EXCAVATIONS IN EGYPT BORCHAEDT. 453 



shown that in making museum collections it is worth while to ex- 

 amine methodically places already rummaged, aside from the purely 

 scientific results which such work always yields. 



In house Q 48, 1, about 100 meters from the atelier of Thutmes, 

 toward the southeast, there was found an exceedingly well executed 

 model of the head of a baboon (pi. 6, fig. 1) . In the same house there 

 also came to light beautiful ivory carvings, which later on will be dis- 

 cussed. It need not be assumed that the baboon's head came from 

 the workshop of Thutmes, for some artisan probably lived there in 

 house Q 48, 1 who could make such a good model of the baboon, 

 especially since, together with the baboon's head, there was found a 

 small saucer containing remains of the material from which the 

 model was made. The most remarkable feature of the baboon mask 

 is its material, a brown and now hardened stuff at first designated as 

 " resembling wax." This, then, was the material for modeling, and not 

 clay, and from this first model a copy was made in stone. By chance 

 we also found the head of a baboon made in limestone (pi. 6, fig. 2). 

 It came from the house O 47, 5, about 100 meters from the atelier of 

 Thutmes, toward the west. Judging by the location of this find, it 

 may have come not from the atelier of Thutmes but from some other 

 not yet discovered center of sculptural works. It need not be as- 

 sumed that the limestone baboon was worked after that in " wax," 

 though many details suggest it. The task of molding the head of a 

 baboon, the sacred animal of Thot, the god of wisdom, must often 

 have presented itself to the sculptors of Tell el-Amarna, since the 

 center of the cult of this god, to whom the sun cult of Amenophis IV 

 was not at all opposed, was at Eshmunejn, close to Tell el-Amarna. 



Although the authorship of these two models must be left unde- 

 termined, yet that of the next and most important model (pis. 7 

 and 8) may safely be assigned to Thutmes. This one was found in 

 house P 47, 25, about 125 meter^ north of Thutmes's atelier, in a 

 region which is still within the circle of this atelier. Looking first 

 at the back or reverse of this find (pi. 8), it shows nothing more 

 than the accurate impression of a board which was roughly planed 

 with an adze. The board itself, like all w^oodwork at Tell el-Amarna, 

 had been devoured by white ants, but the impression reproduces all 

 the details, even the grain marks. The material of which the model 

 is made must therefore once have been so soft and flexible that it 

 could with great sharpness adapt itself to the smallest differences 

 in the surface of the original. At present it has the same glass- 

 hard consistency and the identical brown color of the "wax-like" 

 model of the baboon head (pi. 6, fig. 1). Prof. Schmidt, of Cairo, 

 who made a preliminary examination of a small particle of the stuff, 

 recognized it as a kind of gum resin, probably Oliban (frankin- 

 cense) or bdellium, with an earthy (Nile-mud) admixture. 



