[340] CHAMPOLLION, _Monuments de l'Égypte et de la Nubie_, pl. 11. Blue was the regular colour for Amen when represented with a complete human form; when he was ram-headed he was generally painted green (see CHAMPOLLION, _Panthéon Égyptien_, No. 1; PIERRET, _Dictionnaire Archéologique_; and pl. 2, vol. i. of the present work).--ED. [341] _Ibid._ pl. 59. [342] _Ibid._ plates 71, 76, 78, 91. [343] _Ibid._ pl. 154. Exceptional though they may be, these curious representations help us to understand the Egyptian method of looking at colour. They did not employ it like the modern painter, in order to add to the illusion; they used it decoratively, partly to satisfy that innate love for polychromy which we have explained by the intensity of a southern sun, partly to give relief to their figures, which would stand out more boldly from the white ground when brilliant with colour than when they had to depend solely upon their slight relief. In the interior of the figure colour was used to distinguish the flesh from the draperies, and to indicate those enrichments in the latter which made up the elegance of the Egyptian costume. A good example of this way of using colour is seen in the tomb of Amenophis III., which contains the portrait of Queen Taia reproduced in our Fig. 264.[344] [344] We place this portrait of Taia in our chapter on painting because its colour is exceptionally delicate and carefully managed (see PRISSE, text, p. 421). The original is, however, in very low relief, so low that it hardly affects the colour values. We find, too, that in pictures in which people of different races are brought together, the artist employs different tones to mark their varied hues. In a tomb at Abd-el-Gournah, in which the construction of a building is represented, the workmen, who are doubtless slaves or prisoners of war, have not all skins of one colour; some are light yellow, some light red, while others are reddish-brown. We are led to believe that this is not merely the result of caprice on the part of the painter, by the fact that the men with the light yellow skin seem to have more hair on their chests and chins than the others. They come, no doubt, from northern latitudes, whose inhabitants are more hairy than the southerners.[345] The negroes are made absolutely black,[346] the Ethiopians very dark brown.[347] [345] LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part iii. pl. 40, cf. pl. 116. [346] _Ibid._ pl. 117. [347] See the Ethiopians in the painting from the tomb of Rekmara, which is reproduced in WILKINSON, vol. i. plate 2.