There was one difficulty to be overcome: how was the summons to be sent to her? The Egyptians were never embarrassed when it was a question of communicating with the other world. The husband read the letter in the tomb, then fastened it to a figure of the woman. Thus she could not fail to receive the adjuration as she received the funerary banquet, or the effect of the prayers that assured her happiness beyond the tomb. The preoccupations of art held only a subordinate place in statues like those of the lady Naî and her two companions: the religious idea was predominant, and it was religion which gave the monument its meaning.
The excavations undertaken by Mr. Mond on the eastern slope of the hills of Cheîkh-Abd-el-Gournah, in one of the richest of the Theban cemeteries of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties, have already given several valuable monuments to the “Service des Antiquités”; and nothing surpasses or even equals the fragment illustrated here. The statuette to which it belongs was broken in the middle. The hips and legs have disappeared, as well as the right arm, and the plinth against which the back leaned; Mr. Mond eagerly sought the missing pieces among the residue of his find, but in vain; they were not forthcoming, and were doubtless either destroyed in ancient times, or carried off by some amateur during the nineteenth century. The fragment that remains to us measures nearly a foot in length and about 4½ inches across the shoulders; there is nothing in the lines by which one can determine whether the person it represents was seated or standing. I am inclined to think that, according to the custom of the time, the attitude resembled that of the little lady Touî in the Louvre,[83] standing, the feet nearly on the same level, the right arm hanging down, the head erect, with the wig of ceremony, and the dress of great holidays.
[Illustration: THE MOND STATUETTE (FRONT VIEW).]
The material employed by the sculptor is limestone of the kind the inscriptions describe as the _fine white stone of Tourah_, but thick beds of it extend along the sides of the valley of Egypt from the environs of Cairo to the defiles of Gebeleîn. It abounds in the Theban plain, and although it is too split and cracked in every sense to be of any use for building purposes, it is admirably suited for designs of restricted dimensions, such as those of our statuette. It was most probably carved in the stone of Cheîkh-Abd-el-Gournah itself, perhaps in one of the blocks extracted at the time of hollowing out the tomb for which it was destined. It forms an excellent substance, supple and firm at the same time, and subserves with an inimitable docility the boldest and the most delicate strokes of the chisel; the grain of marble, crystalline and almost metallic, makes the sensation on the eye of a rigid envelope in which the subject is, as it were, imprisoned, while limestone, softer and richer, better reproduces the elasticity of the surface of flesh and the free play of the muscles under the skin. Our statuette had been illuminated in accordance with custom, but it bears only imperceptible traces of painting and has the natural colour of old limestone, a tone between cream and yellowed ivory, which recalls the paleness of Egyptian women. The detail of the clothing and ornaments which was due to the brush has vanished, and is only indicated on the border of the mantle by faint tooling. It has thus lost its archæological value, but has gained an aspect of refinement wanting in works where the colour has been preserved intact.