Khäsekhemui, at the beginning of the IId Dynasty, the archaic character
of the art has already begun to wear off. Under the same dynasty we
still have styles of unconventional naïveté, such as the famous Statue
"No. 1" of the Cairo Museum, bearing the names of Kings Hetepahaui,
Neb-râ, and Neneter. But with the IVth Dynasty we no longer look for
unconventionality. Prof. Petrie discovered at Abydos a small ivory
statuette of Khufu or Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Gîza.
The portrait is a good one and carefully executed. It was not till
the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, indeed, that the Egyptians ceased
to portray their kings as they really were, and gave them a purely
conventional type of face. This convention, against which the heretical
King Amenhetep IV (Akhunaten) rebelled, in order to have himself
portrayed in all his real ungainliness and ugliness, did not exist till
long after the time of the IVth and Vth Dynasties.

[Illustration: 100.jpg STATUE NO. 1 OF THE CAIRO MUSEUM, About 3900
B.C.]

The kings of the XIIth Dynasty especially were most careful that their
statues should be accurate portraits; indeed, the portraits of Usertsen
(Senusret) III vary from a young face to an old one, showing that the
king was faithfully depicted at different periods of his life.

But the general conventions of dress and deportment were finally fixed
under the Vth Dynasty. After this time we no longer have such absolutely
faithful and original presentments as the other little ivory statuette
found by Prof. Petrie at Abydos (now in the British Museum), which shows
us an aged monarch of the Ist Dynasty. It is obvious that the features
are absolutely true to life, and the figure wears an unconventionally
party-coloured and bordered robe of a kind which kings of a later day