s
nose is aquiline, pronounced in form, and large at the tip; the thick
lips are slightly closed; his mouth has a disdainful curve, and its
corners are turned down as if to repress the inevitable smile common to
most Egyptian statues; the chin is full and heavy, and turns up in front
in spite of the weight of the false beard dependent from it; he has
small narrow eyes, with full lids; his cheekbones are accentuated and
projecting, the cheeks hollow, and the muscles about the nose and mouth
strongly defined. The whole presents so strange an aspect, that for a
long time statues of this type have been persistently looked upon as
productions of an art which was only partially Egyptian. It is, indeed,
possible that the Tanis sphinxes were turned out of workshops where the
principles and practice of the sculptor's art had previously undergone
some Asiatic influence; the bushy mane which surrounds the face, and
the lion's ears emerging from it, are exclusively characteristic of the
latter. The purely human statues in which we meet with the same type of
countenance have no peculiarity of workmanship which could be attributed
to the imitation of a foreign art. If the nameless masters to whom
we owe their existence desired to bring about a reaction against the
conventional technique of their contemporaries, they at least introduced
no foreign innovations; the monuments of the Memphite period furnished
them with all the models they could possibly wish for.

Bubastis had no less occasion than Tanis to boast of the generosity of
the Theban Pharaohs. The temple of Bastit, which had been decorated by
Kheops and Khephren, was still in existence: Amenemhait I., Usirtasen
I., and their immediate successors confined themselves to the
restoration of several chambers, and to the erection of their own
statues, but Usirtasen III. added to it a new structure which must have
made it rival the finest monuments in Egypt. He believed, no doubt, that
he was under particular obligations to the lioness goddess of the city,
and attributed to her aid, for unknown reasons, some of his successes in
Nubia; it would appear that it was with the spoil of a campaign against
the country of the Hua that he endowed a part of the new sanctuary.*

* The fragment found by Naville formed part of an
inscription engraved on a wall: the wars which it was
customary to commemorate in a temple were always selected
from those in which the whole or a pa