To get an idea of the character of the plate on the royal sideboards, we must have recourse to the sculptures in the temples, or to the paintings on the tombs:  the engraved gold or silver centrepieces, dishes, bowls, cups, and amphoras, if valued by weight only, were too precious to escape the avarice of the impoverished generations which followed the era of Theban prosperity.  In the fabrication of these we can trace foreign influences, but not to the extent of a predominance over native art:  even if the subject to be dealt with by the artist happened to be a Phoenician god or an Asiatic prisoner, he was not content with slavishly copying his model; he translated it and interpreted it, so as to give it an Egyptian character.

The household furniture was in keeping with these precious objects.  Beds and armchairs in valuable woods, inlaid with ivory, carved, gilt, painted in subdued and bright colours, upholstered with mattresses and cushions of many-hued Asiatic stuffs, or of home-made materials, fashioned after Chaldaean patterns, were in use among the well-to-do, while people of moderate means had to be content with old-fashioned furniture of the ancient regime.

[Illustration:  348.jpg DECORATED ARMCHAIR]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of these objects in the
     tomb of Ramses III.

The Theban dwelling-house was indeed more sumptuously furnished than the earliest Memphite, but we find the same general arrangements in both, which provided, in addition to quarters for the masters, a similar number of rooms intended for the slaves, for granaries, storehouses, and stables.  While the outward decoration of life was subject to change, the inward element remained unaltered.  Costume was a more complex matter than in former times:  the dresses and lower garments were more gauffered, had more embroidery and stripes; the wigs were larger and longer, and rose up in capricious arrangements of curls and plaits.

[Illustration:  349.jpg EGYPTIAN WIG]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by M. de Mertens.

The use of the chariot had now become a matter of daily custom, and the number of domestics, already formidable, was increased by fresh additions in the shape of coachmen, grooms, and saises, who ran before their master to clear a way for the horses through the crowded streets of the city.*

* The pictures at Tel el-Amarna exhibit the king, queen, and princesses driving in their chariots with escorts of soldiers and runners.  We often find in the tomb-paintings the chariot and coachman of some dignitary, waiting while their master inspects a field or a workshop, or while he is making a visit to the palace for some reward.

As material, existence became more complex, intellectual life partook of the same movement, and, without deviating much from the lines prescribed for it by the learned and the scribes of the Memphite age, literature had