452 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1915. 



was forgotten in the choice of colors, showing that we have here 

 not something original but a mixing of various older motifs. The 

 door frames are not of stone color, but that of red-brown wood, 

 superposed by bright yellow hieroglyphic lines. They should repre- 

 sent an inlaid decoration in two wood colors. But glaring as the 

 yellow tone of the hieroglyphics is in itself, it has an excellent effect 

 in mass upon the dark-red brown. The folding doors are yellow, 

 while the wider doors, which naturally would consist of several ver- 

 tical boards in red brown, are 'yellow and red brown, each board 

 separate. The papyrus stalk between the two halves of the double 

 niche is likewise painted in natural colors, green with yellow basal 

 leaves. Naturalism prevails also in the color scheme of the door head- 

 piece of the tombs of Tell el-Amarna and the temple of Abydos, 

 which is painted in the yellow and red-brown wood colors. The 

 painting of the chamfer of the door headpiece is remarkable. Per- 

 haps originally a frieze of uraei (sacred asps) was intended or er- 

 roneously laid on, while in the painting coarsely executed rosettes in 

 different colors were employed. The yellow tone of the window 

 grating is due to the fact that these structures date back to the period 

 of original wood construction. Of the painted garlands which ran 

 as a frieze around the walls, and which in the New Empire were al- 

 ways rendered in the correct forms and colors of the flowers, enough 

 fragments were found to permit an accurate reconstruction. 



But now we come to the rather doubtful elements of the construc- 

 tion, the columns and architraves. Besides the white bases only the 

 red-brown color of the shafts of the columns, traces of which can be 

 discerned upon the bases, is assured. The form of the columns as 

 palms was selected after old representations of the dining room in the 

 palace of Amenophis IV, and consequently a green color was as- 

 sumed for them. The abaci and architraves, as carried out in the 

 reconstruction, may have been yellow, remains having been found of 

 wooden architraves in another excavation. 



These are the data for the attempted reconstruction which, in many 

 cases, have shown that this dining room was quite a comfortable 

 place and that the color scheme, even to our taste, was not coarse or 

 glaring but produced rather a pleasing and harmonious effect. Life 

 in such rooms must have been quite pleasant, although they were not 

 very well lighted as evidenced by the frequent finds of lamps and 

 lamp stands. 



In exploring the environments of the atelier of the sculptor 

 Thutmes some pieces which had been carried away from his work- 

 shop fell into our hands, notwithstanding that a considerable num- 

 ber of the finds of this year were from house ruins which had been 

 already exploited by natives and, perhaps, also by our scientific 

 predecessors at Tell el-Amarna. This year's experience has thus 



