236 
EGYPTIAN ART. 
Shelf 4. Small sepulchral tablets, with inscriptions. 
Cases 2*2, 23. Shelves 1,2. Sepulchral cones of brick, stamped 
with inscriptions, in bas-relief. They contain the names and titles of 
the functionaries in whose times they were deposited. These have 
been supposed to be stamps or seals—but appear to be rather votive 
objects deposited with the dead. 
Shelf 3. Inscriptions in enchorial and the Greek language, on frag¬ 
ments of pottery, chiefly receipts, under the early emperors. From 
Elephantina. 
Fragments of pottery, with inscriptions in hieratic and Coptic. 
Shelf 4. Inscriptions in Greek and Coptic on fragments of calcareous 
stone and pottery. They are principally religious, and of the Christian 
period. 
Case 27. Large Egyptian vases, in terracotta ; one remarkable 
for being covered with a demotic inscription. 
The objects in Table Cases on this side of the room will shortly be 
removed; it has not therefore been considered necessary to describe 
them. 
ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES. 
The smaller objects recently excavated by Mr. Layard, Colonel 
Rawlinson, and Mr. Loftus, in Assyria and Babylonia, are placed in 
this room until cases shall have been fitted up for them elsewhere. 
Cases 33, 34. Shelves 1—3. Various terracotta vessels, chiefly 
from Nimroud. Shelf 4. Stone and bronze weights in the form of 
ducks and lions. 
Cases 35, 36. Shelves 1, 2. Objects in stone, glass, &c. Shelf 3. 
Portions of a helmet, daggers, and other weapons in bronze, from 
Nimroud. 
Cases 37—61. Various unarranged objects, recently brought over 
to this country by Mr. Layard. 
Cases 62—64. Antiquities excavated by Mr. Loftus at Warka, in 
Mesopotamia. 
The Table Cases on this side of the room chiefly contain the clay 
tablets inscribed with cuneiform characters, discovered at Kouyunjik. 
Art of the Egyptians. — From the specimens of the architecture and 
sculpture of the Egyptians which remain to us, we see that their art was 
of a peculiar character, remarkable for its colossal proportions and mag* 
nificence. The earliest known architecture, the pyramids of the 4th dy¬ 
nasty, exhibits simple forms of vast magnitude, and of the minutest finish. 
In the more complicated structure of the tombs of Benyhassan, under 
the 12th dynasty, the elements of Doric architecture maybe traced in 
the columns and triglyphs. Under the 18th dynasty, the columns 
have capitals, representing lotus buds and flowers of the lotus, papyrus 
