44 



markable for a kind of headdress, somewhat re- 

 sembling the veil or calantica of the heads of 

 Isis, the Sphinxes, Antinoiis, and a great num- 

 ber of other Egyptian statues. It must never- 

 theless be observed, that, in the Egyptian veil, 

 the two ends, which fall below the ears, are ge- 

 nerally very scanty and cross folded. In several 

 statues of the God Apis, in the Museum of the 

 Capitol, the ends are convex in the front, and 

 plaited lengthways, while the back part, that 

 which touches the neck, is constantly flat, and 

 not rounded as in the Mexican headdress. That 

 the greatest analogy exists between this head- 

 dress and the plaited drapery, that encircles the 

 heads incrusted on the pillars of Tentyra, is 

 evident from the accurate drawings, which M. 

 Denon has given in his Travels in Egypt. 



Perhaps the fluted pads, which in the Mexican 

 statue extend towards the shoulders, are masses 

 of hair, like the tresses in a statue of Isis, of 

 Greek workmanship, placed in the library of the 

 Villa Ludovisi at Rome. This singular arrange- 

 ment of the hair is particularly striking on the 

 reverse of the statue, engraved on the second 

 plate, which presents an enormous bag tied in the 

 middle by a knot. The celebrated Zoega, of 

 whom the fine arts have lately been deprived 

 by death, assured me, that he had seen a bag of 

 exactly the same form on a small statue of Osiris 

 in bronze, in the Museum of Cardinal Borgia, 



