of the early dynasties.  In a bas-relief at Sakkarah, we see the weighed gold entrusted to the craftsman for working; in another example (at Beni Hasan) the washing and melting down of the ore is represented; and again at Thebes, the goldsmith is depicted seated in front of his crucible, holding the blow-pipe to his lips with the left hand, and grasping his pincers with the right, thus fanning the flame and at the same time making ready to seize the ingot (fig. 283).  The Egyptians struck neither coins nor medals.  With these exceptions, they made the same use of the precious metals as we do ourselves.  We gild the crosses and cupolas of our churches; they covered the doors of their temples, the lower part of their wall-surfaces, certain bas-reliefs, pyramidions of obelisks, and even whole obelisks, with plates of gold.  The obelisks of Queen Hatshepsut at Karnak were coated with electrum.  “They were visible from both banks of the Nile, and when the sun rose between them as he came up from the heavenly horizon, they flooded the two Egypts with their dazzling rays."[77] These plates of metal were forged with hammer and anvil.  For smaller objects, they made use of little pellets beaten flat between two pieces of parchment.  In the Museum of the Louvre we have a gilder’s book, and the gold-leaf which it contains is as thin as the gold-leaf used by the German goldsmiths of the past century.  Gold was applied to bronze surfaces by means of an ammoniacal solvent.  If the object to be gilt were a wooden statuette, the workman began by sticking a piece of fine linen all over the surface, or by covering it with a very thin coat of plaster; upon this he laid his gold or silver leaf.  It was thus that wooden statuettes of Thoth, Horus, and Nefertum were gilded, from the time of Khufu.  The temple of Isis, the “Lady of the Pyramid,” contained a dozen such images; and this temple was not one of the largest in the Memphite necropolis.  There would seem to have been hundreds of gilded statues in the Theban temples, at all events in the time of the victorious dynasties of the new empire; and as regards wealth, the Ptolemaic sanctuaries were in no wise inferior to those of the Theban period.

Bronze and gilded wood were not always good enough for the gods of Egypt.  They exacted pure gold, and their worshippers gave them as much of it as possible.  Entire statues of the precious metals were dedicated by the kings of the ancient and middle empires; and the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties, who drew at will upon the treasures of Asia, transcended all that had been done by their predecessors.  Even in times of decadence, the feudal lords kept up the traditions of the past, and, like Prince Mentuemhat, replaced the images of gold and silver which had been carried off from Karnak by the generals of Sardanapalus at the time of the Assyrian invasions.  The quantity of metal thus consecrated to the service of the gods must have been considerable, If many figures were less