Note 214 — Chapter XXI · THEBES.

There is among the funereal tablets of the Boulak collection a small bas-relief sculpture representing the arrival of a family of mourners at the tomb of a deceased ancestor. The statue of the defunct sits at the upper end. The mourners are laden with offerings. One little child carries a lamb; another a goose. A scribe stands by, waiting to register the gifts. The tablet commemorates one Psamtik-nefar-Sam, a hierogrammate under some king of the twenty-sixth dynasty. The natural grace and simple pathos with which this little frieze is treated lift it far above the level of ordinary Egyptian art, and bear comparison with the class of monuments lately discovered on the Eleusinian road at Athens.