RESULTS OP EXCAVATIONS AT BUBASTIS. 7 



alike in type, workmanship, and size ; two of them have 

 been carried away, one to Boston, the other to the British 

 Museum ; two others are still in situ. They all bear the 

 name of Rameses II., but we know well enough that this 

 does not prove anything as regards their origin. However, 

 I do not believe that they belong to the Old Empire. 

 What strikes one in looking at those monuments is the 

 total absence of all that constitutes the portrait : there is 

 nothing individual, nothing characteristic of one person. Tho 

 face is broad, very short, rather flat with projecting eyes : 

 there is no finish in the workmanship. It is true that the 

 statue being of colossal size, the features were to be seen at a 

 distance, and the effect would probably be better if we saw 

 them replaced at the height at which they originally stood. 

 It is very likely that they were placed on each side of two 

 doors in the festive hall. Statues of the same kind have been 

 found at San, at Ramleh, at Tel el Yahoodieh ; one which is 

 in the museum of Turin is supposed to come from San; thus, 

 they were all discovered in the Delta. In my opinion they are 

 statues which had only an architectural purpose, and which 

 are no more portraits than the caryatids which adorn some of 

 our buildings; they are mere ornaments on which Rameses U. 

 wrote his name, although the features are as different as pos- 

 sible from the tine type of the Ramessides. I am ready to 

 admit any amount of usurpation from Rameses II. ; but I do 

 not believe in the high antiquity of those statues ; theirs is a 

 style which dates from the Nineteenth dynasty, from Rameses 

 II., and which was continued by his son Menephtah, and even 

 later ; and this peculiar style was executed by artists of the 

 Delta, whose skill at that time was still sufficient for the re- 

 quirements of architecture. I am led to this conclusion by 

 the fact that these statues are too much alike; they are all 

 cast in the same mould, it is a common type of face, which is 

 copied from the one to the other without individual character. 

 It is in accordance with the custom of Rameses II., whose main 

 desire was to have a great number of monuments ; he did not 

 look too closely at the artistic side, provided they were 

 numerous. In this case, when he wrote his name on these 

 statues, he did not speak an untruth; they are his work. As 

 for the workmanship, it must not be forgotten that such 

 statues are seen only in the Delta. Local taste and local 

 fashion are very important factors in Egyptian art, whicli 

 have been too often overlooked ; they existed in former times 

 as they are still to be found at the present day. Evidently 

 the taste of the sculptors of Bubastis or Tanis was not exactly 

 the same as among the artists of Thebes or Abydos. 



