PYRAMIDS OF DJIZA. 201 
stuccoed walls of the houses in Pompeii and chap. 
Herculaneum\ Upon this painted surface there , ^^' ; 
(1) See Rode and Riem " On the Painting nf the Antients," p. 53, 
Berlin, 1787. " It is really astonishing' that a people, which, if we 
except the obstacles arising from climate and the despotism of its 
priests and its rulers, possessed such abundant means of elevating; the 
Arts to the highest degree of perfection, did so little understand bow 
to use these means. In these glowing colours, of which the original 
quality remains unaltered and entire, after thousands of years, in these 
so well-preserved colours of the royal tombs of BiBAN el Moluch, of 
the ceiling at 'Ientvra and Syene, and in the colours of the fallen 
Sphinx near the antient Heliopolis, are discovered resources of which 
few nations have been able to boast, and which Count Caylus supposes 
to consist in certain sharp and corroding materials, which united the 
colours so firmly with the body, that centuries would produce no al- 
teration in their substance*. This supposition is perhaps erroneous. 
Corroding materials do not always preserve the colours, l)ul destroy 
certain kinds, or at least change them, in such a manner, that they 
are far from remaining what they were. I will venture a supposition, 
which, however, I mean to try previously, by an experiment whii?h,for 
that purpose, I propose to make. I think, namelj-, I may conjecture, 
not without reason, that the Egyptians did not put on the colour in 
the manner in which it is done novv ; because the (ise of the pencil was 
entirely unknown to them. Nothing was left, them, in this respect, 
Lut to unite a plastic viscid mass so thoroughly with the simple 
colours, that the whole mass which they put on contained those 
colours. It is precisely' the same, whether this consisted of a kind of 
wax, of cement-earth hard as stone, or of something similar. This 
they could easily put on, by means of their instruments ; and indeed 
the easier, as they knew of no mixing and of no shading of colours, 
but painted all in utiiform colours, red, yellow, or otherwise. The 
plastic mass, or ceraent-earth, hardened either by encaustic treatment, 
which was not unknown to them, or by itself., This must very natu- 
rally preserve the colours in equal strength, as they were bound to- 
gether and rendered permanent by the mass itself, and quite incor- 
jporated into it, which is particularly true of stone- and earth-colours. 
Toward 
* Ctti/Jus, in the above-quottd passage, Vol. I. p. 351. 
