seventeenth Dynasty; a Fifth Dynasty figure, unfortunately mutilated, which yet retains traces of rose colour; and a miniature statue of Abi, who died at the time of the Thirteenth Dynasty.  This little personage, perched on the top of a lotus-flower column, looks straight before him with a majestic air which contrasts somewhat comically with the size and prominence of his ears.  The modelling of the figure is broad and spirited, and will bear comparison with good Italian ivories of the Renaissance period.

[Illustration:  Fig. 243.—­Wooden statuette of officer, Eighteenth Dynasty.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 244.—­Wooden statuette of priest, Eighteenth Dynasty.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 245.—­Wooden statuette of the Lady Nai.]

Egypt produces few trees, and of these few the greater number are useless to the sculptor.  The two which most abound—­namely, the date palm and the dom palm—­are of too coarse a fibre for carving, and are too unequal in texture.  Some varieties of the sycamore and acacia are the only trees of which the grain is sufficiently fine and manageable to be wrought with the chisel.  Wood was, nevertheless, a favourite material for cheap and rapid work.  It was even employed at times for subjects of importance, such as Ka statues; and the Wooden Man of Gizeh shows with what boldness and amplitude of style it could be treated.  But the blocks and beams which the Egyptians had at command were seldom large enough for a statue.  The Wooden Man himself, though but half life-size, consists of a number of pieces held together by square pegs.  Hence, wood-carvers were wont to treat their subjects upon such a scale as admitted of their being cut in one block, and the statues of olden time became statuettes under the Theban dynasties.  Art lost nothing by the reduction, and more than one of these little figures is comparable to the finest works of the ancient empire.  The best, perhaps, is at the Turin Museum, and dates from the Twentieth Dynasty.  It represents a young girl whose only garment is a slender girdle.  She is of that indefinite age when the undeveloped form is almost as much like that of a boy as of a girl.  The expression of the head is gentle, yet saucy.  It is, in fact, across thirty centuries of time, a portrait of one of those graceful little maidens of Elephantine, who, without immodesty or embarrassment, walk unclothed in sight of strangers.  Three little wooden men in the Gizeh Museum are probably contemporaries of the Turin figure.  They wear full dress, as, indeed, they should, for one was a king’s favourite named Hori, and surnamed Ra.  They are walking