The XIth dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahari .. - NYU | Digital Library ...

66 TPIE XIth dynasty TEMPLE AT DEIR EL-BAHAKI
metal necklace which covered the fiTce of the
king, wliose features had to he slightly flattened
or were left rough and unfinished for the fixing
of the necklace. This accounts for the rough
blocking-out of the king's face. Tlio cow wears
between her horns the lunar disk, a!)ove which
are two feathers. It is the usual i-epresentation
of Hathor, the same as on the steles and in the
Book of the Dead. She is the goddess of the
mountain ; she comes out of her cave and goes
towards the river to the marshes, where she was
supposed to have suckled llorus. In the Great
Temple, where she comes to the queen and licks
her hand,' she says to her, " I have wandered
through the northern marshland, when I stopped
at Khebt, protecting my Horus (child)." In the
Book of the Dead, immediately at the foot of
the mountain out of which she comes, we see
quite a forest of high papyrus plants. Here the
only way of representing them was to sculpture
these plants on the sides of the neck. The
water is close to her forefeet, and the buds and
flowers i-each to the top of her neck.
The purpose of this rather extraoi'dinaiy
representation is to show that Hathor is the
divine mother of the king, as she was of Horus,
whom she suckled in the marshes of Khebt.
She says it to the queen in the Great Temple,'
" I fill thy majesty with life and liai)[)iness, as I
have done to my Horus (child) in the West of
Khebt. I have suckled thy majesty with m)'
breasts. I am thy mother who foi-med thy
limbs and created thy beauties."
We have here a characteristic example of the
aim of Egyptian sculpture. The wish of the
artist was to be understood, and he did not care
whether the way in which he ex[)ressed liis
thouo-ht was unreal and against the laws of
nature. He wanted to show that tiic goddess,
coming out of a mountain, went into a marsh,
and he placed a bunch of water-plants on butli
' Deir
el Bahari IV., pi. 94.
- IhuL, pi. 96, p. 4.
sides of the animal. A Greek artist would never
have done anything disagreeing so completely
with the truth.
Howevei', we have to admire the Egyptian
artist, who by this convention did not spoil the
lieauty of his creation. The elfect of these
plants is not unfavourable, especially when seen
from the front. It does not divert the attention
from the admirable modelling which distin-
guishes the work, and from the life and ex-
pression which is so marvel louslv reproduced in
the head. According to the judgment of experts,
this cow is perhaps one of the finest represen-
tations of an animal that antiquity has left us ;
but while in Greece we sliould certainly know
the author of such an admirable creation, in
Egypt it is anonymous. The idea of a statue or
a painting ]-eflecting the mind and conception of
one individual man, of being his property, is un-
known to the Egyptians. They may reach, as
in this case, the highest degree of art, neverthe-
less for them it remains a product of industry,
the workmansliip (if which may be admired, but
of which tliey do not give the credit to the
author, who remains unknoAvn.
On the neck, between the papyrus buds, we
find the cartouche of Amenhetep II. It was not
added later; it has been engraved at the
same time as the plants ;
thus it is clear that the
cow was made for him. it is he who is suckled
by the goddess, and wlio stands under lier head.
Are we to suppose that tiie chapel was not
finished when Tiiothmes III. died? Nothino' in
the sculptures indicates that he was not alive
when the shrine was adorned Shall we admit
that Amenhetep II. replaced tlie cow which
Thothmes III. had dedicated with liis name by
one bearing his own P We have no proof of it,
but it seems probable. Had we any record of
an association of Thothmes III. with his son, we
might imagine that Tiiothmes III. had dedicated
the cow with his son's name in order to establish
more strongly his titles to the royal power, by
showing that he was the son of Hathor ; but