No. 3 of the same plate shows a reproduction of a dove, in wood, the colouring copied from an original. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V STONE FIGURES ONE day an up-river man offered for sale some small stone figures, and told me that he had others. I appointed a day to see them at Ibrahim’s shop. The man, accompanied by a friend, came in before I arrived there, and showed them to Ibrahim, to whom he swore by Allah that they were genuine antiquities, and well worth buying. Failing in his attempt to get Ibrahim to buy them, he asked his help to persuade me to do so, offering him a commission out of what I should pay for them. Ibrahim, in order to lead him on, said he would do his best. When I arrived, a few poor specimens of worthless antiquities were taken out of the many receptacles which these men have about their clothes. These were put aside in silence, as unworthy of consideration. Then there was a pause. “What else have you?” I asked. One by one the things were brought out, until all the objects shown on Plate VI were lying before us. The stone head (No. 1) is composed of green basalt. It is supposed to represent a royal personage, possibly Akhnaton. It is peculiar in that the eyes show a distinct oriental tilt. The sculpture is poor, the ears badly made, the uræus—the sign of royalty—is cut in, instead of being raised, as in all the old examples of sculpture, and the sculptor has not placed the centre of the uræus in a line with the nose. These are mistakes of which the ancient sculptor would hardly have been guilty. The second head (No. 3) shows a different tilt of the eyes. The work is by the same man, is also in green basalt, and is no better done. After the heads were finished they were dipped in a kind of thin plaster, and then buried in a manure heap, where they remained for a time. The price asked was £1 each, and I eventually bought them for 3_s._ each. No. 2 shows a bottle of steatite. This was made in two halves, one of which broke. The fragments were embedded in a soft cement and moulded to correspond with the other side, and then coloured. This is a favourite way of faking various bowls or bottles. I have had small granite bowls offered to me, one part of which was whole, but the remainder was composed of small fragments embedded in a coloured wax, so soft that you could indent it with your nail. In addition to this it had the smell of wax.