All this explains the absolute necessity for the supporting blocks reserved by the Egyptian sculptor at the back of his statues, and for the great massiveness of their forms. To begin with, the comparative slenderness of the attachment between the head and the body was an element of danger. The repeated blows struck by the mallet upon the point might break it off unless precautions were taken. We find, therefore, that the _klaft_ head-dress was introduced as often as possible. Its large ends fell down upon each breast, and acted as buttresses to the head. When the _klaft_ was not used the hair was brought together in a solid mass, and, falling to the shoulders, gave strength to the neck. We may say the same of the long and thick beard, the shape of which was modified under the pressure of the same necessity. It is never disengaged and turned up at the end, as we see it in the paintings. "...The head covering, which is sometimes very tall and slender, is always supported at the back for nearly the whole of its height and width. The figure itself is supported either at the back or the side by a pier of varying thickness...."[305] The stone is left between the two legs when one is thrust forward, between the arms and the side, and in the hollows above the hips. Nothing could have been easier than to remove these masses, after the work was otherwise complete, by means of the drill. But that instrument, by which the necessary holes could have been made without dangerous shocks, was certainly unknown to the Egyptians. They could only have removed the masses in question by the striking processes we have mentioned, processes which might result in the breaking of an arm or a leg. The hardest materials are also, in a sense, the most brittle. If it was difficult for the sculptor to free the limbs and head of his statue from the rock in which they were partly imprisoned, how much more difficult, nay, how impossible, it must have been to give them any energetic movement--that of running, for instance, or fighting. The beauty and expressiveness of such movements did not escape his observation, but a want of material resources compelled him to forego their reproduction. [305] E. SOLDI, _La Sculpture Égyptienne_, pp. 41, 42. [Illustration: FIG. 255.--Painting at Thebes (Champollion, pl. 186).] [Illustration: FIG. 256.--Bronze statuette. Actual size. Boulak.]