File:Handbook of archaeology, Egyptian - Greek - Etruscan - Roman (1867) (14781332055).jpg

Identifier: handbookofarchae00west (find matches)
Title: Handbook of archaeology, Egyptian - Greek - Etruscan - Roman
Year: 1867 (1860s)
Authors: Westropp, Hodder M. (Hodder Michael), -1884
Subjects: Art, Ancient Archaeology
Publisher: London, Bell and Daldy
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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18 feet 3 inches across theshoulders. But the grandest and largest colossal statue was thestupendous statue of king Rameses II., of Syenite granite, on theMemnonium at Thebes. It represented the king seated on a throne,in the usual attitude of kings, the hands resting on his knees. It isnow in fragments. It measured 22 feet 4 inches across the shoulders.According to Sir G. Wilkinson, the v-hole mass, when entire, musthave weighed about 887 tons. Another well-known colossus is thestatue of the so-called Memnon, now in the British Museum. It issupposed to be the statue of Rameses II. It was brought by Belzonifrom the Memnonium at Thebes. In the different epochs of Egyptian sculpture, the Egyptianartists wore bound by certain fixed canons or rules of proportion to 120 IIANDB0OK OF ARCHJSOL00Y. guide them in their labours, and which they were obliged to adhereto rigidly. The following are the canons of three distinct epochs:1. The canon of the time of the pyramids, the height was reckoned
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COLOSSAL FIGURE OF RAMESES II. at 6 feet from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, andsubdivisions obtained by one-half or one-third of a foot. 2. Thecanon from the twelfth to the twenty-second dynasty is only anextension of the first. The whole figure was contained in a number SCULPTURE. 121 of squares of half a foot, and the whole height divided into eighteenparts. In these two canons the height above the sixth foot is notreckoned. 3. The canon of the age of Psammetici, which is men-tioned by Diodorus, reckoning the entire height at 21£ feet fromthe sole to the crown of the head, taken to the upper part. Theproportions are different, but without any introduction of the Greekcanon. The canon and the leading lines were originally traced inred, subsequently corrected by the principal artist in black, and thedesign then executed. In Egypt, almost eveiy object of sculptureand architecture was painted. The colossal Egyptian statues aregenerally of granite, basalt, porphyry, or

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