, and again at Medinet Habu, the faults of the original
design were not noticed till the sculptor had finished his part of the
work. The figures of Seti I. and Rameses III. were thrown too far back, and
threatened to overbalance themselves; so they were smoothed over with
cement and cut anew. Now, the cement has flaked off, and the work of the
first chisel is exposed to view. Seti I. and Rameses III. have each two
profiles, the one very lightly marked, the other boldly cut into the
surface of the stone (fig. 180).

[Illustration: Fig. 180.--Sculptor's correction, Medinet Habu, Rameses
III.]

[Illustration: Fig. 181.--Bow drill.]

The sculptors of ancient Egypt were not so well equipped as those of our
own day. A kneeling scribe in limestone at the Gizeh Museum has been carved
with the chisel, the grooves left by the tool being visible on his skin. A
statue in grey serpentine, in the same collection, bears traces of the use
of two different tools, the body being spotted all over with point-marks,
and the unfinished head being blocked out splinter by splinter with a small
hammer. Similar observations, and the study of the monuments, show that the
drill (fig. 181), the toothed-chisel, and the gouge were also employed.
There have been endless discussions as to whether these tools were of iron
or of bronze. Iron, it is argued, was deemed impure. No one could make use
of it, even for the basest needs of daily life, without incurring a taint
prejudicial to the soul both in this world and the next. But the impurity
of any given object never sufficed to prevent the employment of it when
required. Pigs also were impure; yet the Egyptians bred them. They bred
them, indeed, so abundantly in certain districts, that our worthy Herodotus
tells us how the swine were turned into the fields after seed-sowing, in
order that they might tread in the grain. So also iron, like many other
things in Egypt, was pure or impure according to circumstances. If some
traditions held it up to odium as an evil thing, and stigmatised it as the
"bones of Typhon," other traditions equally venerable affirmed that it was
the very substance of the canopy of heaven. So authoritative was this view,
that iron was currently known as "_Ba-en-pet_," or the celestial metal.[35]
The only fragment of metal found in the great pyramid is a piece of plate-
iron;[36] and if ancient iron objects are nowadays of exceptional rarity as
compared with ancient bronze objects, i