top to bottom.  The angles were next cut away and smoothed down, so as to bring out the forms.  Gradually the features become disengaged from the block, the eye looks out, the nose gains refinement, the mouth is developed.  When the last cube is reached, there remains nothing to finish save the details of the head-dress and the basilisk on the brow.  No scholar’s model in basalt has yet been found;[39] but the Egyptians, like our monumental masons, always kept a stock of half-finished statues in hard stone, which could be turned out complete in a few hours.  The hands, feet, and bust needed only a few last touches; but the heads were merely blocked out, and the clothing left in the rough.  Half a day’s work then sufficed to transform the face into a portrait of the purchaser, and to give the last new fashion to the kilt.  The discovery of some two or three statues of this kind has shown us as much of the process as a series of teacher’s models might have done.  Volcanic rocks could not be cut with the continuity and regularity of limestone.  The point only could make any impression upon these obdurate materials.  When, by force of time and patience, the work had thus been finished to the degree required, there would often remain some little irregularities of surface, due, for example, to the presence of nodules and heterogeneous substances, which the sculptor had not ventured to attack, for fear of splintering away part of the surrounding surface.  In order to remove these irregularities, another tool was employed; namely, a stone cut in the form of an axe.  Applying the sharp edge of this instrument to the projecting nodule, the artist struck it with a round stone in place of a mallet.  A succession of carefully calculated blows with these rude tools pulverised the obtrusive knob, which disappeared in dust.  All minor defects being corrected, the monument still looked dull and unfinished.  It was necessary to polish it, in order to efface the scars of point and mallet.  This was a most delicate operation, one slip of the hand, or a moment’s forgetfulness, being enough to ruin the labour of many weeks.  The dexterity of the Egyptian craftsman was, however, so great that accidents rarely happened.  The Sebekemsaf of Gizeh, the colossal Rameses II. of Luxor, challenge the closest examination.  The play of light upon the surface may at first prevent the eye from apprehending the fineness of the work; but, seen under favourable circumstances, the details of knee and chest, of shoulder and face, prove to be no less subtly rendered in granite than in limestone.  Excess of polish has no more spoiled the statues of Ancient Egypt than it spoiled those of the sculptors of the Italian Renaissance.

A sandstone or limestone statue would have been deemed imperfect if left to show the colour of the stone in which it was cut, and was painted from head to foot.  In bas-relief, the background was left untouched and only the figures were coloured.  The Egyptians had more pigments at their disposal than is commonly supposed.  The more ancient painters’ palettes—­and we have some which date from the Fifth Dynasty—­have compartments for yellow, red, blue, brown, white, black, and green.[40] Others, of the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty, provide for three varieties of yellow, three of brown, two of red, two of blue, and two of green; making in all some fourteen or sixteen different tints.