There is no sort of inscription on either statue to inform us
of the name and characteristics of its original, who must have
been a person of some importance: a large tomb invariably meant a
considerable fortune, or a high post in the administrative hierarchy
which compensated for mediocrity of fortune. It might also be that
Pharaoh, desiring to reward services rendered him by some one in his
_entourage_, granted him a statue, a stele, an entire tomb built by
the royal architects at the expense of the Treasury.[34] It is certain
that our anonymous scribe held high rank in his lifetime, but to what
Dynasty did he belong? He so closely resembles the scribe of the Louvre
that he was evidently his contemporary: he must then have lived at the
end of the Vth Dynasty, and we reach a similar result if we compare him
with the other statues preserved at Gizeh. It is of the style of the
statues of Ti and of Rânofir, especially of the last two. One of them,
which formerly was No. 975 in the Boulaq Museum, is full of dignified
feeling.[35] Rânofir is standing, his two arms pressed against his
body, one leg in advance, in the attitude of a prince who is looking at
his vassals march past him. Whoever has seen him cannot fail to observe
how much he resembles our new scribe. Firstly, the head-dress is the
same; they both have the head framed, so to speak, in a bell-mouthed
wig. The hairs or fibres of which it is made were gummed, as is the
case to-day with the hair of certain African tribes. The hair is
carefully smoothed on the forehead and the top of the head, and being
parted on the cranium, hangs down and forms a kind of dark case round
the face which accentuates the ruddy tint of the flesh. The modelling
of the torso, the muscling of the arms, are treated in the same way
in both statues, and the dignified expression which characterizes the
physiognomy of Rânofir relieves the somewhat commonplace features of
the new scribe. Those are all facts that are not to be noted in other
portraits of our personages. The seated statue that I first described
possesses the general aspect of the individual, and undoubtedly
represents him; but the technique and feeling differ, since it is
necessarily that of a different sculptor. It is the same with Rânofir.
The statue of him numbered 1049 in the Boulaq Museum lacks the high
dignity we admire in No. 975. It is so heavy, so expressionless,
that it almost seems to be another Egyptian. The difference in the
workmanship proves that two artists were commissioned to execute
statues of the same man. The identity of workmanship, on the other
hand, compels us to recognize the same hand in the statue No. 975 of
Rânofir and in that of our new scribe: the two works proceeded almost
at the same time from one studio.
[Illustration: STATUE OF RÂNOFIR.
Cairo Museum.]
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