EARLY EGYPT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 1 October 1925, Page 8

EARLY EGYPT.

ITS TOMBS AND TEMPLES

MODERN ADORNMENTS

If there is l nothing new under the sun there is nothing less naw than the devices and artifices ni woman' s dress and. adornment; at least, put must so’ decide after hearing *he lecture on ‘-The Nile, its. temn'es aim Tombs, from Menes to -Tutankhamen’ —the second of a series on * Some Early Civilisations” which Principal G. \V. Thatcher, M.A., 8.D., the vvar_ den of Camden College, delivered at the Technical College, Sydney, recently. . _ .

The lecture revealed some extraordinary facts about the clothing ana decoration of women m Egypt m tin.ev 40C0 years B.C. The wigs, so commonly seen on tne carvings on Egyptian tombs, closely resemble bobbed liair, and it is a' fact that tne women liau their hair cut in a tnngo low upon the forehead, very much the same as it is worn to-day. Eaces were painted with rouge, but this colouring was supplemented with a powder, imo which malachite was finely ground. Nails were stained with 1 enna, a practice continued «n the Orient up till to-day, and the neb clothed themsolves in a* linen so line tliat, only an expert might distinguish rt from snk. Jewellery, (in w T hich ameihysts, rubies, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and gold were lavishly and beautifully used, was oi a design surprisingly mo 'cci, though the workmanship was less delicate than one sees to-day. This cannot be said of all Egyptian art, for, though there is a popular belief that this country’s masterpieces in carving and sculpture were all still _ ly conventional, to the. verge of absurdity —an imuression gained from a study only of the huge monuments hewn from exceedingly hard rock — Principal Thatcher showed pictures of miniatures, exquisitely carved in ivory and wood. Into a face less than three inches long an artist had expressed the unrelenting character of a fierce king. Professor Elliot Smith lias said that Egvpt was the creator of civilisation, and it is interesting to note that much of Egypt’s own art and industry sprang'from the tombs, 'which occupied the thoughts of the kings almost constantly after the people conceived the idea that one lived after death. This belief seems to have originated in the discovery that the dry sand preserved dead bodies for a long time— seemingly for ever. The bodies were then taken out of the earth and placed in tombs, but here, without the preservative action of the sand, they decayed, and. so the practice of embalming was evolved. From pottery coffins, the last resting-place of the people grew stage by stage. The intricate and richly designed sarcopliangus and pyramid, which now form Egypt’s chiel source of interest.