Egyptian sculpture

INTRODUCTION xxiii The variation in quality in Egyptian art may possibly be due to religious motives; in other words, to the character of the local god of the capital city of the period. When Mena, the first historic king, made his capital at Memphis, he unconsciously raised art to the high position it held for so many centuries; for Ptah, the god of Memphis, was the god of art and of all handicrafts, and the High Priest of Ptah had as his titles the Chief of the Stone-workers and Artist to the King. Memphis remained the capital till the fall of the VIth dynasty, and even when the princes of the Fayum ruled Egypt throughout the XIIth dynasty, Memphis still retained sufficient power to be the ruler in matters artistic. The fall of the Middle Kingdom under the assaults of barbarism and foreign invaders broke the artistic supremacy of Memphis, for with the rise of the New Kingdom the capital shifted to Thebes, whose god was more concerned with the pursuit of wealth and of temporal power than of art. After many vicissitudes Memphis rose again as the political centre in the XXVIth dynasty, and with its rise in political importance there came also a rise in the appreciation of the beautiful. Amon of Thebes might still be sufficiently great to attract the notice of foreign visitors and authors, but the god of Memphis was the god of art as well as of the capital city, and his chief priest was still the chief artist, and his votaries were trained in the old school. They had, however, lost all real originality, and therefore turned to copying the masterpieces of antiquity. It is significant of their appreciation of their models that, copyists though they were, they appear to have saved the ancient statues from destruction, for nearly all the sculpture found in Memphis is unmutilated, a contrast to the condition of the sculpture in other sites. It must always be remembered in the study of Egyptian