At an early stage in the history of these changes it seems to have been realised that the likeness of the deceased which could be made of the wrapped mummy lacked the exactness and precision demanded of a portrait Perhaps also there may have been some doubt as to the durability of a statue made of linen. A number of interesting developments occurred at about this time to overcome these defects. In one case (=85=), found at Mêdum by Flinders Petrie, the superficial bandages were saturated with a paste of resin and soda, and the same material was applied to the surface of the wrappings, which, while still in a plastic condition, was very skilfully moulded to form a life-like statue. The resinous carapace thus built up set to form a covering of stony hardness. Special care was devoted to the modelling of the head (sometimes the face only) and the genitalia, no doubt to serve as the means of identifying the individual and indicating the sex respectively. The hair (or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say, the wig) and the moustache were painted with a dark brown or black resinous mixture, and the pupils, eyelids and eyebrows were represented by painting with a mixture of malachite powder and resinous paste. In other cases, recently described by Junker (=40=), plaster was used for the same purpose as the resinous paste in Petrie’s mummy. In two of the four instances of this practice found by Junker, only the head was modelled. The special importance assigned to the head is one of the outstanding features of ancient Egyptian statuary. It was exemplified in another way in the tombs of the early part of the Old Kingdom, as Junker has recalled in his memoir, by the construction of stone portrait-statues of the head only, which were made life-size and placed in the burial chamber alongside the mummy. It seems to me that Junker overlooks an essential, if not the, chief, reason for the special importance assigned to the head when he attributes it to the fact that the head contained the organs of sight, smell, hearing and taste. There can be no doubt that the head was modelled because it affords the chief means of recognising an individual. This portrayal of the features enabled any one, including the deceased’s own _ka_, to identify the owner. Every circumstance of the making and the use of these heads bears out this interpretation, and no one has explained these facts more lucidly than Junker himself. [Since the foregoing paragraphs have been put into print a preliminary report has come to hand from Professor Reisner, to whom I am indebted for most of my information regarding these portrait heads—_Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin_, Boston, April, 1915.]