If he had not been dead for 6,000 years, I should swear that I met him six months ago in a little town of Upper Egypt. It was the same commonplace round face, the same flattened nose, the same full mouth, slightly contracted on the left by a foolish smile, the same banal expressionless physiognomy: the costume alone was different and prevented the illusion from being complete. The loin-cloth is no longer in fashion, and neither is the large wig; except the fellahs when at work, no one now goes about with bare legs and torso. Some follow fairly closely the custom of Cairo, and wear the too small tarbouche, the stiff stambouline, the European starched shirt, but without a cravat, black or crude blue trousers, shoes with cloth gaiters. Others keep to the turban, long gown, wide trousers, and red or yellow morocco leather babouches. But if his clothes have changed since the Vth Dynasty, his deportment has remained perceivably identical. The modern secretary, after delivering his papers to his master, crosses his hands over his chest or his stomach in the fashion of the ancient scribe; he no longer kneels while waiting, but assumes the humblest attitude imaginable, and if his costume did not hide it, we should recognize the suppleness that characterizes the Boulaq statue in the movement of his shoulders and spine. His chief finishes reading the papers, affixes his seal to this one or that, writes a few lines across another, and throws the sheets on the ground: the secretary picks them up, and returns to his office without offence at the cavalier manner in which his work is given back to him. Indeed, is it to be expected that a moudir, a man receiving a large salary, would take the trouble to stretch out his arm to meet the hand of a mere ill-paid employee? In fact, he treats his subordinates as his superiors treat him; his subordinates, in their turn, act in a similar way towards theirs, and so things go on right down the ladder, and no one dreams of objecting.

Our scribe was one of those to whom the papers were thrown more often than to others. He occupied a somewhat low place in the hierarchy, and no bond attached him to the great families of his period. If he is kneeling, it is that the sculptor has represented him in one of his ordinary attitudes during the hours of work; he has also drawn his portrait with the fidelity and jovial good humour adopted by artists in portraying scenes of everyday life. The man has just brought a roll of papyrus or a tray laden with papers; kneeling in the approved manner, the bust well-balanced on the hips, the hands crossed, the back bowed, the head slightly bent, he waits until his master has finished reading. Does he think? Scribes felt some secret apprehension when appearing before their masters. The rod played a large part in the discipline of the offices. An error in the addition of an account, a word omitted in copying a letter, an instruction misunderstood, an order awkwardly executed, and the blows fell. Few employees escaped flogging. If they did not deserve it, it would be inflicted on principle: “That young fellow requires a beating. He obeys when he is flogged!”36 The sculptor has admirably transferred to the stone the expression of resigned uncertainty and sheepish gentleness with which the routine of an entire life spent in service had endowed the model. The mouth is smiling, for such is the demand of etiquette, but there is no joy in the smile. The nose and cheeks grimace in unison with the mouth. The two big enamel eyes, surrounded with bronze, have the fixed expression of a man who is vaguely waiting, without looking attentively at anything or concentrating his thought on a definite object. The face lacks intelligence and vivacity. After all, the profession did not exact great alertness of mind. The formulas of administration were simple and of little variety, the arithmetic was not complicated; it was possible to get on easily with memory and industry, and so, without much trouble, to earn sufficient to purchase a good funerary statue.

Our statue was found at Saqqarah37 in a tomb of somewhat mediocre appearance. Neither the name nor filiation of the man informs us under what king or Dynasty he vegetated; but in comparing him with the statue of Rânofir38 we are able to assign him his place in the series. First, both our scribe and Rânofir wear a wig of a form somewhat rare at that period; the hair, parted from the centre of the brow, is drawn back in a mass behind the ears and hangs down straight round the neck. Our scribe, instead of the red complexion usually attributed to men’s faces, is painted light yellow, very like those of women. Rânofir shows the same peculiarity, an unusual one under the Ancient Empire. I do not think it could have been mere caprice on the part of the artist. A scribe, forced to live always in his office as women do in their homes, would have a less sunburnt skin than his colleagues who worked in the open air: the yellow colour of the limestone would thus be a sort of professional sign, and would correspond with a lighter complexion in the original. The titles of Rânofir prove that he lived under the last reigns of the Vth Dynasty,39 and in placing the kneeling scribe at the same period, we are sure of not being much in error. I have preferred to base my opinions on purely archæological grounds, but I think an examination of the style of the two statues would carry the connection still farther: the way in which the neck is attached to the shoulders, and particularly the way in which the hands are treated, is almost identical in the two cases. I do not know if I am mistaken, but I have almost persuaded myself that the statue of Rânofir and that of the kneeling scribe come from the same studio, and are perhaps the fruit of the same chisel. I do not despair of finding other monuments of a similar origin, and of reconstituting in part the work of one of the masters of which the tombs of Memphis have preserved the various productions, but without preserving their names.

The execution is very careful: unfortunately the limestone in which the scribe is cut was too soft, and it is worn away in places. The knees have suffered most, and it is a great pity, for we can see by what is left of them how careful the artist has been with the modelling. The arms are not divided from the bust, the hands are heavy, the feet long, but the play of the muscles of the chest and neck is well noted. In short, it is an estimable work of a conscientious sculptor who thoroughly understood his vocation.