The Evolution of the Dragon. Grafton Elliot Smith

The Evolution of the Dragon - Grafton Elliot Smith


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Mummies.

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Fig. 2.—Water-colour sketch by Mrs. Cecil Firth, representing a restoration of the early mummy found at Medûm by Prof. Flinders Petrie, now in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London

      Fig. 2.—Water-colour sketch by Mrs. Cecil Firth, representing a restoration of the early mummy found at Medûm by Prof. Flinders Petrie, now in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London

      These facts prove quite conclusively that the earliest attempts to reproduce the features of the deceased and so preserve his likeness, were made upon the wrapped mummy itself. Thus the mummy was intended to be the portrait as well as the actual bodily remains of the dead. In view of certain differences of opinion as to the original significance of the funerary ritual, which I shall have occasion to discuss later on (see p. 20), it is important to keep these facts clearly in mind.

Fig. 3.—A mould taken from a life-mask found in the Pyramid of Teta by Mr. Quibell

      Fig. 3.—A mould taken from a life-mask found in the Pyramid of Teta by Mr. Quibell

      Junker believes that there was an intimate relationship between the plaster-covered heads and the reserve-heads. They were both expressions of the same idea, to preserve a simulacrum of the deceased when his actual body had lost all recognizable likeness to him as he was when alive. The one method aimed at combining in the same object the actual body and the likeness; the other at making a more life-like portrait apart from the corpse, which could take the place of the latter when it decayed.

      It is important to remember that, even when the custom of making a statue of the deceased became fully established, the original idea of restoring the form of the mummy itself or its wrappings was never abandoned. The attempts made in the XVIII, and XXI and XXII Dynasties to pack the body of the mummy itself and by artificial means give it a life-like appearance afford evidence of this. In the New Empire and in Roman times the wrapped mummy was sometimes modelled into the form of a statue. But throughout Egyptian history it was a not uncommon practice to provide a painted mask for the wrapped mummy, or in early Christian times simply a portrait of the deceased.

Fig. 4.—Portrait Statue of an Egyptian Lady of the Pyramid Age

      Fig. 4.—Portrait Statue of an Egyptian Lady of the Pyramid Age


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