RESULTS OF EXCAVATIONS AT BUBASTIS. 143 
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 a 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. The 
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 frora 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 II. 
wrote his name, although the features are as different as pos- 
sible from the fine type of the Ramessides. I am ready to 
admit any amount of usurpation from Rameses IT.; but J do 
not believe in the high antiquity of those statues; theirs is a 
style which dates from the Nineteenth dynasty, from Rameses 
IT., 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 [I., 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, which 
have been too often overlooked ; they existed in former times 
as they are still to be found at the present day. Hvidently 
the taste of the sculptors of Bubastis or Tanis was not exactly 
the same as among the artists of Thebes or Abydos, 
