came chiefly from Asia, in rings, sheets, and bricks of
standard weight. The gold and electrum came partly from Syria in bricks and
rings; and partly from the Soudan in nuggets and gold-dust. The processes
of refining and alloying are figured on certain monuments of the early
dynasties. In a bas-relief at Sakkarah, we see the weighed gold entrusted
to the craftsman for working; in another example (at Beni Hasan) the
washing and melting down of the ore is represented; and again at Thebes,
the goldsmith is depicted seated in front of his crucible, holding the
blow-pipe to his lips with the left hand, and grasping his pincers with the
right, thus fanning the flame and at the same time making ready to seize
the ingot (fig. 283). The Egyptians struck neither coins nor medals. With
these exceptions, they made the same use of the precious metals as we do
ourselves. We gild the crosses and cupolas of our churches; they covered
the doors of their temples, the lower part of their wall-surfaces, certain
bas-reliefs, pyramidions of obelisks, and even whole obelisks, with plates
of gold. The obelisks of Queen Hatshepsut at Karnak were coated with
electrum. "They were visible from both banks of the Nile, and when the sun
rose between them as he came up from the heavenly horizon, they flooded the
two Egypts with their dazzling rays."[77] These plates of metal were forged
with hammer and anvil. For smaller objects, they made use of little pellets
beaten flat between two pieces of parchment. In the Museum of the Louvre we
have a gilder's book, and the gold-leaf which it contains is as thin as
the gold-leaf used by the German goldsmiths of the past century. Gold was
applied to bronze surfaces by means of an ammoniacal solvent. If the object
to be gilt were a wooden statuette, the workman began by sticking a piece
of fine linen all over the surface, or by covering it with a very thin coat
of plaster; upon this he laid his gold or silver leaf. It was thus that
wooden statuettes of Thoth, Horus, and Nefertum were gilded, from the time
of Khufu. The temple of Isis, the "Lady of the Pyramid," contained a dozen
such images; and this temple was not one of the largest in the Memphite
necropolis. There would seem to have been hundreds of gilded statues in the
Theban temples, at all events in the time of the victorious dynasties of
the new empire; and as regards wealth, the Ptolemaic sanctuaries were in no
wise inferior to those of the Theban period.