A large number are also cut in geometrical forms, tablet-shaped,
squares, rectangles, ovals, cubes, and cones. Like the scarabs, they are
all pierced, through their long axis or diameter, with a narrow
cylindrical hole, and were similarly mounted.
[Illustration: Figs. 83 and 84.]
[Sidenote: Animals as devices.]
The specimen illustrated in fig. 83, now in the MacGregor Collection,
bears a private name upon the base. The material is steatite,
beautifully carved. The figure is that of a male, squatting in the
familiar attitude, his hands upon his knees, and wearing a full wig. The
date is late in the Twelfth Dynasty. Fig. 84 is another illustration of
the same motive, dating from the Eighteenth Dynasty.
[Illustration: Fig. 85.]
[Illustration: Fig. 86.]
[Illustration: Fig. 87.]
[Illustration: Figs. 88 and 89.]
[Illustration: Fig. 90.]
[Illustration: Figs. 90, 91 and 92.]
Animal forms are illustrated in the figs. 85, 86, 87, 88, 89. The first
represents a naturalistic group, a cow suckling its calf, exquisitely
cut in steatite. It is in the collection of Captain Timmins in Cairo.
The design upon the base is analogous in its symmetry and the devices
employed to the steatite stamp, fig. 94, in the same collection, which
probably dates from about the Eleventh Dynasty. The two stamps, figs. 86
and 87, are very important, one of them being dated by the cartouche of
Mentuhetep of the Eleventh Dynasty, the other by its analogy, and by the
device of a running figure in line frequently employed upon the
button-seals (fig. 42, and _cf._ fig. 28). Hornets are employed upon the
Karnak three-sided seal, fig. 86, which is probably of earlier date,
about the close of the Sixth Dynasty. A further example of this
[Sidenote: Miscellaneous devices.] character, being a ram with horns, is
in the MacGregor Collection: upon the base is an interesting pattern in
coils, dating probably from the end of the Twelfth Dynasty. A great
number of seals with cats (fig. 88), hedgehogs, hippopotami (fig. 89),
and fish (fig. 90), date from the time of Thothmes III in the Eighteenth
Dynasty, while those with ducks (figs. 91, 92), frogs, and flies, seem
to be slightly later, dating from the reign of Amenhetep III.
[Illustration: Fig. 93.]
[Illustration: Fig. 94.]
[Illustration: Fig. 95 and 96.]
[Illustration: Fig. 97.]
[Illustration: Fig. 98.]
[Illustration: Fig. 99, 100 and 101.]
[Illustration: Fig. 102 and 103.]
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