In this rapid sketch of the industrial arts there are many lacunae.  When referring to examples, I have perforce limited myself to such as are contained in the best-known collections.  How many more might not be discovered if one had leisure to visit provincial museums, and trace what the hazard of sales may have dispersed through private collections!  The variety of small monuments due to the industry of ancient Egypt is infinite, and a methodical study of those monuments has yet to be made.  It is a task which promises many surprises to whomsoever shall undertake it.

[77] From the inscription upon the obelisk of Hatshepsut which is still
    erect at Karnak.  For a translation in full see Records of the
    Past, vol. xii., p. 131, et seqq.—­A.B.E.

[78] Mr. Petrie suggests that this curious central object may be a royal
    umbrella with flaps of ox-hide and tiger-skin.—­A.B.E.

[79] That is, lentil-shaped, or a double convex.—­A.B.E.

NOTES TO FIRST ENGLISH EDITION.

For the following notes, to which reference numbers will be found in the text, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. W.M.  Flinders Petrie, author of “The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh” (Field & Tuer), “Tanis” (Egypt Exploration Fund), “Naukratis” (Egypt Exploration Fund), etc., etc.

A.B.E.

(1) More striking than these are the towns of Tell Atrib, Kom Baglieh, Kom Abu Billu, and Tell Nebesheh, the houses of which may be traced without any special excavations.

(2) There is much skill needed in mixing the mud and sand in such proportions as to dry properly; when rightly adjusted there is no cracking in drying, and the grains of sand prevent the mud from being washed away in the rains.

(3) In the Delta, at least, the sizes of bricks from the Twenty-first Dynasty down to Arab times decrease very regularly; under the Twenty-first Dynasty they are about 18 x 9 x 5 inches; early in the Twenty-sixth, 16-1/2 x 8-1/4 x 5; later 15 x 7-1/2; in early Ptolemaic times, 14 x 7; in Roman times, 12 x 6, in Byzantine times, 10 x 5; and Arab bricks are 8 x 4, and continue so very generally to our times.  The thickness is always least certain, as it depends on the amount placed in the mould, but the length and breadth may in most cases be accepted as a very useful chronological scale.

(4) They are found of Ramesside age at Nebesheh and Defenneh; even there they are rare, and these are the only cases I have yet seen in Egypt earlier than about the third century A.D.

(5) This system was sometimes used to raise a fort above the plain, as at Defenneh; or the chambers formed store-rooms, as at the fort at Naukratis.

(6) In the fine early work at Gizeh they sawed the paving blocks of basalt, and then ground only just the edges flat, while all the inside of the joint was picked rough to hold the mortar.