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IF by narrative art we mean the rendering of specific events, whether mythological, legendary, historical, or fictional, involving recognizable personages, then surprisingly few works fulfilling these conditions can be found in the vast corpus of Egyptian representational art.1 Mythological cycles do not occur. One particular episode, the begetting of Horus by the dead Osiris, is rendered in the Osiris temple of Seti I at Abydos because of its importance in the funerary cult rather than its climactic place in the myth.2 The same motive occurs in funerary representations made for private individuals.' It is significant and typical of the general orientation of Egyptian culture that a coherent written narrative of the Osiris and Isis myth is given, not by any known native sources, but by Plutarch.' There do exist in Egypt mythological representations such as that in the funerary chamber of the cenotaph of Seti I at Abydos. It shows the sky goddess Nut supported by her consort Shu, air, while from her mouth is born the sun god Re. This is equivalent to a diagram of the structure of the universe.5 It demonstrates an ever present condition. A comparison with a Greek rendering of a somewhat analogous theme, for example the scene of Herakles supporting the earth shown on a black-figured lekythos,6 brings out with striking clarity the completely non-narrative nature of the Egyptian mythological relief. In the majority of Egyptian tombs most of the representations record the normal and repeated activit es of daily life, as has been clearly pointed out by H. A. Groenewegen-Frankfort. These processes may involve some consecutive actions, but they are not stories concerning individuals. Rather the tomb owner quiescently observes the different phases of agricultu e and crafts or receives his dues. Himself rarely active, when the tomb owner does hunt or spear ish it is not a specific occasion, but a standardized activity typifying a nobleman, which is repeated n t mb after tomb.' Similarly, in temples here a e endlessly repeated rituals and heraldic diagrams of the victories and exploits characteristic by definition for the king. Despite t e rarity of true narrative representations in Egypt, the origins of such scenes can be traced back to the last predynastic period, Gerzean. For exa ple, in addition to vase or wall paintings and an ivory carving showing files of undifferentiated men,8 there exists a slate palette enlarged so as to provide a surface for the relief of a hunt. The repre entation receives a certain narrative specificity from the tandards carried by the long files of hunters and from the two emblems apparently iden ifying the locality where the hunt occurred.9

their spoil, and it is one of these pieces which the Oriental Institute now possesses. Since the first great discovery, there have been licensed commercial excavations at Ziwiye. Objects from it are widely dispersed in museums and private collections. They constitute one of the most important archeological discoveries of the present century, one which opens wide new aspects of the cultural development of the Armenian and Iranian highlands in the late eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Al h ugh no written evidence for chronology has been found at Ziwiye itself, this date or the finds has been established by means of comparisons with Assyrian art, while much of what is known about the his ory of the Ziwiye area at this time comes from Assyrian royal inscriptions.1 Her mountainous northeastern border

Two girls quarrel violently on a small, chipped fragment of relief now in the Oriental Institute Museum (P1. V). Bent together over a basket and a pile of bearded wheat ears, they seize each other by one hand and pull as much as possible of each other's hair. The episode is rendered in raised and excellently worked relief, though the smooth finish and details are now somewhat obscured by salt incrustation. Outlines and details are firm and gracefully shaped; the broad planes of the body of the girl on the left and of the background contrast with the linear details and ridges of the hair, wheat, and basket. Originally the ground line and background were painted yellow, while traces of red remain on the bodies and hair of the girls and on the grain and baskets. Even in its very fragmentary state the relief is an attractive work. Moreover, when taken together with related material, it helps to tell an interesting story not only of a quarrel but also of some aspects of Egyptian art. The pile of grain beside the girls and the large wickerwork basket above them indicate that our fragment comes from a harvesting scene. Pairs of men carrying baskets full of wheat from the fields are a common motive on the walls of New

The earliest relations of Egypt with Asia are in great measure traceable only by distinctive similarities in the material cultures of the countries in question. Although the results of an examination of the pertinent archeological data from Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia may often be uncertain or fail to indicate the exact nature of many relationships, there is yet enough material to demonstrate that even during the early periods of Egyptian development outside contacts were not lacking.