It is further seen from the footnote, that the confusion of the ruins was such that Mariette is unable to affirm that all these statues belonged to one and the same tomb. Mariette's statements seem fairly precise on the one hand there were in the midst of the rubbish, thrown pell-mell and broken up, five painted statues, and on the other hand there were in two niches hidden in a wall which had not been completely overthrown, and in their original positions, two limestone statues, one of which is the famous Scribe. The disorder is so great that I cannot state positively that this débris does not belong to several tombs. Towards the latter period of the Serapeum excavations I again put some workers on to the rubbish where these monuments had been recovered. One of the two statues with inlaid eyes is the famous squatting scribe, the exhibition of which caused such a lively emotion in the world of artists and archaeologists. And Mariette adds in a footnote: "The seven statues thus discovered are now in the Louvre. I had the shaft cleared at the bottom we found only a coarse sarcophagus of greyish limestone, already robbed" (p11). In the middle of the eyes, formed of pieces of opaque blue quartz, are fixed small disks of rock-crystal, which give to the pupils thus represented an extraordinary living power. The eyes are set in envelopes of bronze which take the place of the eyelids. The bare flesh is painted red, the hair black, the short kilt ( shenti) white. We found in them two admirable statues in their original positions. Two niches, hidden in a wall which had not been completely overthrown, were opened. P187 pieces of these, which fitted together, were carefully gathered up and put aside. Five painted statues were found in the rubbish, into which they had been thrown pell-mell the It has been devastated from top to bottom, and it was only with great difficulty that I reconstructed its original plan. The first is situated north, and belongs to the Old Kingdom. These are the most modern. . . ." "Two of the tombs adjacent to the Avenue particularly arrested my attention. In some cases these tombs have no communication with the Avenue and these are, generally speaking, very ancient, since for the most part they go back to the Old Kingdom in other cases they have a façade turned towards the Avenue, with which they are connected by a communicating door. "From the commencement of the excavations," he wrote, "I had perceived that the Avenue of Sphinxes was bordered on both sides by tombs belonging to private persons. We know how, delayed in Cairo by red tape and tempted by his adventurous genius, Mariette decided to lay bare the secret of Saḳḳâreh's sands. 5 In the detailed account of the excavations published after his death by Maspero, 6 we find, under the dates 1st November, 1850 to 1st January, 1851, the description of the uncovering of the famous Avenue of Sphinxes of the Serapeum. A credit of 6000 francs had been placed at his disposal. On the 2nd October, 1850, Auguste Mariette landed in Egypt, commissioned to obtain Coptic manuscripts. Let us endeavour to get back to the original sources which inform us as to the excavations of the Serapeum. In a notice, probably the most detailed one that has appeared, drawn up by Maspero in Rayet's work, 3 we read that "it was found in the tomb of Skhemka, in 1851, by Mariette, during the trial diggings that preceded the discovery of the Serapeum." This statement is repeated in Maspero's great history, 4 where the author adds, "it comes from the tomb of Sekhem‑ka and represents this person." It may be seen at once that the problem to be solved is a double one: (a) where was the Scribe of the Louvre found? (b) whom does it represent? Of this statue, also, the statement holds good: it has been reproduced everywhere, it has nowhere been properly published and the bibliography of the Scribe - I mean, of course, the bibliography of scientific studies - is of the most meagre. I have endeavoured, in a previous article, 2 to clear away certain obscurities prevalent with regard to the Shêkh, and may be permitted to deal this time with the Scribe of the Louvre. Nearly everybody knows that we owe them both to the excavations of the illustrious Frenchman, Mariette-Pasha, whose centenary is being celebrated this year. Wherever Egyptian art is discussed, the mention of these two masterpieces is absolutely inevitable. XXXI, Fig. 1) certainly divides the honours of general admiration with the "Shêkh el‑Beled" of the Cairo collection. The squatting Scribe of the Louvre Museum (Pl.
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