The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-11-16

gold and silver has never been surpassed
In all the intervening ages
Gold rings recovered contain marvel
Gus cameo and intaglio designs such as
cannot be produced in these days. The
Egyptian woman loved to adorn herself
with these, and not in mere barbaric
splendor, for her taste seems to have
been very refined. She often wore the
hobble skirt, and corsets We're a necessity
for great functions, although at times
she seems to have dispenser with them.
Some of the silk and cotton stuffs from
which her gowns were made have been
recovered. In these we can see that the
desire was not wholly for the gaudy. In
all operatic representations Aida, daugh-
ter of King Amonasro, is generally repre-
sented as a very dark skinned woman in
short skirts. There is nothing that has
been revealed in Egypt or Ethiopia to give
any reason for this garbing or coloring OF
the skin. Merowe, the ancient capital
of Ethiopia, has just been dug out from
the sand, and II shows that the culture,
magnificence and splendor of that city
those of Thebes or Memphis in their
glory. We must believe that Aida and
Amneris did not dress at all as the stage
managers insist upon, but were in the
height of fashion, and probably would
look very well In modern drawing rooms
If we may judge from the patterns on
the gowns of the period and of the styles
as they have been revealed to u.s.
1t may be no credit to the women OF
Egypt, according to sorne modern moral
lists, but they painted and powdered to an
extraordinary degree. At least that
would have been our verdict say 15 years
ago. But in these days, when every
traveller on the street cars behods in
amazement pretty young girls on their
txro 70 oh or 10 Of ha-
daubed with paint and powder it is hard
~ in order to throw any bricks at the
Egyptian woman.
In almost every tomb of a woman
that has been found are to be secured
kohl pots, or vanity boxes, containing
vestiges of paints and pigments used
to blacken the eyebrows, redden the lips
and whiten the cheeks. Some of these
cosmetic holders are of great beauty in
dsign and workmanship. The earliest
speeiment of the period was in the form
of duck, which was split in half and
the tail feathers were entwined to make
a hinge This was carved Of wood and
must have been a dainty object for
mlady of Thebes say about the year
1000 b. c., who went out calling on the
Nile in her dahabeah of the period.
That women loved and hated, worked
and loafed, that they gossiped and plot
ted, that they made good wives and bad
ones, that they acted much as today and
with no less influence. seems to be un-
deniable. What seems hard for US to
believe is that they were so human,
The portrait of the lady given here
represents a type which was by no
means uncommon. In one respect she
may have differed from her modern sis
ter In that she did not give SO much at
tention to novel reading but it is rash
to suppose that she did not read any.
The very oldest papyri in existence con-
tain stories which have interest to this
day. We know from the Bible, from all
ancient literature, that the art of story
telling was very highly developed-more
so than in our own day. We can easily
believe that here was large corpus
of fctional literature in those days, not
according TO the methods employed by
David Graham Phillips or Robert Cham
bers, but they were good stories just the
same. and probably afforded as much
entertainment as the Six Best Sellers of
our present era.