And we have direct proof that the Theban sculptors of that period tried above everything to make sure of the likeness. They drew their subject over and over again before definitely making the rough sketch, and the dry climate of Egypt has preserved many of their cartoons. Cartoon is not exactly the term, since they used fragments of limestone for their studies, but the word _ostraca_ by which they are designated is not much better, and, further, is only intelligible to expert Egyptologists. Hundreds of them have found their way to the Cairo Museum, and they show the attempts of the artist, his hesitations and corrections, the variations of his thought and of his hand, down to the moment when he became absolute master of his model. More than once, too, the chances of excavation have brought the model itself to light, and provided us with the means of comparing the portrait with the original. That is the case with Thoutmôsis III. His mummy was found in 1881 in the _favissa_ of Deîr-el-Baharî and is exhibited with the others in the Gallery of Sovereigns in the Cairo Museum. The face has certainly greatly changed in course of mummification, and the shrunken flesh, the sunken eyes, the flattened nose, and the discoloured skin make him very different from what he was formerly. But if the superficies has changed, what is beneath has endured: if we compare the profile of the face with the mask of the statue, we must admit that they are identical, with the addition of the life, the expression of which was perpetuated by the sculptor. [Illustration: SANMAOUT AND THE PRINCESS NAFÊROURÎYA. Black granite.]