of _The Book of the Dead_, or the decoration of mummy-cases and funerary coffers, there is both sweetness and harmony of colour.

The most brilliant hues are boldly placed side by side, yet with full knowledge of the relations subsisting between these hues, and of the phenomena which must necessarily result from such relations.

They neither jar together, nor war with each other, nor extinguish each other.

On the contrary, each maintains its own value, and all, by mere juxtaposition, give rise to the half-tones which harmonise them.
Turning from small things to large ones, from the page of papyrus, or the panel of sycamore wood, to the walls of tombs and temples, we find the skilful employment of flat tints equally soothing and agreeable to the eye.
Each wall is treated as a whole, the harmony of colour being carried out from bottom to top throughout the various superimposed stages into which the surface was divided.

Sometimes the colours are distributed according to a scale of rhythm, or symmetry, balancing and counterbalancing each other.
Sometimes one special tint predominates, thus determining the general tone and subordinating every other hue.