Sometimes the Egyptians left aside the square form bequeathed to them by their ancestors; the sacred bird left his cage when he could. Mariette found two of these simplified pectorals at the Serapeum, both of which represent a hawk: the first has its ordinary head and bends its wings back, the other has assumed the ram’s head and keeps its wings straight. It has the same wealth and the same elegance of line as in the other objects of similar source, but the motive, rid of the enamelled frame in which it was stifled, possesses more charm and is better suited to humanity. The execution is wonderful, and the ram’s head, in particular, surpasses in suppleness of workmanship all that is so far known. It is cut in a little ingot of pure gold, but it is not the material that is of most value: the old chaser knew how to model it broadly, and has given it as faithful an expression as if he had cut it life-size in a block of granite or limestone. It is no longer, as everywhere else, industrial art: it is art pure and simple. Mariette, and he understood, considered that he had never come across anything approaching this among the Egyptian jewellery he had seen. The gold ring also belongs to Ramses II. The two little horses who prance on the bezel were celebrated in history. They were called _Nourit_ and _Anaîtis-contented_, and were harnessed to the royal chariot on the day of the battle of Qodshou, when Ramses II charged in person the Khitas who had surprised him. The Pharaoh remembered the service they rendered him on that memorable occasion. The chiselling, although not so good as that of the hawk with the ram’s head, is very fine: it reproduces very boldly the particular attributes of Egyptian horses, their exaggerated mane, rather thin body, slightly swollen extremities. It is true that the rings, as a rule, are not adorned with subjects in such strong relief: the bezel is composed of a scarab or a metal cartouche turning on a pivot, sometimes engraved with the name of the wearer of the jewel, but more often with a pious formula or a series of symbols of obscure meaning by way of inscription. The larger number of the rings we see in the museums belonged to mummies, and are amulets that give the dead man some sort of power over the inhabitants of the other world: a small number only were used by their owners in their lifetime. They are seals, affixed to deeds like our stamps, just as we affix our signature. They are in every material: gold, electron, silver, bronze, copper, enamel, even in wood, according to the wealth of the individual; some are veritable masterpieces of engraving, but many possess no more artistic value than the common copper seals bought ready prepared at our stationers’.