We ought not, therefore, to be surprised if they are lacking in originality; they are no more to be distinguished from each other than the hundreds of coloured statuettes which one may find on the stalls of modern dealers in religious statuary.

[Illustration:  046b.jpg The Lady Taksuhit]

     From a bronze in the Museum at Athens

[Illustration:  046b.jpg-text]

Here and there among the multitude we may light upon examples showing a marked individuality:  the statuette of the lady Takushit, which now forms one of the ornaments of the museum at Athens, is an instance.  She stands erect, one foot in advance, her right arm hanging at her side, her left pressed against her bosom; she is arrayed in a short dress embroidered over with religious scenes, and wears upon her ankles and wrists rings of value.  A wig with stiff-looking locks, regularly arranged in rows, covers her head.  The details of the drapery and the ornaments are incised on the surface of the bronze, and heightened with a thread of silver.  The face is evidently a portrait, and is that apparently of a woman of mature age, but the body, according to the tradition of the Egyptian schools of art, is that of a young girl, lithe, firm, and elastic.  The alloy contains gold, and the warm and softened lights reflected from it blend most happily and harmoniously with the white lines of the designs.  The joiners occupied, after the workers in bronze, an important position in relation to the necropolis, and the greater part of the furniture which they executed for the mummies of persons of high rank was remarkable for its painting and carpentry-work.  Some articles of their manufacture were intended for religious use—­such as those shrines, mounted upon sledges, on which the image of the god was placed, to whom prayers were made for the deceased; others served for the household needs of the mummy, and, to distinguish these, there are to be seen upon their sides religious and funereal pictures, offerings to the two deceased parents, sacrifices to a god or goddess, and incidents in the Osirian life.  The funerary beds consisted, like those intended for the living, of a rectangular framework, placed upon four feet of equal height, although there are rare examples in which the supports are so arranged as to give a gentle slope to the structure.  The fancy which actuated the joiner in making such beds supposed that two benevolent lions had, of their own free will, stretched out their bodies to form the two sides of the couch, the muzzles constituting the pillow, while the tails were curled up under the feet of the sleeper.  Many of the heads given to the lions are so noble and expressive, that they will well bear comparison with the granite statues of these animals which Amenothes III. dedicated in his temple at Soleb.  The other trades depended upon the proportion of their members to the rest of the community for the estimation in which they were held.  The masons, stone-cutters, and common labourers furnished the most important contingent; among these ought also to be reckoned the royal servants—­of whose functions we should have been at a loss to guess the importance, if contemporary documents had not made it clear—­fishermen, hunters, laundresses, wood-cutters, gardeners, and water-carriers.*