"A portrait -painter falls naturally into the habit of searching the faces of his sitters
for indications of character. The painting of a portrait is in fact a hunt for the
personality hidden or expressed by the features. The artist ponders on the faces of those
best known to him, comparing them with those of mere acquaintancies , and trying to
account for likenesses of form by similarities in character.
No one can fail to conclude that, broadly
speaking, there is something in the outward aspect which reflects the inward personality -
that the face, the whole figure, balance and movement of a human being, are a true
indication of the soul and mind - if we could read the signs well enough. But it is a big
if. Can we ever learn enough of the 
signs to read them certainly? There are so many
factors to take into consideration. It is not enough to say 'He has a broad brow and
shrewd eyes - he must be intelligent' or 'he has a square jaw and a firm mouth - he must
have a strong will' This is the merest alphabet - the letters, which properly put
together, should make words, even sentences. It is not a question of one or two features
only, but of the proportions and balance of a face, to say nothing of the hands ( often
more expressive than the face ) , the voice, the hair, the bearing, the feet, and so on.
And in considering these, one must be careful not to lay undue stress on mere 'family'
features, but to take into consideration accidental effects on the carriage, hair and feet
particularly.
The alphabet, then, seems endless, the factors
infinite in number, and the attempt vain for one student in one lifetime to grasp
sufficient to form reliable conclusions. Hopeless perhaps, but how interesting to go on
trying! And so I did. And presently it did really seem as if I could depend upon a
particular set of combination of features to mean a certain streak of character - even
more, upon a certain smile meaning a special generosity - a particular nose invariably
implying a greedy nature, a special kind of eyelid indicating caution or nervousness -
always provided no other feature or features definitely gave contrary evidence.
And then I went to Egypt, and my study was led into a path
which seems hitherto unexplored. In 1911, on visiting the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo, I
had my first sight of the royal mummies. all who have seen them know how especially
striking are the two kings Sety I and Ramses II. As I hung over the cases enclosing them,
the thought crossed my mind, 'How delightful it would be to make these stately ancients
sit, in their actual flesh, for their modern portraits!' Though at first a casual impulse,
the idea stayed and grew. I began to form mental pictures of ancient royalty in its
brilliant regalia and robes of white linen - to study the methods of mummification so as
to understand the changes it involves in the outward aspect of the body.
If one could realise the behaviour
of the features under the operation, would it not be possible to reverse the process in
imagination, and reconstruct the living subject? Then how enthralling to indicate on the
restored features, the character and temperament of the man, so far as known to us through
history! How did these quiet dead faces bear out what we know? And in what did they
amplify or contradict tradition? To make a serious study of these royal dead, I must be
guided by the mummies principally but not exclusively.
I turned to the statutes and
reliefs. These would show me how the sitters impressed the artists of those days, and the
work of an artist's chisel or brush is at least as good evidence as the sworn word of a
witness in a court of law, at any rate when the artist is as literal-minded as were the
Egyptians. Do we not know the honest mistakes a man in the witness-box can make? And shall
we not concede the difference between a trained and an untrained observer?
The ancient artist was a
trained observer; I would examine his trained evidence on what he saw, and compare it with
what I could see today of the Pharaohs. This done, discrepancies appeared which could not
be disregarded. And besides, the various artists who portrayed a Pharaoh did not all agree
in detail among themselves. This added to the difficulty! It was evident that some
detailed and perhaps laborious comparing would have to be done. I had recourse again to
the mummy, and took the face carefully back through the process of mummification.
Certain confirmations appeared of
the artists' evidence; these I accepted and retained, especially as they seemed to me to
agree with the king's known character. Discrepancies on the other hand could be partly
accounted for by the changes in the subject between youth and old age, and partly by the
deference due to kings. Finally I did construct a firm scaffolding on which to build my
portrait, and so the picture of Sety I was begun.
The costume was a simpler problem.
One had only to consult the monuments and the jewel-room of the Museum, and to be careful
to avoid howlers such as a dinner party parure with a field-service helmet, and so on.
Ramses II was next attempted, and I was greatly cheered by the recognition of my
resuscitated kings by several eminent archaeologists. Not all the Egyptologists who
recognised my portraits realised the method in my madness, the slow sifting of evidence
and the laborious brick-making. To many they seemed flights of a fancy only slightly, if
at all, controlled by research.
But one of the most famous of them
all, namely Professor Breasted, gave me enormous encouragement. Whatever was to be thought
of these particular portraits, he admitted that this was a line of research not hitherto
tried, but perfectly legitimate and which might conceivably yield valuable results. His
kind words so stimulated me that I made similar attempts with other defunct royalties, and
gradually completed the series of kings and queens which appear in these pages.
The portrait of Ramses
II followed that of Sety I. It
was an earlier task, as there were so many statues of the later king to consult. The only
surprise, as I worked on it, was the unexpected look of humour that developed; a quality
one would have hardly have suspected of Ramses II. The mummies of comparatively few of the
kings are well enough preserved to afford clear information. Among them however is that of
Ramses III, whose dead face is a curious and interesting, though rather a repulsive study.
There is a look of hate, rage and disappointment. Can it be that the events of the close
of his life so stamped their traces upon his features as to obscure the look of sagacity
that so able a ruler must surely have possessed? He certainly lacks the air of nobility
noticeable in many of the great rulers of Egypt. Not all the portraits in this book are of
equal historical value.
In the case of Khafra I had
only the famous diorite statue in Cairo and the exquisite fragment now in Copenhagen, as
reliable guides. For this reason I did not feel justified in giving this king my usual
realistic treatment. He is such a vague personage that all I could indicate was a vision ,
man or statue, one hardly knows which, looming out of the distant past. Amenemhat
III's
portrait was a fairly straightforward piece of work. It was only necessary to take all the
authentic statutes of this king, and by eliminating the differences and retaining the
similarities, it was possible to get a fairly definite result.
But the
expression remains a puzzling one. Why that tragic look? It was surely due to more than
the ordinary cares of state, heavy though these may have been. here is a face with history
written on it, but alas! we cannot read the script other than vaguely. as for his
complexion, darker than most of the others, that is more or less surmise. It is considered
by some Egyptologists that the very individual family type of the x11th Dynasty was due to
southern blood.
The picture of Queen
Tetasheri ('little Teta') was suggested by the delightful statuette in the British Museum.
The technique of this shows that the sculptor was hampered by his lack of facility, but in
spite of a certain gaucherie he has conveyed such a delicious impression of shy youth, the
little queen seeming weighed down by her royal array with its heavy headress ( a very
interesting early form of the vulture cap ), that the impulse to translate this effort
into modern langauge was irresistable. Hatshepsut was another baffling person. Her
portraits have been so heartily obliterated by Thothmes III that it is hard to find one
intact. But enough material remains to show that she strongly resembled her father,
Thothmes I. Into her portrait as queen there crept, almost without my will, a look of
watchfulness, or even suspicion, under its calm. In the somewhat anomalous position she
occupied, against precedent in a country where precedent was justification in it itself,
and amid so many enemies and spies, she must have felt perpetually insecure, even though
her immediate entourage wasardently devoted to her. So I let the watchful look remain -
though I have no historical warrant for it.
The mummy attributed to
Thothmes III is so badly knocked about and imperfect that it was next to useless as a
basis for his portrait. But there is the very fine schist statute in the Cairo Museum, and
hosts of others, all agreeing closely. In the schist statute there is in the full face a
touch of vulgarity, alomost of pompousness, which vanishes as one passes to his noble
profile. His mother was only a lady of Thothmes II's harim, not a royalty. Who can say
whether the mixture of common blood with the 'divine' was not visible on Thothmes
III's
face (indeed our sculptor affirms almost in spite of himself, that it was so ) and whether
it was not just the cruder vigour of the strain that made him so successful an agressor
abroad?
The sculptor has had a struggle over the
lower part of the face, between his love of truth and his reverence for the king. Down to
the mouth the face is that of a fattish man - but it would never do for the Lord of the
Two Lands to be represented to his adoring subjects with a double chin and thick neck, so
the round cheeks fall away suddenly to the slim neck of a boy, quite out of keeping with
the rest.
Of the portrait of Akhenaten I will say
little except that it represents the king as he must have been toward the end of his
reign. The poetic grace of his youth had gone, and illness and fanaticism had left their
mark. He must have realised, if he realised anything, that his beautiful religion was not
gaining ground, and that the world remained unregenerate. Ty's whole face shows her to
have been a woman of violent emotions, swayed by impulse, subject to moods, and her
expressive mouth moreover is that of a jealous imperious individual, lacking self-control.
What a
contrast is the high-bred self-repressed face of Nefertithi, eloquent of intelligence and
forbearance. If these two women's faces speak the truth, they hint at family difficulties
of which history tells us nothing. At any rate, Nefertithi looks 'more of a lady' than any
other queen whose portrait has come down to us.
Mutnezemt is a quite
obscure personage, frankly treated merely as a peg for decoration. The only historical
value of the picture is as a representation of the crown, wig and jewellery of the very
end of the XVIIIth Dynasty, when fashions were changing, and the details have been
carefully studied and can be depended upon. The face has been taken from a beautiful
colossal limestone head, attributed, and I think correctly, to the reign of
Horemheb. This
head is so obviously a portrait, that it has been thought to represent the Queen of
Horemheb or some royal lady of the period , and a clever cruel creature she was, if the
sculptor is to be trusted. It is at least likely that the portrait is that of
Mutnezemt,
as of anyone else. But we know nothing certainly.
The value of this line
of research cannot be known till it has at least been tried. The faces of our long ago
predecessors must first be studied in the light of known facts, and then it will be found
that more light is revealed by the study. If we had given the countenance of our fellow-man
of today closer attention, we should be able better to interpret the revelation of those
faces so wonderfully preserved to us from ancient times. I tender my warm thanks to all
those who have helped me with this book - more particularly to those Egyptologists who
voluntarily gave me assistance of the greatest value."
Winifred
Brunton was the South African wife of British Egyptologist Guy
Brunton, who excavated at 
