Historical studies

40
the red and blue stripes of the Kgypti.in hippocampus.
In the pediment with two serpents {id. ib. pi. v), the
circular curve of the serpent's tail is very similar to
the curve in the tail of the hippocampus. The
dotting of the muzzle is like the convention which
obtains on archaic Ionian vases to indicate the soft
sensitive skin which covers that part of the animal.
The striped neck also appears to be derived from an
Ionian source. The black band round the jaw, the
rest of the head being in outline, may be reminiscent
of the Ionian method of representing the whole
figure in silhouette, the head alone being outlined
in order that the artist might indicate detail. Gems
from Melos also occur with the figure of a sea-horse
(Furtwangler, Antike Gevimen, I, pi. v. 21).
The date of the coffin accords well with the
period of the archaic Ionian vases and the archaic
Athenian pediments. The Greek connections being
so strongly marked, it is evident that the painter
was under the influence of Greek art, though the
rationalistic treatment of the head is entirely Egyptian
and quite unlike the conventionalising method of the
Greek artist
I am indebted to Prof. Ernest Gardner for the
identification of the similarities to archaic Greek art
in the figure.
FIGURE-VASES IN EGYPT.
By M. A. MURRAY.
75. Vases in the form of human figures and
animals occur occasionally in Egypt, from predynastic
to Roman times. They are never common
at any period, the greater number seeming to be
either predynastic or Graeco-Roman. In Pharaonic
times, they are found in the Middle Kingdom at Beni
Hasan, Dendereh, and Qurneh ; in the New Kingdom
at Abydos and its neighbourhood ; but in later
dynasties they were more widely scattered.
Arranged according to subject they fall into si.x
classes : A
Human beings, B Quadrupeds, C Birds,
D Reptiles, E Fishes, F Insects.
A. Of the human forms, by far the greater number
are women. Many of these vases present abnormal
forms ; the women are steatopygous, deformed, or
enceinte ;
while the vase of the MacGregor Collection
shews a male dwarf with deformed arms and legs,
and No. 17, though only a torso, shews a man with
deformed arms.
AN EGVrTIAN HIPPOCAMPUS
The earliest representations of women in any part
of the world are either of steatopygous forms or of
a normal woman enceinte, as in the limestone figures
from Naqada and the prehistoric sketch of a woman
on bone from the I'rench caves ( Pi ETTE, Z.'«r//