A History of Art in Ancient Egypt (1883) (14772545255)

Identifier: historyofartinan01perruoft
Title: A history of art in ancient Egypt
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Perrot, Georges, 1832-1914 Chipiez, Charles, 1835-1901 Armstrong, Walter, Sir, 1850-1918
Subjects: Art -- Egypt History Egypt -- Antiquities
Publisher: London : Chapman and Hall
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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s and liberties. Dur-ing all those thousands ofyears not the faintest traceis to be discovered of that spirit from which sprung the republican constitutions of Greeceand ancient Italy, a spirit which, in yet later times, has led to theparliamentary governments of Christian Europe. The Egyptianlabourer or artisan never dreamt of calling in question the ordersof any one who might be master for the time. Absolute obedienceto the will of a single man—such was the constant and instinctivenational habit, and by it every movement of the social machine,under foreign and native kings alike, was regulated. From the construction of the pyramids of Cheops and Chephren,and the cutting of a new canal between the two seas under Nekau,to the Mahmoudieh canal of Mehemet-Ali and that abortive 1 Fr. Lenormant, Manuel dHistoire ancienne, t. i, pp. 485-486. The mostcelebrated of these is the famous Chamber of Ancestors from Karnak, which is nowpreserved in the Bibliothcqiie Nationale at Paris. VOL. I. E
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Fjg. 14. -Rameses II. in adoration before Seti.From Abydos (Mariette). 26 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. enterprise, the barrage of the Nile, the only method thought of forobtaining the necessary labour was compulsion,^ An order isreceived by the governor, who has it proclaimed from one villageto another throughout his province ; next day the w^hole malepopulation is driven, like a troop of sheep, to the workshops.Each man carries a bag or basket which holds his provisions for afortnight or a month, as the case may be ; a few dry cakes, onions,garlic, and Egyptian beans, as the Greeks called the species ofalmond which is contained in the fruit of the lotus. Old men andchildren, all had to obey the summons. The more vigorous andskilful among them dressed and put in place the blocks of graniteor limestone ; the weakest were useful for the transport of therubbish to a distance, for carrying clay and water from the Nile to