SCULPTOR. 299 



&quot; Very skilled in artistic work, with his own hand he carried out 

 his designs as they ought to be carried out.&quot; He &quot;besides was in 

 vested with religious functions&quot; and &quot; was the alter ego of the king.&quot; 

 His inscription says: &quot; I it was who arranged the work for the 

 building of the temple. &quot; 



An inscription of the 18th dynasty refers to one Bek, archi 

 tect of Amenhotep IV, who, being described as &quot; the fol 

 lower of the divine benefactor &quot; was apparently a priest, 

 and who was both an executant and a supervisor of others 

 work. He is referred to as 



11 overseer of the works at the red mountain, an artist and teacher of 

 the king himself, an overseer of the sculptors from life at the grand 

 monuments of the king for the temple of the sun s disk.&quot; 



A further fact is given. Bek, says of himself &quot; My lord 

 promoted me to be chief architect. I immortalized the name 

 of the king ... [I caused] to be made two portrait-statues 

 of noble hard stone in this his great building. It is like 

 heaven. . . . Thus I executed these works of art, his 

 statues.&quot; 



What evidence Greek records yield, though not exten 

 sive, is to the point. Curtius, who, referring to actions of 

 the singers and composers of hymns as well as to those of the 

 plastic artists, says that &quot; the service of the temple compre 

 hends the whole variety of these efforts,&quot; also says that &quot; the 

 earliest sculptors were persons of a sacerdotal character.&quot; 

 On another page he adds, concerning sculpture 



&quot;In this domain of artistic activity, all things were bound by the 

 decrees of the priests and by close relations with religion. . . . They 

 [the artists] were regarded as persons in the service of the divine 

 religion.&quot; 



The extent to which sculpture subserved religious purposes 

 may be judged from the statement of Mahaffy that 



&quot;The greatest sculptors, painters, and architects had lavished labour 

 and design upon the buildings [of the oracle at Delphi]. Though 

 Nero had carried off 500 bronze statues, the traveller estimated the 

 remaining works of art at 3000, and yet these seem to have been 

 almost all statues.&quot; 



