ANCIENT CARVED IVORIES 9 



seems to have produced a school of ivory carving, properly 

 so-called, as China did. The Egyptians appear to have 

 treated this material as they would and did any other, with- 

 out particular consideration of its peculiar qualities. A still 

 further advance in technical and artistic skill characterizes 

 the ivory work of the First Dynasty, and a quaint but 

 thoroughly representative specimen of the ivory carver's art 

 at this period is the figure of an old king found at Abydos, 

 and now in the British Museum. The senile droop of the 

 head and neck, the intelligence, one might perhaps better 

 say the shrewdness, marking the face of the aged sovereign, 

 make this a really fine portrait study in spite of its restricted 

 dimensions.* 



The head of an Egyptian king, carved in ivory, was exhib- 

 ited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1879. It had been 

 bought of an Arab at the Tombs of the Kings, Thebes, and 

 from its close resemblance to the celebrated carved wooden 

 statue from Sakkarah, now in the Boulaq Museum, and to 

 which a date of circa 4000 B. C. has been assigned, there is 

 some reason to believe that this may be one of the very early 

 specimens of Egyptian work in ivory. The beard is formed 

 of ebony wood, and a small piece of this wood has been in- 

 serted at the top of the skull, to represent the opening made 

 for the extraction of the brain in the embalming process.f 

 This work was, when exhibited, in the possession of Mrs. 

 Blood. 



Two fine specimens of the so-called "magical wands" 

 were recently offered for sale in London at the disposal of the 

 Hilton Price Collection there in July, 1911. The larger of 

 these measured 14J in. from end to end and was about 2 in. 



*W. M. Flinders Petrie, "The Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt," London, 1909, pp. 

 31, 32, 134 (see Fig. 21, opp. p. 32). 



fBurlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of Bronzes and Ivories of European Origin, ex- 

 hibited in 1879, London, 1879, p. 48; Cabinet VII, No. 290. 



