Some have thought that in these bas-reliefs, and in the Louvre statuette, the "facial characteristics and the peculiar shapes of breast and abdomen by which eunuchs are distinguished, are to be found."[230] On the other hand, we know that while still very young Amenophis IV. married the queen Nowertiouta, and that he had seven daughters by her. "It is probable, therefore, that if the misfortune alluded to really befell him, it was during the wars waged by Amenophis III. against the negro races of the south." In any case, Amenophis IV. bore no resemblance to any one of the long procession of princes whose portraits have come down to us, from the early dynasties of the Ancient Empire to the Roman conquest. Lepsius devotes a series of plates to the iconography of the Egyptian kings, and among them all we find nothing that can be compared to the almost fantastic personality of Amenophis, with his low, unintellectual forehead, his pendulous cheeks, his feminine contours, and his general expression of gloom and melancholy. The fidelity with which all these unpleasing features are reproduced is extraordinary, and can only be accounted for by the existence of a tradition so well established that no one thought of breaking through it, even when the portrait of a semi-divine monarch was in question. [230] MARIETTE, _Bulletin Archéologique de l'Athenæum Français_, 1855, p. 57. There are other works dating from this period which show the same desire for truth at any price. One of the series of bas-reliefs discovered by Mariette in the Temple of Dayr-el-Bahari may be given as an instance. The subject of these reliefs is the expedition undertaken by the regent Hatasu against the country of Punt.[231] [231] MARIETTE, _Notice du Musée_, No. 902, and _Dayr-el-Bahari_, plates. [Illustration: FIG. 216.--Statuette of Amenophis IV. Height twenty inches. Louvre. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] "In the most curious of these sculptures the savage chief advances as a suppliant. His wife walks behind him. Her hair is carefully dressed and plaited into a thick tail at the back; a necklace of large discs is round her neck. Her dress is a long yellow chemise, without sleeves, and reaching to the middle of her legs. Her features are regular enough, but virile rather than feminine, and all the rest of her person is repulsive. Her arms, legs, and chest, are loaded with fat, while her person projects so far in the rear as to result in a deformity over which the artist has dwelt with curious complacence." The legs, so far as the chemise allows them to be seen, are so large that they suggest incipient elephantiasis. The Egyptian artist was induced, no doubt, to dwell upon such a monstrosity by the instructive contrast which it presented with the cultivated beauty of his own race.[232]