[302] It has escaped M. Perrot's notice that one is left-handed.--ED. [303] Upon the different kinds of chisels used by the Egyptian sculptors, see SOLDI, _La Sculpture Égyptienne_, pp. 53 and 111. He includes the toothed chisel and the gouge. [Illustration: FIG. 250.--Bas-relief from the tomb of Ti.] Two paintings at Thebes show us the process of executing a royal colossus in granite (Figs. 252 and 253). Standing upon the plinth and upon the planks of a scaffold, several workmen do their best to hasten the completion of the work, which is already far advanced. Seated upon the topmost pole of the scaffold one workman is busy polishing the front of the pschent; another stands behind the image, and, holding his palette in one hand and his brush in the other, spreads his colours upon its posterior support. It may be asked what the man is doing who is engaged with both hands upon the chest of the statue. For an answer to that question we must turn to the second picture, in which we are shown a seated colossus under the hands of its makers. The workman who kneels before its head is making use of two implements. With his left hand he applies to the face of the statue a pointed instrument, which he is about to strike with the object held in his right. This action will cause splinters to fly from the granite. These two instruments are the same as those wielded by the workman who leans upon the chest of the standing colossus. The latter seems, however, to pause for a moment's consideration before proceeding with his work. One of these tools is the _point_ of stone or metal, the other acts as mallet or hammer. The same tool is to be recognised in the hand of the man who is at work upon the seat of the statue; he, however, uses it without any hammer.[304] Leaning upon one of the cross-pieces of the scaffolding he beats with all his force upon the stone. The work was perhaps begun in this fashion. In the same tomb the representation of a sphinx receiving the final touches which is figured above occurs (Fig. 254). In this painting the polishing tool is a disk, similar to that in use by one of the workmen in Fig. 253. The figure on the left carries in a saucer the powder used for polishing the granite. In his right hand he holds a kind of brush which was used for spreading the powder upon the surfaces to be rubbed. [304] This man's attitude, the shape of the tool in question, and the general significance of the composition, seem rather to suggest that he is giving the final polish to the surface of the statue. Compare him with the pschent-polisher in Fig. 252.--ED. [Illustration: FIG. 251.--Bas-relief at Thebes (Champollion, pl. 180).] Fig. 255 shows a workman fashioning a _tet_ with a kind of hatchet or mattock, which he uses much as if it were a mallet. [Illustration: FIG. 252.--From a painting at Thebes (Champollion, pl. 161).]