EXCAVATIONS IN EGYPT BORCHAKDT. 455 



rence of art finds. The baboon made of gum resin, mentioned above 

 (pi. 6, fig. 1) , comes from this house, but the other objects found there 

 are of ivory and as far as they are dated are older than Amenophis 

 IV. Among these is the cover of a box from the time of Amenophis 

 III (1411-1375 B. C), and the exquisite carving (pi. 10), to be 

 presently discussed, belongs to the time of Thutmosis (Thotmes) IV 

 (1420-1411 B. C). These dates lead to the assumption that these 

 objects had been collected by some craftsman who inhabited house 

 Q 48, 1, to serve him as copies of patterns. 



The art work in question consists of the outer 

 shell of part of an elephant's tusk, about 12 cen- 

 timeters long, bisected lengthwise and carved in 

 pierced work. Its surface thus forms the half 

 mantle of an obtuse cone, and it is therefore nearly 

 impossible to reproduce it by photography and Fig. i.— cuff with repre- 

 by drawing exceptthrough unrolling. The work, rri^^^u^'lragtfn? 



which was made still more difficult because of the of a relief from the mortuary 



brittleness of the original, was executed by the *X2. "Limestonront 

 skillful hand of Mr. A. BoUacher. sixth natural size. 



The carving shows King Amenophis IV striking with the raised 

 sickle sword a Libyan who fell on his knees before him and whom 

 he grasps by the hair. In addition, the King also grasps a bow 

 and arrows, as customary in this ancient type of representing 

 " a king striking down a captive." This incredible deftness of the 

 hand, which the Egyptian kings displayed at this ceremony, at least 

 on pictorial representations, is already shown in an instance of the 

 Vth dynasty, from the mortuary temple of King Sahu-re'. Behind 

 the king, oyer whose head the sun disk is to be noticed, the uraeus 

 serpent rises upon papyrus stalks, the heraldic plant of Upper 

 Egypt. The scene plays before a statue of the god Montu of 

 Thebes, who presents to the king the sickle sword and holds the rib 

 of a palm, the symbol of everlasting duration. In front of the god 

 is inscribed what he is saying to the king : " I hold the sickle sword 

 for you, oh beautiful god ! With it thou shalt slay the chiefs of all 

 foreign lands." There is nothing of particular interest either in the 

 composition or the contents of the carving. But the workmanship is 

 finer, particularly the neat execution of the costume of the king and 

 the exquisitely modeled faces of the prostrated Libyan, and still 

 more so of the king. 



What purpose did this art work serve, or to what object was it at- 

 tached ? The answer to these questions is furnished by an earlier find 

 from our excavations. In the mortuary temple of Ne-user-re' was 

 found a fragment of a relief (fig. 1) representing the left arm of a king 

 shooting with the bow. The wrist is protected with a cuff against 

 the rebound of the bowstring, and upon the cuff appears in minia- 



