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Here and there among the multitude we may light upon examples showing
a marked individuality: the statuette of the lady Takûshit, which now
forms one of the ornaments of the museum at Athens, is an instance. She
stands erect, one foot in advance, her right arm hanging at her side,
her left pressed against her bosom; she is arrayed in a short dress
embroidered over with religious scenes, and wears upon her ankles
and wrists rings of value. A wig with stiff-looking locks, regularly
arranged in rows, covers her head. The details of the drapery and the
ornaments are incised on the surface of the bronze, and heightened
with a thread of silver. The face is evidently a portrait, and is that
apparently of a woman of mature age, but the body, according to the
tradition of the Egyptian schools of art, is that of a young girl,
lithe, firm, and elastic. The alloy contains gold, and the warm and
softened lights reflected from it blend most happily and harmoniously
with the white lines of the designs. The joiners occupied, after the
workers in bronze, an important position in relation to the necropolis,
and the greater part of the furniture which they executed for the
mummies of persons of high rank was remarkable for its painting and
carpentry-work. Some articles of their manufacture were intended for
religious use--such as those shrines, mounted upon sledges, on which the
image of the god was placed, to whom prayers were made for the deceased;
others served for the household needs of the mummy, and, to distinguish
these, there are to be seen upon their sides religious and funereal
pictures, offerings to the two deceased parents, sacrifices to a god or
goddess, and incidents in the Osirian life. The funerary beds consisted,
like those intended for the living, of a rectangular framework, placed
upon four feet of equal height, although there are rare examples in
which the supports are so arranged as to give a gentle slope to the