than an inch in height, many others measured three cubits, or more.  Some were of gold, some of silver; others were part gold and part silver.  There were even some which combined gold with sculptured ivory, ebony, and precious stones, thus closely resembling the chryselephantine statues of the Greeks.  Aided by the bas-relief subjects of Karnak, Medinet Habu, and Denderah, as well as by the statues in wood and limestone which have come down to our day, we can tell exactly what they were like.  However the material might vary, the style was always the same.  Nothing is more perishable than works of this description.  They are foredoomed to destruction by the mere value of the materials in which they are made.  What civil war and foreign invasion had spared, and what had chanced to escape the rapacity of Roman princes and governors, fell a prey to Christian iconoclasm.  A few tiny statuettes buried as amulets upon the bodies of mummies, a few domestic divinities buried in the ruins of private houses, a few ex-votos forgotten, perchance, in some dark corner of a fallen sanctuary, have escaped till the present day.  The Ptah and Amen of Queen Aahhotep, another golden Amen also at Gizeh, and the silver vulture found in 1885 at Medinet Habu, are the only pieces of this kind which can be attributed with certainty to the great period of Egyptian art.  The remainder are of Saite or Ptolemaic work, and are remarkable only for the perfection with which they are wrought.  The gold and silver vessels used in the service of the temples, and in the houses of private persons, shared the fate of the statues.  At the beginning of the present century, the Louvre acquired some flat-bottomed cups which Thothmes III. presented as the reward of valour to one of his generals named Tahuti.  The silver cup is much mutilated, but the golden cup is intact and elegantly designed (fig. 284).  The upright sides are adorned with a hieroglyphic legend.  A central rosette is engraved at the bottom.  Six fish are represented in the act of swimming round the rosette; and these again are surrounded by a border of lotus-bells united by a curved line.  The five vases of Thmuis, in the Gizeh Museum, are of silver.  They formed part of the treasure of the temple, and had been buried in a hiding-place, where they remained till our own day.  We have no indication of their probable age; but whether they belong to the Greek or the Theban period, the workmanship is purely Egyptian.  Of one vessel, only the cover is left, the handle being formed of two flowers upon one stem.  The others are perfect, and are decorated in repousse work with lotus-lilies in bud and blossom (fig. 285).

[Illustration:  Fig. 284.—­Golden cup of General Tahuti, Eighteenth Dynasty.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 285.—­Silver vase of Thmuis.]

The form is simple and elegant, the ornamentation sober and delicate; the relief low.  One is, however, surrounded by a row of ovoid bosses (fig. 286), which project in high relief, and somewhat alter the shape of the body of the vase.  These are interesting specimens; but they are so few in number that, were it not for the wall-paintings, we should have but a very imperfect idea of the skill of the Egyptian goldsmiths.