W.M. Flinders Petrie
1888, July
W.W. Flinders Petrie "The Grand Tour - Three Thousand Years Ago"
Magazine page
Google BooksHarper's Magazine, Volume LXVII, No.CCCCLVIII, July, 1888, p.297-306.
Many attempts have been made notably by Kosellini and Lepsins to reproduce some of these priceless monuments, but no draughtsman, often working in uneasy postures and unfavoring lights, could copy them with satisfactory exactness. The differences between the drawings themselves were sufficient reason for distrusting any process of transcription, and it was generally felt by the Anthropological Institute (of London) that there should be no further delay in making some authentic copies of these remains, by photography, for the benefit of students of both anthropology and history. The British Association, having been applied to, made a small grant toward the expenses of such an undertaking, and I agreed to do what was practicable in the course of a season's study last year in Egypt.
Armed, therefore, with a stock of photographic plates, and with the far more essential stock of paper for making moulds or "squeezes" from the stone, I began work on the temples of Thebes. In most cases the sculptured surface has lost all trace of its coloring, and it may then be washed and soaked without any harm. First drenching it with water, a sheet of soaked paper is then laid on it, and worked into the hollows by the fingers; next, this is beaten with a brush until it is thoroughly pulped into all the carvings, and even into the very grain of the stone itself. Every line and chip and flaw must receive the paper as closely as a coat of paint; then, after any broken parts of the sheet have had extra pieces beaten on over them, another sheet is laid on and beaten until the two seem like one layer of pulp. In a couple of hours or so this will be dry; and the sheets, light and unchangeable, except by wet or heavy pressure, may be packed up and carried in parcels without any damage. In many cases the great battle scenes or rows of captives cover whole walls up to twenty or thirty feet from the ground. Here it was needful to hang a rope-ladder over the wall from the top, and enjoining my Arab above to stand steady on the end of it, and not to let go on any account whatever, I then scaled up, gripping the long brush, with the paper wound round it, between my teeth. Hitching an elbow in over a step to keep myself up, I unrolled the paper, and brushing over the stone with the wet brush, spread the sheet out, and beat it on. In other cases a high stack of boxes served for steps, and contained my collections afterward. On reaching England, the paper impressions were soaked with wax upon a stove plate, and were thus brought into a state for making any number of plaster casts. From a set of casts the photographs were at last taken, far better and more easily than if taken direct from the stone; the lighting can be precisely arranged, so as to give the right extent and direction of shadow, and the scale can be made uniform. This first complete set of casts, after exhibition at the South Kensington Museum, will be preserved in the British Museum, and prints of the photographs from them may be had at cost price. (p.297-298)
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These tomb-paintings, when near the entrance,can be sufficiently lighted by successive reflectors of tin plate for good photographs to be taken; but for those deep in 3 rock-hewn chambers, hundreds of feet from the outer light, magnesium is needed. The powdered metal is mixed with an equal amount of chlorate of potash ;ยบ the camera is adjusted; the plate is put ill and left exposed; and then, lighting the paper on which the powder lies, a single flash, bright as a sunny day, and a dull, heavy thud that rumbles through the long passages, tell that the work is done, and looking round in the blackness, a faint patch of yellow shows where the candle flame is. Some of these magnesium-light photographs are among the most successful. (p.298-299)
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