Egypt

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HE ART OF ANClENT EGYPT. At first sight the art of Egypt, stamped with a character so peculiarly its own, gives us the impression of immovability. A greater familiarity with it soon discloses the fact that it had a history of its own corresponding very closely with the history of the nation. Its periods of...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HE ART OF ANClENT EGYPT. At first sight the art of Egypt, stamped with a character so peculiarly its own, gives us the impression of immovability. A greater familiarity with it soon discloses the fact that it had a history of its own corresponding very closely with the history of the nation. Its periods of development, stagnation, and decay are indis- solubly connected with the circumstances of the national life. Indeed, the sensitiveness of Egyptian art to the influences, native or foreign, which surrounded it helps one to understand the character and conditions of the different ages in its history. It may be profitable, therefore, to recall briefly the important periods of that history. During the first ten dynasties, known as the ancient empire or Memphite period, so called from its greatest capital, the seat of power was in the northern part of Central Egypt, near the point where the valley of the Nile widens into the Delta. With the XI dynasty begins the first period of Theban domination ? a domination extending over both Upper and Lower Egypt, and closing somewhat obscurely with the XIV dynasty. In the latter part of this period occurred invasions of tribes from Asia which eventually established a foreign sovereignty under the Hyksos or Shepherd kings. Of what race these were, we cannot definitely tell; STATl'E OF KHF.i'HKEN but the features of the statues found at Bubastis and elsewhere in the Delta distinctly recall an Assyrian, and sometimes a Mongolian type. We do not know how far beyond the Delta the power of these kings extended, but we know that in the XVII dynasty a great uprising of the nation overwhelmed them and drove them from the country. This uprising was evidently led by the house of Thebes, princes with a genius for war and government. Un...