was sometimes of a kind which deserves to be noticed (Fig. 102).
Whenever the dimensions of the column were sufficiently great the
stone beams which met upon the die or abacus had oblique joints. The
motive of the architect in making use of such a junction is obvious
enough; it was calculated to afford greater solidity, and it was the
most convenient way in which lateral architraves could be united with
those disposed longitudinally. Any other arrangement would have
involved a sacrifice of space and would have left a certain part of
the abacus doing nothing.
We have now brought our analysis of the principal types of pier and
column used by the Egyptians to an end. They suggest, however, certain
general reflections to which we must next endeavour to give
expression. In spite of the great apparent diversity of their forms,
we are enabled to perceive that the Egyptian orders obeyed an
unchanging law of development, and that certain characteristic
features persistently reappear through all their transformations. We
must attempt to define these laws and characteristics, as, otherwise,
we shall fail to make the originality of Egyptian art appreciated, we
shall be unable to classify its successes, or to mark with accuracy
the limits which it failed to pass.
[Illustration: FIG. 95.--Capital from the work of Thothmes at Karnak.]
[Illustration: FIG. 96.--Arrangement of architraves upon a capital.
From the plans and elevations of Lepsius.]
Between the square pier with neither base nor capital of the early
Empire and the graceful columns of the Ramesseum there is a difference
which marks ages of progress. The general form of the support became
gradually more complex and more refined. As occurred elsewhere, it was
divided into parts, each of which had its proper duty and its proper
name. The base was distinguished from the shaft, and the shaft from
the capital. Each of these parts was shaped by the sculptor and
clothed in colour by the painter. For long centuries the architect
never relaxed his efforts to perfect his art. The simple and sturdy
prismatic column gave way to the elaborate forms which exist in the
great temples of the Ramessids; the latter in turn lost their power to
satisfy and new motives were sought for in the combination of all
those which had gone before. In the series of Egyptian types the
capital of Nectanebo would therefore occupy a place corresponding to
that of the composite capital in the series of Græco-Roman orders.
The general movement of art in Egypt may therefore be compared to that
of art in Greece and Italy; and yet there is a difference. From the
rise of Greek architecture until its decay, the proportions of its
vertical members underwent a continual, _but consistent_, modification
of their proportions. Century after century the figure in which their
height was expressed proportionately with their bulk, became greater.
In the height of the Doric columns of the old temple at Corinth there
are fewer diameters than in those of the Parthenon, and in those of
the Parthenon there are fewer than in the doric shafts of Rome. This
tendency explains the neglect which befel this order about the fourth
century before our era. In the sumptuous buildings of Asia Minor and
Syria and of the "Lower Period" in Egypt, it was replaced by the
graceful and slender outlines of the Ionic order. A similar
explanation may be given of the favour in which the Corinthian order
was held throughout the Roman world.
Such a development is not to be found in Egypt. The forms of Egyptian
architecture did not become less substantial with the passage of the
centuries. It is possible that familiarity with light structures of
wood and metal had early created a taste for slender supports. The
polygonal and faggot-shaped columns of Beni-Hassan are no thicker than
those of far later times. A comparison of the columns at Thebes points
to the same conclusion. The shortest and most thick-set in its
proportions of them all (Fig. 78) is at Medinet-Abou, and is about two
centuries later than those of the same order which decorate the second
court at Luxor (Fig. 77). Its heaviness is even more apparent when we
compare it with the great columns of a different order, at Karnak
(Fig. 80), and the Ramesseum (Fig. 81), which precede it by at least a
century.
The progress of Egyptian art was, then, less continuous and less
regular than that of classic art. It had moments of rest, of
exhaustion, even of retrogression. It was not governed by internal
logical principles so severe as those of the Greeks.
The manner in which the capital is allied to the shaft below, and the
architrave above shows changes of the same kind.
The first duty of the capital is to oppose a firm and individual
contour to the monotony of the shaft. The constructor has to determine
a point in the length of the latter where it shall cease to be, where
its gradual diminution in section, a diminution which could not be
prolonged to the architrave without compromising the safety of the
building, shall be arrested. The natural office of the capital would
seem to be to call attention to this point. The architect, therefore,
gives it a diameter greater than that of the shaft at the point where
they meet. This salience restores to the column the material which it
has lost; it completes it, and determines its proportion, so that it
is no longer capable of either increase or diminution.
Again, when the salience is but the preparation for a greater
development above, it seems to add to the solidity of the edifice by
receiving the architrave on a far larger surface than the shaft could
offer. The support seems to enlarge itself, the better to embrace the
entablature.
The two requirements which the capital has to fulfil may, then, be
thus summarized: in the first place, it has to mark the point where
the upward movement of the lines comes to an end; and, secondly, it
has to make, or to seem to make, the column better fitted to play its
part as a support. Its functions are dual in principle; it has to
satisfy the æsthetic desires of the eye, and the constructive
requirements of the material. The latter office may be more apparent
than real, but, in architecture, what seems to be necessary is so.
The Greek capital, in all its forms, thoroughly fulfils these double
conditions, while that of Egypt satisfies them in a very imperfect
manner. Let us take the ancient polygonal column as an example. The
feeble tablet which crowns its shaft neither opposes itself frankly to
the upright lines below it, nor, in the absence of an echinus, is it
happily allied with the shaft. It gives, however, a greater appearance
of constructive repose to the architrave than the latter would have
without it.
In the column which terminates in a lotus-bud the capital is of more
importance, but the contrast between it and the shaft is often very
slightly marked. At Luxor and Karnak the smooth capital seems to be
nothing more than an accident, a gentle swelling in the upper part of
the cone; besides which it really plays no part in the construction,
as the surface of the abacus above it is no greater than a horizontal
section through the highest and most slender part of the shaft.
[Illustration: FIG. 97.--The Nymphæa Nelumbo; from the _Description de
l'Égypte_; _Hist. Naturelle_, pl. 61.]
Of all the Egyptian capitals, that which seems the happiest in
conception is the campaniform. This capital, far from being folded
back upon itself, throws out a fine and bold curve beyond the shaft.
But we are surprised and even distressed to find that the surface thus
obtained is not employed for the support of the architrave, which is
carried by a comparatively small cubic abacus, which rests upon the
centre of the capital. At Karnak and Medinet-Abou this abacus is not
so absurdly high as it afterwards became in the Ptolemaic period,[107]
but yet its effect is singular rather than pleasant. We feel inclined
to wonder why this fine calyx of stone should have been constructed if
its borders were to remain idle. It is like a phrase commenced but
never finished. Without this fault the composition, of which it forms
a part, would be worthy, both in proportion and in decoration, of
being placed side by side with the most perfect of the Greek columns.
[107] A good idea of this can be gained from the building known
as _Pharaoh's bed_, at Philæ. It is shown on the right of our
sketch at p. 431, Vol. I.
The last or, it may be, the first question, which is asked in
connection with the form of column employed by any particular race,
has to do with its origin. We have preferred to make it the last
question, because we thought that the analysis of form which we have
attempted to set forth would help us to an answer. There are many
difficulties in the matter, but after the facts to which we have
called attention, it will not be denied that the forms of wooden
construction, which were the first to be developed in Egypt, had a
great effect upon work in stone.
Ever since men began to interest themselves in Egyptian art, this has
found an important place in their speculations. In the two forms which
alternate with one another at Thebes, many have seen faithful
transcriptions of two plants which filled a large space in Egyptian
civilization by their decorative qualities and the practical services
which they rendered; we mean, of course, the lotus and the papyrus.
There were in Egypt many species belonging to the family of the
_Nymphæaceæ_, a family which is represented in our northern climates
by the yellow and white nenuphars or water-lilies. Besides these Egypt
possessed, and still possesses, the white lotus (_Nymphæa lotus_ of
Linnæus), and the blue lotus (_Nymphæa cærulea_ of Savigny); but the
true Egyptian lotus, the red lotus (the _Nymphæa nelumbo_ of Linnæus,
the _Nelumbium speciosum_ of Wild) exists no longer in a wild state,
either in Egypt or any other known part of Africa (Fig. 97). The
accurate descriptions given by the ancient writers have enabled
botanists, however, to recognize it among the flora of India. It is at
least one third larger than our common water-lily, from which it
differs also in the behaviour of its leaves and of the stems which
bear the flowers. These do not float on the surface of the water but
rise above it to a height of from twelve to fifteen inches.[108] The
flower, which stands higher than the leaves, is borne upon a stalk
which instead of being soft and pliant like that of the water-lily has
the firmness and consistency of wood. It has an agreeable smell like
that of anise. In the bas-reliefs the ancient Egyptians are often seen
holding it to their nostrils. The fruit, which is shaped like the rose
of a watering-pot, contains seeds as large as the stone of an olive.
[108] These upstanding flowers and stalks form the
distinguishing characteristic of the Nelumbo species.
These seeds, which were eaten either green or dried,[109] were called
_Egyptian beans_ by the Greek and Latin writers because they were
consumed in such vast quantities in the Nile valley.[110] The seeds of
the other kinds of nymphæaceæ, which were smaller (Herodotus compares
them with those of a poppy), gave, when pounded in a mortar, a flour
of which a kind of bread was made. Even the root was not wasted;
according to the old historians, it had a sweet and agreeable
taste.[111]
[109] HERODOTUS, ii. 92.
[110] For the different species of the lotus and their
characteristics see _Description de l'Égypte_, _Hist.
Naturelle_, vol. ii. pp. 303-313 and _Atlas_, plates 60 and
61.--In the _Recueil de Travaux_, etc., vol. i. p. 190, there is
a note by M. VICTOR LORET upon the Egyptian names for the lotus.
[111] STRABO, xvii. 1, 15.--DIODORUS, i. 34.
The papyrus belongs to the family of _Cyperaceæ_, which is still
represented in Egypt by several species, but the famous plant which
received the early writings of mankind, the _Papyrus antiquorum_ of
the botanist, has also practically disappeared from Egypt, where it is
only to be found in a few private gardens. The ancients made it an
object of special care. It was cultivated in the Sebennitic nome, its
roots being grown in shallow water. Strabo gave a sufficiently
accurate idea of its appearance when he described it as a "peeled wand
surmounted by a plume of feathers."[112] This green plume or bouquet
is by no means without elegance (Fig. 98). According to Theophrastus
the plant attained to a height of ten cubits, or about sixteen
feet.[113] This may, however, be an exaggeration. The finest plants
that I could find in the gardens of Alexandria did not reach ten feet.
Their stems were as thick as a stout broom-handle and sharply
triangular in section.
[112] STRABO, xvii. 1, 15.
[113] Strabo only speaks of ten feet, which would agree better
with modern experience.
The reed-brakes which occur so frequently in the paintings consist of
different varieties of the papyrus (Fig. 8, Vol. I.). The uses to
which the plant could be put were very numerous. The root was used for
fuel and other purposes. The lower part of the stalk furnished a sweet
and aromatic food substance, which was chewed either raw or boiled,
for the sake of the juice.[114] Veils, mats, sandals, &c., were made
from the bark; candle and torch wicks from the bark; baskets and even
boats from the stalk.[115] As for the processes by which the precious
fabric which the Greeks called βίβλος was obtained they will
be found fully described in the paper of Dureau de-la-Malle _Sur le
Papyrus et la Fabrication du Papier_.[116] Our word _paper_ is derived
from _papyrus_, and forms a slight but everlasting monument to the
great services rendered to civilization by the inventive genius of the
Egyptians. The importation of the papyrus, which followed the
establishment of direct relations between Greece and Egypt in the time
of the Sait princes,[117] exercised the greatest influence upon the
development of Greek thought. It created prose composition, and with
it history, philosophy, and science.
[114] DIODORUS, i. 80.
[115] PIERRET, _Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne_, see
_Papyrus_. Upon the different varieties of papyrus, see also
WILKINSON, vol. ii. p. 121; pp. 179-189; and EBERS, _Ægypten_,
pp. 126, 127.
[116] _Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions_, vol. xix. p.
140, with one plate.
[117] EGGER, _Des Origines de la Prose dans la Littérature
Grecque_. (_Mémoires de Littérature Ancienne_, xi.)
The two plants which we have mentioned were so specially reverenced by
the Egyptians that they constituted them severally into the signs by
which the two great divisions of the country were indicated in their
writings. The _papyrus_ was the emblem of the Delta, in whose lazy
waters it luxuriated, and the lotus that of the Thebaïd.[118]
[118] MASPERO, _Histoire Ancienne_, p. 8.
Besides this testimony to their importance, the careful descriptions
left by the ancient travellers in Egypt, Herodotus and Strabo, also
show the estimation in which these two plants were held by the
Egyptians; the palm alone could contest their well-earned supremacy.
It is easy, then, to understand how the artist and ornamentist were
led to make use of their graceful forms. We have already pointed out
many instances of such employment, and we are far from underrating its
importance, but we have yet to explain the method followed, and the
kind and degree of imitation which the Egyptian artist allowed
himself.
The lotus especially has been found everywhere by writers upon
Egypt.[119] The pointed leaves painted upon the lower parts of
columns have been recognized as imitations of "those scaly leaves
which surround the point where the stem of the lotus, the papyrus,
and many other aquatic plants, merges in the root." According to this
theory the ligneous stem which rises from a depth beneath the water
of, perhaps, six feet, and carries the large open flower at its top,
was the prototype of the Egyptian column. The bulbous form with which
so many shafts are endowed at the base, would be another feature taken
directly from nature. The leaves, properly speaking, which spread
around the flower, are found about and below the capital, while the
capital itself is nothing else, we are told, than the flower,
sometimes fully opened, sometimes while yet in the bud. When the shaft
is smooth it represents a single stem, when it is grooved, it means a
faggot of stems tied together by a cord.
[119] _Description de l'Égypte_; _Hist. Naturelle_, vol. ii. p.
311. _Antiquités_, vol. i. _Description générale de Thèbes_, p.
133: "Who can doubt that they wished to imitate the lotus in its
entirety? The shaft of the column is the stem, the capital the
flower, and, still more obviously, the lower part of the column
seems to us an exact representation of that of the lotus and of
plants in general."
[Illustration: FIG. 98.--Papyrus plant, drawn in the gardens of the
Luxembourg, Paris, by M. Saint-Elme Gautier.]
Others make similar claims for the papyrus. They refuse to admit that
the whole of the Egyptian orders were founded upon the lotus. Mariette
allowed that the capitals which we have called lotiform were copied
from that plant, but he contended that the bell-shaped capital was
freely copied from the plume of its rival. He proposed that this
latter capital should be called _papyriform_, and to my objections,
which were founded upon the composition of a head of papyrus, he
answered that the Egyptians neglected what may be called internal
details, and were contented with rendering the outward contours. In
support of his idea, he called attention to the fact that some of the
faggot-shaped columns present triangular sections, like that of the
papyrus stem.
In spite of this latter fact, Mariette did not convert me to his
opinion. The columns in which this triangular section is found are not
crowned by an open flower. The profiles of their capitals resemble
that of a truncated bud, a form which cannot possibly be obtained from
the papyrus, and they seem, therefore, to combine characteristics
taken from two different plants. His explanation of the campaniform
capital seems still less admissable. It is impossible to allow that in
the tuft of slender filaments gracefully yielding to the wind, which
is figured on page 127, we have the prototype of those inverted bells
of stone, whose uninterrupted contours express so much strength and
amplitude. No less difficult is it to discover the first idea of those
sturdy shafts which seem so well proportioned to the mighty
architraves which they have to support, in the slender stalk of the
famous water plant. The hypostyle halls may be compared to palm
groves, to forests of pine, of oak, or of beech. In such a comparison
there would be nothing surprising, but the papyrus, with its
attenuated proportions and yielding frame, would seem to be, of all
vegetables, the least likely to have inspired the architects of Karnak
and Luxor.
The lotus seems to us to have no more right than the papyrus to be
considered the unique origin of the forms which we are considering.
All those resemblances, of which so much has been made, sink to very
little when they are closely examined. It requires more than good will
to recognize the formless _folioles_ which cluster round the base of
the stalk in those large and well-shaped triangular leaves with
parallel ribs, which decorate the bases of Egyptian columns. Moreover,
these leaves reappear in other places, such as capitals, in which, if
this explanation of their origin is to be accepted, they could have no
place. They frequently occur, also, at the foot of a wall. As for the
true circular leaf of the lotus, it is not to be found, except,
perhaps in a few Ptolemaic capitals. Its stem, concealed almost
entirely by the muddy water, is very slender, and is hardly more
suggestive than that of the papyrus of a massive stone column. The
bulbous form of the lower part of the shaft would be a constant form
if it were an imitation of nature, whereas it is, in fact,
exceptional. With the capitals, however, it is different. Those which
are to be found at Thebes are referred, by common consent, to the
lotus-bud. And yet, perhaps, they resemble any other bud as much as
that of the lotus. It is, however, when they are fully open, that one
flower is easily distinguishable from another by the shape and number
of their petals, as well as by the variety of their colours. Like
babies in their cradles, unopened buds are strangely alike. But seeing
the place occupied by the lotus in the minds of the Egyptians, in
their wooden architecture and painted decorations, it is natural
enough to believe that it gave them their first hint for the capital
in question; we have, therefore, not hesitated to use the epithet
lotiform which has been consecrated to it by custom.
As for the campaniform capital we find it difficult to allow that it
represents the open flower of the lotus. From a certain distance it no
doubt resembles the general lines of some flowers, but those belong to
the family of the _Campanulaceæ_ rather than to that of the
nymphæaceæ. The profile of this inverted bell, however, does not seem
to have been suggested by the wish to imitate any flower whatever,
least of all that of the lotus. The capitals at Soleb and Sesebi
(Figs. 82 and 93) embody careful imitations of, at least, the general
shapes and curves of date-tree branches. Here there is nothing of the
kind. There is not the slightest indication of the elongated and
crowded petals of the lotus. Both at Karnak and at the Ramesseum, the
latter may be easily recognised among the stalks of papyrus and other
freely imitated flowers, but _upon_ the columns and not in their
shapes. Both base and capital were ornamented with leaves and flowers.
Their contours have been gently indicated with a pointed instrument
and then filled in with brilliant colours, which help to relieve them
from their ground. The whole decoration is superficial; it is not
embodied in the column and has no effect upon its general form and
character.
The following explanation of the resemblances which do undoubtedly
exist between certain details of Egyptian architecture and the forms
of some of the national plants, is the most probable. The stalks of
the lotus and the papyrus are too weak and slender ever to have been
used as supports by themselves, but it is quite possible that on
_fête_ days, they were used to decorate pillars and posts of more
substantial construction, being bound round them like the outer sticks
of a faggot. This fashion has its modern illustration in the Italian
habit of draping the columns of a church with cloth or velvet on
special occasions, and in the French custom of draping houses with
garlands and white cloth for the procession of the _Fête Dieu_.
The river and the canals of Egypt offered all the elements for such a
decoration. The lotus and papyrus stems would be attached to the
column which they decorated, at the top and bottom. The leaves at the
roots would lie about its base, those round the flower and the flower
itself would droop gracefully beneath the architrave, would embrace
and enlarge the capital when it existed, or supply its place when
there was none. The eyes of a people with so keen a perception of
beauty as the Egyptians could not be insensible to the charm of a
column thus crowned with the verdure of green leaves, with the
splendour of the open flower and with the graceful forms of the still
undeveloped bud. It is probable enough that the architect, when he
began to feel the necessity for embellishing the bare surface of his
column, took this temporary and often-renewed decoration for his
model.
The first attempt to imitate these natural forms would be made in wood
and metal, substances which would lend themselves to the unpractised
moulder more readily than stone, but in time the difficulties of the
latter material would be overcome. The deep vertical grooves cut in
the shaft would afford a rough imitation of the round stems of the
lotus and the triangular ones of the papyrus. The circular belts at
the top would suggest the cords by which they were tied to the shaft.
The leaves and flowers painted upon the lowest part of the shaft and
upon the capital, may be compared to permanent chromatic shadows of
the bouquets of colour and verdure which had once hidden those
members. Finally, the artist found in the swelling sides of the bud
and the hollow curves of the corolla those flowing lines which he
desired for the proper completion of his column.
This hypothesis seems to leave no point unexplained, and it receives
additional probability from a detail which can hardly be
satisfactorily accounted for by the advocates of the rival theory. We
mean the cube of stone which is interposed as a kind of abacus between
the capital and the architrave. If we refer the general lines to those
of a plain column bound about with flowering stalks, there is no
difficulty. The abacus then represents the rigid column behind the
decoration, raising its summit above the drooping heads of lotus and
papyrus, and visibly doing its duty as a support. Its effect may not
be very happy, but its _raison d'être_ is complete. On the other hand
its existence is quite inexplicable, if we are to look upon the column
as a reproduction in stone, a kind of petrifaction of a single stem.
To what, in that case, does this heavy stone die correspond? To those
who believe the capital to be the representation of a single flower
with its circlet of graceful petals, its presence must seem nothing
less than an outrage.
In their light structures only do we find the Egyptians frankly
imitating flowers and half-opened buds (Figs. 57, 63, and 64), but
even there the imitation is far from literal. The petals in a single
"bloom" are often of different colours, some blue, some yellow, others
again red or pink, a mixture which is not to be found in nature. The
Egyptian decorator thought only of decoration. He used his tints
capriciously from the botanist's point of view, but he often
reproduced the forms of Egyptian plants with considerable fidelity,
especially those splendid lotus-flowers which occupied so large a
part in his affections long before the poets of India sang their
praise. In fashioning slender shafts which had little weight to
support, the artist could give the reins to his fancy, he could mould
his metal plates or his precious timber into the semblance of any
natural form that pleased his eye, and the types thus created would,
of course, be present in the minds of the first architects who
attempted to decorate rock-cut tombs or temples and constructed
buildings. We affirm again, however, that neither the stone column of
the Egyptians, nor that of the Greeks, in its most complete and
dignified form, resulted from the servile imitation, nor even from the
intelligent interpretation of living nature.
The column was an abstract creation of plastic genius. Its forms were
determined by the natural properties of the material employed, by
structural necessities, and by a desire for beauty of proportion.
Different peoples have had different ideas as to what constitutes this
beauty; they have had their secret instincts and individual
preferences. The artist, too, who wishes to ornament a column, is sure
to borrow motives from any particular form of art or industry in which
the race to which he belongs may have earned distinction. In some
cases, therefore, his work may resemble carved wood, in others chased
or beaten metal. He will also be influenced, to some extent, by the
features and characteristic forms of the plants and animals peculiar
to his country. But wherever a race is endowed with a true instinct
for art, its architects will succeed in creating for stone
architecture an appropriate style of its own. The exigencies of the
material differ from those of metal or wood. Its unbending rigidity
places a great gulf between it and the elasticity and perpetual
mobility which characterize organic life. The Egyptian architects saw
from the first that this difference, or rather contrast, would have to
be reckoned with. They understood perfectly well that the shaft which
was to support a massive roof of stone must not be a copy of those
slender stems of lotus or papyrus which bend before the wind, or float
upon the lazy waters of the canals. The phrase _column-plant_ or
_plant-column_, which has sometimes been used in connection with the
columns of Luxor and Karnak, is a contradiction in terms.
But why should we dwell upon these questions of origin? In the history
of art, as in that of language, they are nearly always insoluble,
especially when we have to do with a race who created all their
artistic forms and idioms for themselves. The case is different when
we have to do with a nation who came under the influence of an earlier
civilization than their own. Then, and then only, can such an inquiry
lead to useful results. The word origin is then a synonym for
affiliation, and an inquiry is directed towards establishing the
method and the period in which the act of birth took place.
In our later volumes we shall have to go into such questions in
detail, but in the case of Egypt we are spared that task. All that we
mean by civilization had its origin in Egypt, so far, at least, as we
can tell. It is the highest point in the stream to which we can mount.
Any attempt to determine the genesis of each particular æsthetic
motive in a past so distant that a glance into its depths takes away
our breath, would be a mere waste of time and ingenuity.
§ 6. _The Ordonnance of Egyptian Colonnades._
A French writer tells us that uniformity is sure to give birth to
weariness sooner or later, and there are many people who would
believe, if they thought about it, that his words exactly apply to the
art of Egypt. The character which was given to it when its creations
first became known to modern Europe clings to it still. Our museums
are full of objects dating from the last centuries of the monarchy and
even from the Greek and Roman period. A very slight study of Egyptian
architecture is sufficient, however, to destroy such a prejudice, in
spite of its convenience for those who are lazily disposed. The pier
and column were extremely various in their types, as we have seen, and
each type was divided into numerous species. The same variety is found
in the arrangement, or ordonnance, of the columns, both in the
interior and exterior of their buildings. We cannot prove this better
than by placing a series of plans of hypostyle halls and porticos
before the eye of the reader, accompanied by a few illustrations in
perspective which will suffice to show the freedom enjoyed by the
Egyptian architect and the number of different arrangements which he
could introduce into a single building.
The fullest development of Egyptian columnar architecture is to be
found in their interiors.
[Illustration: FIG. 99.--Small chamber at Karnak.]
[Illustration: FIG. 100.--Apartment in the temple at Luxor.]
[Illustration: FIG. 101.--Hall of the temple at Abydos; _Description_,
vol. ii. p. 41.]
The simplest arrangement is to be found in the small chambers where
the roof is sustained by a single row of columns (Fig. 98). When the
apartment was slightly larger it contained two rows, the space between
the rows being wider than that between the columns and the wall (Fig.
100). Sometimes in still larger halls we find three rows of columns
separated from one another by equal spaces in every direction (Fig.
101). Finally in those great chambers which are known as hypostyle
halls, the number of columns seems to be practically unlimited. At
Karnak there are a hundred and thirty-four (Fig. 102), at the
Ramesseum forty-eight, at Medinet-Abou twenty-four.
[Illustration: FIG. 102.--Plan of part of the Hypostyle Hall at
Karnak.]
The full effect of the hypostyle hall is to be seen at Karnak and at
the Ramesseum. In those halls the central aisle is higher than the
parts adjoining and is distinguished by a different type of column
(Plate IV). It is more than probable that this happy arrangement was
not confined to Thebes. We should no doubt have encountered it in more
than one of the temples of Memphis and the Delta had they been
preserved to our time. Its principle was reproduced in the propylæa of
the acropolis at Athens, where the Ionic and Doric orders figured side
by side.
[Illustration: FIG. 103.--Tomb at Sakkarah.]
[Illustration: FIG. 104.--Hall in the inner portion of the Great
Temple at Karnak.]
In the ancient tombs at Sakkarah the quadrangular pier alone was used
to support the roof (Fig. 103). In the Theban temples it was combined
with the column. In the chamber called the ambulatory of Thothmes (J
in Fig. 215, Vol. I.), at Karnak, a row of square piers surrounds an
avenue of circular columns which to bear the roof (Fig. 104).
[Illustration: FIG. 105.--Portico of the first court at Medinet-Abou.]
[Illustration: FIG. 106.--Portico of the first court at Luxor.]
The external porticos are no less remarkable for variety of plan. At
Medinet-Abou we find one consisting of only a single row of columns
(Fig. 105). At Luxor the columns are doubled upon all four sides of
the first court (Fig. 106), and upon two sides of the second; upon one
side of the latter, the side nearest to the sanctuary, there are four
rows of columns (Fig. 107).
[Illustration: FIG. 107.--The portico of the pronaos, Luxor.]
All these are within the external walls of the courts, but the
peripteral portico, embracing the temple walls, like those of Greece,
is also to be found in a few rare instances (Fig. 108); as, for
example, in the small temple at Elephantiné which we have already
described.[120]
[120] Chapter iv. pp. 396-400, Vol. I.
[Illustration: FIG. 108.--Part plan of the temple at Elephantiné.]
[Illustration: FIG. 109.--Luxor, plan of the second court.]
In the cases where the portico is within the courts, it is sometimes
confined to two sides, as at Luxor (Fig. 109); the columns shown at
the top of our plan belong to the pronaos and not to the court. In the
Temple of Khons it surrounds three sides (Fig. 110), while the fine
court added to the temple of Luxor by Rameses II. has a double
colonnade all round it (Fig. 111).
Both in the interior of the halls and in the external porticos we find
an apparently capricious irregularity in spacing the columns.
Sometimes intercolumniations vary at points where we should expect
uniformity, as in the outer court of Luxor (Fig. 112). On two of the
faces the columns are farther apart than on the other two. The
difference is not easily seen on the ordinary small plans, but it is
conspicuous in the large one of the _Description_.[121]
[121] _Description de l'Égypte_, plates, vol. iii. pl. 5.
It is easy to understand why the spacing should have been increased in
front of a door, an arrangement which exists at Gournah (Fig. 113),
and at Luxor (Figs. 109 and 111).
[Illustration: FIG. 110.--Portico in the Temple of Khons.]
[Illustration: FIG. 111.--Luxor, portico of the first court.]
In the hypostyle halls we find columns of different sizes and orders.
Six of the great columns which form the central avenue at Karnak cover
as much ground, measuring from the first to the sixth, as nine of the
smaller pillars. Between supports so arranged and proportioned no
constant relation could be established (Fig. 114). The transverse
lines passing through the centres of each pair of great columns
correspond to the centres neither of the smaller shafts nor of the
spaces which divide them. The central aisle and the two lateral groves
of stone might have been the creations of separate architects, working
without communication with one another and without any desire to make
their proportions seem the result of one coherent idea.
In the inner hypostyle hall at Abydos the intercolumniations which
lead respectively to the seven sanctuaries vary in width (Fig. 115).
This variation is not shown by Mariette, from whose work our plan of
the temple as a whole was taken, but it is clearly seen in the plan
given in the _Description_. These are not the only instances in which
those early explorers of Egypt excelled their successors in minute
accuracy.
[Illustration: FIG. 112.--Part of the portico of the first court,
Luxor. From the _Description_, iii. 5.]
[Illustration: FIG. 113.--Portico in front of the façade of the temple
of Gournah. From the _Description_, ii. 41.]
Here and there we find the spaces in a single row of columns
increasing progressively from the two ends to the centre (Fig. 105).
[Illustration: FIG. 114.--Part of the Hypostyle Hall in the Great
Temple at Karnak.]
The combination of quadrangular with Osiride piers and of the latter
with columns proper was also productive of great variety. In the speos
of Gherf-Hossein six Osiride piers are inclosed by six of quadrangular
section (Fig. 116). In the first court at Medinet-Abou a row of
Osiride piers faces a row of columns (Fig. 117), while in the second
court there is a much more complicated arrangement. The lateral walls
of the court are prefaced each by a row of columns. The wall next the
entrance has a row of Osiride piers before it; while that through
which the pronaos is gained has a portico supported by, first, a row
of Osiride piers, and, behind them, by a row of columns (Fig. 118).
[Illustration: FIG. 115.--Second Hypostyle Hall in the temple of
Abydos. _Description_, iv. 36.]
[Illustration: FIG. 116.--Hall in the speos of Gherf-Hossein (from
Prisse).]
[Illustration: FIG. 117.--Medinet-Abou; first court.]
[Illustration: FIG. 118.--Medinet-Abou; second court.]
In the temple of Khons the peristyle is continued past the doorway in
the pylon (Fig. 119), and the inclosure is reached through one of the
intercolumniations.[122] At Luxor, on the other hand, the portico was
brought to an abrupt termination against the salient jambs of the
doorway (Fig. 120).
[122] This is a mistake. By a reference to Fig. 208, Vol. I., or
to Fig. 126 in this volume, it will be seen that the peristyle
was not continued along the inner face of the pylon.--ED.
[Illustration: FIG. 119.--Portico of the Temple of Khons, looking
towards pronaos.]
[Illustration: FIG. 120.--Portico of first court at Luxor.]
The Egyptian architect, like his Greek successor, made frequent use of
the _anta_, that is, he gave a salience to the extremities of his
walls which strengthened his design and afforded structural members,
akin to pilasters or quadrangular pillars, which were combined in
various ways with columns and piers. Sometimes the anta is nothing but
a slight prolongation of a wall beyond the point where it meets
another (Fig. 121); sometimes it is the commencement of a returning
wall which appears to have been broken off to give place to a row of
columns (Fig. 122); a good instance of the latter arrangement is to be
found on the façade of the temple at Gournah. Sometimes, as at
Medinet-Abou, it is a reinforcement to the extremity of a wall, and
serves to form a backing for colossal Osiride statues (Fig. 123),
sometimes it gives accent and strength to an angle, as in the Great
Hall at Karnak (Fig. 124). At the Temple of Khons the terminations of
the two rows of columns which form the portico are marked by antæ on
the inner face of the pylon (Fig. 126), while the wall which incloses
the pronaos is without any projection except the jambs of the door.
This arrangement has an obvious _raison d'être_; if the columns were
brought close up to the pylon their outlines would not combine happily
with its inclined walls. At the other extremity of the court, the wall
being perpendicular, there was no necessity for such an
arrangement.[123] A glance at Fig. 126 will make this readily
understood. At Medinet-Abou the portico is terminated laterally by two
antæ, one corresponding to the row of columns, the other to the row of
caryatid piers. In another court of the same temple the antæ on either
side vary in depth, at one end of the portico there is a bold
pilaster, at the other one which projects very slightly indeed (Fig.
128). This is another instance of the curious want of symmetry and
regularity which is one of the most constant characteristics of
Egyptian architecture.
[123] The arrangement in question is capable of another and,
perhaps, more simple explanation. The two rows of columns of
which the portico in question is composed, run in an unbroken
line round the court with the exception of the side which is
filled by the pylon. It was natural enough, therefore, that they
should each be stopped against an anta, even if there had not
been an additional reason in the inclination of the pylon. The
ordonnance as a whole may be compared to a long portico, like
that in the second court of the temple at Gournah, bent into two
right angles.--ED.
[Illustration: FIG. 121.--Anta, Luxor; second court. _Description_,
iii. 5.]
[Illustration: FIG. 122.--Anta, Gournah. From Gailhabaud.]
[Illustration: FIG. 123.--Anta, Medinet-Abou.]
[Illustration: FIG. 124.--Anta in the Great Hall of Karnak.]
[Illustration: FIG. 125.--Antæ, Temple of Khons. _Description_, iii.
54.]
[Illustration: FIG. 126.--Anta and base of pylon, Temple of Khons.
_Description_, iii. 55.]
The anta is often without a capital, as, for instance, in the temple
of Khons (Fig. 126). Elsewhere the architect seems to have wished to
bring it into more complete harmony with the magnificence of its
surroundings, and accordingly he gives it a capital, as at
Medinet-Abou, but a capital totally unlike those proper to the
column.[124] It was identical in form with that gorge or cornice which
crowns nearly every Egyptian wall. Considering that the anta was
really no more than a prolongation or momentary salience of the wall,
such an arrangement was judicious in every way (Fig. 129).
[124] In this the Greek architects took the same course as those
of Egypt.
[Illustration: FIG. 127.--Antæ, Medinet-Abou.]
[Illustration: FIG. 128.--Antæ, Medinet-Abou.]
The width of the intercolumniations also varied between one court or
hall and another, and, at least in the present state of the Egyptian
remains, we are unable to discover any rule governing the matter, such
as those by which Greek architects were guided. We may affirm
generally that the Egyptian constructor, especially in the time of the
New Empire and when using columns of large dimensions, preferred close
spacing to wide. His tendency to crowd his columns is to be explained,
partly by the great weight of the superstructure which they had to
support, partly by the national taste for a massive and close
architecture. The spaces between the great columns in the hypostyle
hall of Karnak, measured between the points of junction between the
bases and the shafts, is slightly less than two diameters. The spaces
between the smaller columns on each side are hardly more than one
diameter.
A better idea of the original character of these ordonnances may
perhaps be gathered from the plate which faces the next page (Pl.
VIII) than to any plan to which we could refer the reader. It
represents that part of the colonnade, in the second court of the
temple at Medinet-Abou, which veils the wall of the pronaos, and it
shows how little space the Egyptian architects thought necessary for
the purposes of circulation. The spaces between the columns and the
wall on the one hand and the osiride piers on the other, are not quite
equal to the diameter of the bases of those columns, which have,
however, been expressly kept smaller than was usual in Egypt. If they
had been as large as some that we could point out, there would have
been no room to pass between them and the wall.
Did the Egyptians ever employ isolated columns, not as structural
units, but for decorative purposes, for the support of a group or a
statue? Are there any examples of pillars like those which the
Phœnicians raised before their temples, or the triumphal columns of
the Romans, or those reared for commemorative purposes in Paris and
other cities of Modern Europe? It is impossible to give a confident
answer to this question. The remains of the great colonnade which
existed in the first court at Karnak, of which a single column with
bell-shaped capital is still upright (Fig. 130), suggest, perhaps,
that such monumental pillars were not unknown to the Egyptians. These
columns display the ovals of Tahraka, of Psemethek, and of Ptolemy
Philopator. The width of the avenue between them, measuring from
centre to centre, is so great, about fifty-five feet, that it is
difficult to believe that it could ever have been covered with a roof.
Even with wood it would have been no easy matter--for the
Egyptians--to cover such a void. We have, moreover, good reason to
believe that they never used wood and stone together in their temples.
A _velarium_ has been suggested, but there is nothing either in the
Egyptian texts or in their wall paintings to hint at their use of such
a covering.
It would have been quite possible to connect the summits of these
columns together lengthwise. The architraves would have had less than
twenty feet to bridge over. But not the slightest relic of such a
structure has been found, and it is difficult to see what good purpose
it could have served had it existed.
The authors of the _Description_ came to the conclusion that there had
been no roof of any kind to the avenue formed by the columns, that
they merely formed a kind of monumental approach to the hypostyle
hall.[125] Mariette also discards the idea of architraves, which would
have to be unusually long, but he cannot accept the notion that the
columns were merely colossal venetian masts bordering the approach to
the sanctuary. He supposes the centre of the courtyard to have
contained a small hypæthral temple built by Tahraka. This temple
figures upon his plan, but neither he himself, by his own confession,
nor any one else has ever found the slightest trace of it in
reality.[126] In the excavations made by him in 1859, he did not find
a vestige even of the two columns which he inserts upon each of the
two short sides of the rectangle. These columns were necessary in
order to complete a peripteral arrangement, similar to that which
exists in the hypæthral temples at Philæ and in Nubia. The closest
study of the site has brought to light nothing beyond the twelve
columns shown in our plan (Fig. 214, E, Vol. I.).
[125] _Description, Antiquités_, vol. v. pp. 120, 121. In their
_Description Générale de Thèbes_ (ch. ix. section 8, § 2), the
same writers add: "We are confirmed in our opinion by the
discovery on a bas-relief of four lotus stems with their flowers
surmounted by hawks and statues, and placed exactly in the same
fashion as the columns which we have just described. They are
votive columns. We are also confirmed in this opinion by the
fact that we find things like them among those amulets which
reproduce the various objects in the temples in small." This
bas-relief is figured in the third volume of plates of the
_Description_, pl. 33, Fig. 1.
[126] MARIETTE, _Karnak_, p. 19, pl. 4. _Voyage dans la
Haute-Égypte_, pp. 13, 21, 22.
[Illustration: Ch. Chipiez del Hibon sc.
THEBES
PORTICO IN THE TEMPLE OF MEDINET-ABOU (SECOND COURT)
Restored by Ch. Chipiez.
Imp. Ch. Chardon]
[Illustration: FIG. 129.--Anta and column at Medinet-Abou.]
[Illustration: FIG. 130.--Column in the court of the Bubastides, at
Karnak.]
The most probable explanation is that which we have hinted at
above.[127] These great columns were erected to give majesty to the
approach to the hypostyle hall, and to border the path followed by the
great religious processions as they issued from the hall and made for
the great doorway in the pylon. They must always have been isolated,
and it is possible that formerly each carried upon the cubic die which
still surmounts the capital, groups of bronze similar to those which,
to all appearance, crowned those stele-like piers which we described
in speaking of the work of Thothmes in the same temple (page 94). This
was also the opinion of Prisse d'Avennes, who studied the monuments of
Egypt, both as an artist and as an archæologist, more closely,
perhaps, than any one else.[128] It has been objected that the
columns would hide each other, and that the symbolic animals perched
upon their summits could not have been seen; but this would only be
the case with those who looked at them from certain disadvantageous
positions--from between the columns, or exactly on their alignment.
From the middle of the avenue, or from one side of it, they would be
clearly visible, and the vivid colours of their enamels would produce
their full effect.
[127] This explanation seems to have been accepted by Prof.
EBERS; _Ægypten im Bild und Wort_, vol. ii. p. 331.
[128] MAXIME DU CAMP, _Le Nil_, p. 251.
The question might be decided in a very simple fashion. The summit of
the column which is still upright might be examined, or the abacus of
one of those which have fallen might be discovered; in either case
traces of the objects which they supported would be found, supposing
our hypothesis to be correct. More than one doubtful question of this
kind would long ago have been solved had the Egyptian monuments been
studied on the spot by archæologists and artists instead of being left
almost entirely to the narrower experience of engineers and
egyptologists.
In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we shall, then, look upon
it as probable that the Egyptians sometimes raised columns, like other
people, not for the support of roofs and architraves, but as gigantic
pedestals, as self-contained decorative forms, with independent parts
of their own to play. Such a proceeding was doubtless an innovation in
Egyptian art--one of those fresh departures which date from the latter
years of the Monarchy. Even in Egypt motives grew stale with
repetition at last, and she cried out for something new.
§ 7. _Monumental Details._
We have seen that the proportions, the entasis, the shape, and the
decoration of the Egyptian column, were changed more than once and in
many ways. The Egyptian artist, by his fertility of resource and
continual striving after improvement, showed that he was by no means
actuated by that blind respect for tradition which has been too often
attributed to him. Besides, the remains which we possess are but a
small part of Egyptian architecture. The buildings of Memphis and of
the Delta have perished. Had they been preserved we should doubtless
have found among them forms and details which do not exist in the
ruins of Abydos, of Thebes, or in the Nubian hypogea; we should have
been able to describe arrangements and motives which do not occur in
the works of the three great Theban dynasties.
[Illustration: FIG. 131.--Stereobate, Luxor.]
[Illustration: FIG. 132.--Stereobate with double plinth, Luxor.]
On the other hand, the mouldings and other details of the same kind
are monotonous in the extreme. Their want of variety is not to be
explained, like that of Assyria, by the nature of the materials.
Brick, granite, limestone, and sandstone constituted a series of
materials in which a varied play of light and shade, such as that
which characterized Greek architecture, should have been easy. The
real cause of the poverty of Egyptian design in this particular is to
be found in their habit of covering nearly every surface with a carved
and painted decoration. More elaborate or bolder mouldings might have
interfered with the succession of row upon row of pictures from the
bottom to the top of a wall. The eye was satisfied with the rich
polychromatic decoration, and did not require it to be supplemented by
architectural ornament.
When the slope of a wall was ornamented with projections in the shape
of mouldings it was because the wall was bare. At Luxor, for example,
in the external face of the wall which incloses the back of the
temple, the lowest course projects beyond the others, forming a step,
and a few courses above it there is a hollow moulding similar in
section to the cornice at the top; the lower part of the wall is thus
formed into a stereobate (Fig. 131). At another point in the
circumference of this temple there is a stereobate of a more
complicated description. It is terminated above by a cornice-shaped
moulding like that just described, but it rests upon two steps instead
of one (Fig. 132). By this it appears that the Egyptian architects
understood how to add to apparent solidity of their buildings by
expanding them at their junction with the ground. This became a true
continuous stylobate, carrying piers, in peripteral temples like that
at Elephantiné (Fig. 230, Vol. I.). In the latter building its form is
identical with that which we have just described.
We have now to describe an arrangement which, though rare in the
Pharaonic period, was afterwards common enough. The portico which
stretches across the back of the second court in the Ramesseum is
closed to about a third of its height by a kind of pluteus (Fig.
133).[129] This barrier formed a sort of tablet, surrounded by a
fillet, and crowned by a cornice of the usual type, between each pair
of Osiride piers. In the Ptolemaic temples the lower part of the
portico was always closed in this fashion. It constitutes the only
inclosure in front of the fine hypostyle hall at Denderah.
[129] The _Description de l'Égypte_ indicates the existence of
this pluteus both in the Ramesseum (vol. ii. pl. 29) and at
Medinet-Abou (vol. ii. pl. 7, Fig. 2). Photographs do not show a
trace of it, but many parts of those buildings had disappeared
before the beginning of the present century. There is no reason
to suppose that the Ramesseum underwent any modification after
the termination of the Theban supremacy. In his restoration of
Dayr-el-Bahari, M. Brune has introduced a similar detail, which
he would assuredly not have done unless he had found traces of
it under the portico. Unfortunately his restoration is on a very
small scale. That at Dayr-el-Bahari must have been the earliest
example of such an arrangement.
We have now studied buildings in sufficient number to become familiar
with the _Egyptian Gorge_. As early as the Ancient Empire the
architects of Egypt had invented this form of cornice, and used it
happily upon their massive structures. It is composed of three
elements, which are always arranged in the same order. In the first
place there is the circular moulding or torus with a carved ribbon
twisting about it. This moulding occurs at the edge where two faces
meet in most Egyptian buildings. It serves to give firmness and accent
to the angles and, when used at the top of the wall, to mark the point
where the wall ends and the cornice begins. Above this there is a
hollow curve with perpendicular grooves, which, again, is surmounted
by a plain fillet which makes a sharp line against the sky. In all
this there is a skilful opposition of hollows to flat surfaces, of
deep shadow to brilliant and unbroken sunlight, which marks the upward
determination of the great masses upon which it is used in the most
effective manner.
[Illustration: FIG. 133.--Pluteus in the intercolumniations of the
portico in the second court of the Ramesseum.]
Although the Egyptian architect repeated this cornice continually, he
contrived to give it variety of effect by modifying its proportions,
and by introducing different kinds of ornaments. In the pylons, for
instance, we often find that the cornice of the doorway was both
deeper and of bolder projection than those upon the two masses of the
pylon itself (Fig. 134). It was generally ornamented with the winged
globe, an emblem which was afterwards appropriated by the nations
which became connected with Egypt.
[Illustration: FIG. 134.--Doorway, Luxor. _Description_, iii. 6.]
This emblem in its full development was formed of the solar disk
supported on each side by the _uræus_, the serpent which meant
royalty. The sun was thus designated as the greatest of kings, the
king who mounted up into space, enlightening and vivifying the upper
and lower country at one and the same time. The disk and its
supporters were flanked by the two wide stretching wings with rounded,
fan-shaped extremities, which symbolized the untiring activity of the
sun in making its daily journey from one extremity of the firmament to
the other. Egyptologists tell us that the group as a whole signifies
the triumph of right over wrong, the victory of Horus over Set. An
inscription at Edfou tells us that, after the victory, Thoth ordered
that this emblem should be carved over every doorway in Egypt, and, in
fact, there are very few lintels without it.[130] It first appears at
about the time of the twelfth dynasty, according to Mariette, but its
form was at first more simple. There were no _uræi_, and the wings
were shorter, and pendent instead of outstretched.[131] Towards the
eighteenth dynasty it took the shape in which it is figured in our
illustrations, and became thenceforward the Egyptian symbol _par
excellence_.
[130] The history and signification of this symbol were treated
by BRUGSCH in a paper entitled: "_Die Sage von der geflügelten
Sonnenscheibe nach alt Ægyptischen Quellen dargestellt._"
[131] In this restricted and comparatively mean form the emblem
in question is found at Beni-Hassan. (LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part
ii. pl. 123.)
[Illustration: FIG. 135.--Cornice of the Ramesseum. _Description_, ii.
30.]
[Illustration: FIG. 136.--Cornice of a wooden pavilion; from Prisse.]
In the more richly decorated buildings, such as the Ramesseum, we
sometimes find cartouches introduced between the vertical grooves of
the cornice (Fig. 135). In the representations of architecture on the
painted walls the upper member of the cornice as usually constituted,
is often surmounted by an ornament composed of the uræus and the solar
disk, the latter being upon the head of the former (Fig. 136). This
addition gives a richer and more ample cornice, which the Ptolemaic
architects carried out in stone. It is not to be found thus
perpetuated in any Pharaonic building, but the same motive occurs at
Thebes, below the cornice, and its existence in the bas-reliefs shows
that even in early times it was sometimes used. Perhaps it was
confined to those light structures in which complicated forms were
easily carried out.
This cornice seemed to the Egyptians to be so entirely the proper
termination for their rising surfaces, that they placed it at the top
of their stylobates (Figs. 131 and 132) and their pedestals (Fig.
137). They also used it within their buildings at the top of the walls
behind their colonnades, as, for instance, in the peripteral temple at
Elephantiné (Fig. 138).
The number of buildings in which this cornice was not used is very
small. The Royal Pavilion at Medinet-Abou is surrounded, at the top,
by a line of round-headed battlements; in the Temple of Semneh, built
by Thothmes I.,[132] and in the pronaos of the Temple of Amada, the
usual form gives place to a square cornice which is quite primitive in
its simplicity.
[132] LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, vol. ii. pl. 83, and vol. v. pl. 56.
[Illustration: FIG. 137.--Pedestal of a Sphinx at Karnak.
_Description_, iii. 29.]
[Illustration: FIG. 138.--Cornice under the portico, Elephantiné.]
Traces of other mouldings, such as those which we call the _cyma_, and
the _cyma reversa_, may be found in Egyptian temples, but they occur
so rarely that we need not dwell upon them here or figure them.[133]
[133] See CHIPIEZ, _Histoire Critique des Ordres Grecques_, p.
90.
Besides these mouldings, which were used but very rarely, we need only
mention one more detail of the kind, namely, those vertical and
horizontal grooves which occur upon the masonry walls and were derived
from the structures in wood. They were chiefly used for the
ornamentation of the great surfaces afforded by the brick walls (Fig.
261, Vol. I.), but they are also to be found upon stone buildings. We
give, as an example, a fragment found at Alexandria, which is supposed
to belong to the lower part of a sarcophagus. A curious variation of
the same ornament exists in one of the royal tombs at Thebes (Fig.
140), in which each panel is separated from its neighbours by the
figures of headless men with their hands tied behind their backs. They
represent, no doubt, prisoners of war who have been beheaded, and the
decorator has wished, by the use of a somewhat barbarous though
graceful motive, to suggest the exploits of him for whom the sepulchre
was destined.
[Illustration: FIG. 139.--Fragment of a sarcophagus. _Description_, v.
47.]
Not much variety was to be obtained from the use of these grooves, but
yet they disguised the nudity of great wall spaces, they prevented
monotony from becoming too monotonous, while they afforded linear
combinations which had some power to please the eye. The Assyrians
made use of hardly any other mode of breaking up the uniformity of
their brick walls.
[Illustration: FIG. 140.--Fragment of decoration from a royal tomb at
Thebes. _Description_, ii. 86.]
It has been asserted that the first signs of that egg-moulding which
played so great a part in Greek architecture are to be found in
Egypt. Nestor L'Hôte thought that he recognised it in the entablature,
under the architrave, of some pavilions figured in decorations at
Tell-el-Amarna and at Abydos.[134] He was certainly mistaken. The
outline of the ornament to which he referred has a distant resemblance
to the moulding in question, but the place which it occupies gives it
an entirely different character; it seems to be suspended in the air
under the entablature. In other painted pavilions the same place is
occupied by flowers, bunches of grapes, and fruits resembling dates or
acorns, suspended in the same fashion.[135] If such forms must be
explained otherwise than by the mere fancy of the ornamentist, we
should be inclined to see in them metal weights hung round the edges
of the awnings, which supplied the place of a roof in many wooden
pavilions.
[134] _Lettres_, pp. 68, 117.
[135] See the plate in PRISSE entitled _Details de Colonnettes
de Bois_.
The same remarks may be applied to those objects, or rather
appearances, to which the triglyphs of the Doric order have been
referred. It is true that in the figured architecture of the
bas-reliefs many of the architraves seem to show vertical incisions
arranged in groups of three, each group being separated from the next
by a square space which recalls the Greek metope (Figs. 62-64). But
sometimes these stripes follow each other at regular intervals,
sometimes they are in pairs, and sometimes they are altogether absent,
the architrave being either plain or decorated with figures and
inscriptions. Where the stripes are present they represent sometimes
applied ornaments, sometimes the ends of transverse joists appearing
between the beams of the architrave. Similar ornaments surround the
paintings in the tombs, and are to be found upon the articles of
furniture, such as chairs, which form part of most Egyptian museums.
Neither these so-called triglyphs and metopes, which do slightly
resemble the details so named of the Doric order, nor the egg
moulding, which is a pure delusion, ever received that established
form and elemental character which alone gives such things importance.
Architecture--stone architecture--made no use of them, and the
analogies which some have endeavoured to establish are misleading. The
apparent coincidence resulted from the nature of the material and from
the limited number of combinations which it allowed.
§ 8. _Doors and Windows._
So far we have been concerned with the structure and shape of Egyptian
buildings; we have now to describe the openings pierced in their
substance for the admission of light, for the circulation of their
inhabitants and for the entrance of visitors from without. The doors
and windows of the Egyptians were peculiar in many ways and deserve to
be carefully described.
DOORS.
The plans of Egyptian doorways do not always show the same
arrangements. The embrasure of which we moderns make use is seldom met
with. It occurs in the peripteral temple at Elephantiné, but that is
quite an exception (Fig. 141). The doorways of the temples were
generally planned as in Fig. 142, and in the passage which traverses
the thickness of the pylons, there is in the middle an enlargement
forming a kind of chamber into which, no doubt, double doors fell back
on either side (Fig. 143).
In their elevations doorways show still greater variety.
Let us consider in the first place those by which access was gained to
the _temenos_, or outer inclosure, of the temple. They may be divided
into three classes.
First of all comes the pylon proper, with its great doorway flanked on
either side by a tower which greatly exceeds it in height (Fig. 207,
Vol. I.). Champollion has pointed out that even in the Egyptian texts
themselves a distinction is made between the _pylon_ and that which he
calls the _propylon_. The latter consists of a door opening through
the centre of a single pyramidoid mass, and instead of forming a
façade to the temple itself, it is used for the entrances to the outer
inclosure. Figs. 144 and 145 show the different hieroglyphs which
represent it.[136]
[136] From CHAMPOLLION, _Grammaire Égyptienne_, p. 53.
These propylons, to adopt Champollion's term, seem to have included
two different types which are now known to us only through the
Ptolemaic buildings and the monumental paintings, as the boundary
walls of the Pharaonic period have almost entirely disappeared and
their gateways with them.
[Illustration: FIG. 141.--Plan of doorway, Temple of Elephantiné.]
[Illustration: FIG. 142.--Plan of doorway, Temple of Khons.]
We have illustrated the first type in our restoration, page 339, Vol.
I. (Fig. 206). The doorway itself is very high, in which it resembles
many propylons of the Greek period which still exist at Karnak and
Denderah.[137] The thickness of the whole mass and its double cornice,
between which the covered way on the top of the walls could be
carried, are features which we also encounter in the propylon of
Denderah and in that of the temple at Daybod in Nubia.[138] We have
added nothing but the wall, and a gateway, in Egypt, implies a wall;
for there is no reason to suppose that the Egyptians had anything
analogous to the triumphal arches of the Romans. The temple was a
closed building, to which all access was forbidden to the crowd. The
doors may well have been numerous, but, if they were to be of any use
at all, they must have been connected by a continuous barrier which
should force the traffic to pass through them.
[137] EBERS, _Ægypten_, p. 250.
[138] FELIX TEYNARD, _Vues d'Égypte et de Nubie_, pl. 106.
[Illustration: FIG. 143.--Plan of doorway in the pylon, Temple of
Khons. _Description_, iii. 54.]
[Illustration: FIGS. 144, 145.--The pylon and propylon of the
hieroglyphs.]
In our restorations this doorway rises above the walls on each side
and stands out from them, on plan, both within and without. We may
fairly conjecture that it was so. The architect would hardly have
wasted rich decoration and a well designed cornice upon a mass which
was to be almost buried in the erections on each side of it. It must
have been conspicuous from a distance, and this double relief would
make it so. There are, moreover, a few instances in which these
secondary entrances have been preserved together with the walls
through which they provided openings, and they fully confirm our
conjectures. One of these is the gateway to the outer court of the
Temple of Thothmes at Medinet-Abou (Fig. 146). This gateway certainly
belongs to the Ptolemaic part of the building, but we have no reason
to suppose that the architects of the Macedonian period deserted the
ancient forms.
[Illustration: FIG. 146.--Gateway to the court-yard of the small
Temple at Medinet-Abou. _Description_, ii. 4.]
[Illustration: FIG. 147.--A propylon with its masts.]
The propylons were decorated with masts like the pylons, as we see by
a figure in a painting in one of the royal tombs at Thebes, which was
reproduced by Champollion[139] (Fig. 147). Judging from the scenes and
inscriptions which accompany it, Champollion thought this represented
a propylon at the Ramesseum. That the artist should, as usual, have
omitted the wall, need not surprise us when we remember how monotonous
and free from incident those great brick inclosures must have been.
[139] _Monuments de l'Égypte et de la Nubie_, _Notices
Descriptives_, p. 504.
The second type of propylon differs from the first in having a very
much smaller doorway in comparison with its total mass. In the former
the door reaches almost to the cornice, in the latter it occupies but
a very small part of the front. This is seen in Fig. 147, and, still
more conspicuously, in Fig. 148, which was also copied by Champollion
from a tomb at Thebes.[140] In one of these examples the walls are
nearly vertical, in another they have a considerable slope, but the
arrangement is the same and the proportions of the openings to the
towers themselves do not greatly differ. Our Fig. 149, which was
composed by the help of those representations, is meant to give an
idea of the general composition of which the door with its carved
jambs and architrave, and the tower with its masts and banners, are
the elements. The two types only differ from one another in the
relative dimensions of their important parts, and the transition
between them may have been almost imperceptible. It would seem that in
the Ptolemaic epoch the wide and lofty doors were the chief objects of
admiration, while under the Pharaohs, the towers through which they
were pierced were thought of more importance.
[140] _Notices Descriptives_, p. 431.
[Illustration: FIG. 148.--A propylon.]
If we examine the doorways of the temples themselves we shall there
also find great variety in the manner in which they are combined
architecturally with the walls in which they occur.
[Illustration: FIG. 149.--Gateway in the inclosing wall of a Temple.
Restored by Ch. Chipiez.]
In the Temple of Khons the jambs of the door are one, architecturally,
with the wall. The courses are continuous. The lintel alone, being
monolithic, has a certain independence (Fig. 150). In the Temple of
Gournah, on the other hand, the doorway forms a separate and
self-contained composition. The jambs are monoliths as well as the
lintel, and the latter, notwithstanding the great additional weight
which it has to carry, does not exceed the former in section. At
Abydos, on the other hand, the capital part which this stone has to
play is indicated by the great size of the sandstone block of which it
is composed (Fig. 154).
[Illustration: FIG. 150.--Doorway of the Temple of Khons.
_Description_, iii. 54.]
[Illustration: FIG. 151.--Doorway of the Temple of Gournah.
_Description_, ii. 42.]
One of the doorways we have represented, that in Fig. 146, requires to
be here mentioned again for a moment. Its lintel is discontinuous. The
doorway in question dates from the Ptolemaic period, but there is
undoubted evidence that the same form was sometimes used in the
Pharaonic period for the openings in inclosing walls. There is a
representation of such a door in a bas-relief at Karnak, where it is
shown in front of a pylon and forms probably an opening in a boundary
wall.[141] It was this representation that decided us to give a broken
lintel to the doorway opposite to the centre of the royal pavilion at
Medinet-Abou (Plate VIII.). This form of entrance may have originated
in the desire to give plenty of head-room for the canopy under which
the sovereign was carried, as well as for the banners and various
standards which we see figured in the triumphal and religious
processions of the bas-reliefs (Fig. 172, Vol. I.).
[141] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art Égyptien_.
[Illustration: FIG. 152.--Doorway of the Temple of Seti, at Abydos.]
WINDOWS.
[Illustration: FIGS. 153, 154.--Windows in the Royal Pavilion at
Medinet-Abou.]
The royal pavilion at Medinet-Abou is the only building in Egypt which
has preserved for us those architectural features which we call
windows. They differ one from another, even upon this single building,
as much as the doors. One of them (Fig. 153) is enframed like the
doorway at Gournah; but the jambs are merely the ends of the courses
which make up the wall, and their salience is very slight. On the
other hand a window frame with a very bold relief (Fig. 154) is to be
found in the same building. This window is a little work of art in
itself. It is surmounted by a cornice, over which again appear various
emblems carved in stone, making up one of the most graceful
compositions to be found in Egyptian architecture.
§ 9. _The Illumination of the Temples._
We have described the way in which the Egyptian architects treated
doors and windows from an artistic point of view; we have yet to show
the method which they adopted for allowing sufficient light to
penetrate into their temples, that is, into those buildings, which,
being closely shut against the laity, could not be illuminated from
windows in their side walls. Palaces and private houses could have
their windows as large and as numerous as they chose, but the temple
could only be lighted from the roof, or at least from parts contiguous
to the roof.
[Illustration: FIG. 155.--Attic of the Great Hall at Karnak. Restored
by Ch. Chipiez.]
[Illustration: FIG. 156.--_Claustra_ of the Hypostyle Hall, Karnak.
_Description_, iii. 23.]
The hypostyle hall at Karnak, with its lofty walls and close ranges of
columns, would have been in almost complete darkness had it been left
to depend for light upon its doors alone. But the difference of height
between the central aisle and those to the right and left of it, was
taken advantage of to introduce the light required for the proper
display of its magnificent decorations. The wall which filled up the
space between the lower and upper sections of roof, forming something
almost identical with the clerestory of a Gothic cathedral, was
constructed of upright sandstone slabs, about sixteen feet high, which
were pierced with numerous perpendicular slits. Stone gratings, or
_claustra_ as the Romans would have called them, were thus formed,
through which the sunlight could stream into the interior. The slits
were about ten inches wide and six feet high. The illustration on page
163 shows how the slabs were arranged and explains, moreover, the
general disposition of the roof. Fig. 156 gives the _claustra_ in
detail, in elevation, in plan, and in perspective.
The hypostyle halls are nearly always lighted upon the same principle.
The chief differences are found in the sizes of the openings. At the
Temple of Khons, where the space to be lighted was not nearly so
large, the slabs of the _claustra_ were much smaller and the openings
narrower (Fig. 157). In one of the inner halls at Karnak a different
system has been used. The light penetrates through horizontal openings
in the entablature, between the architrave and the cornice, divided
one from another by cubes of stone (Fig. 158). In the inside the
architrave was bevelled on its upper edge, so as to allow the light to
penetrate into the interior at a better angle than it would otherwise
have done.
[Illustration: FIG. 157.--_Claustra_ in the Hypostyle Hall of the
Temple of Khons. Compiled from the elevations in the _Description_,
iii. 28.]
The use of these _claustra_, full of variety though they were in the
hands of a skilful architect, were not the only methods of lighting
their temples to which the Egyptians had recourse. They were helped in
their work, or, in the case of very small chambers, replaced, by
oblique or vertical openings contrived in the roof itself. These
oblique holes are found in the superior angles of the hypostyle hall
at Karnak (Fig. 159). After the roof was in place it was seen, no
doubt, that the _claustra_ did not of themselves give enough light for
the huge chamber, and these narrow openings were laboriously cut in
its ceiling. One of the inner chambers of the Temple of Khons is
feebly lighted by vertical holes cut through the slabs of the roof
(Fig. 160). Similar openings are to be seen in the lateral aisles of
the hypostyle hall in the Ramesseum. The slight upward projection
which surrounds the upper extremities of these holes should be
noticed (Fig. 161). Finally there are buildings in which these
openings are the only sources of illumination. This is notably the
case in the Temple of Amada. The upper part of our plan (Fig. 162)
represents the roof of that temple and the symmetrically arranged
openings with which it is pierced.
[Illustration: FIG. 158.--Method of lighting in one of the inner halls
of Karnak. Compiled from the plans and elevations of the
_Description_.]
[Illustration: FIG. 159.--Auxiliary light-holes in the Hypostyle Hall
at Karnak. _Description_, iii. 26.]
[Illustration: FIG. 160.--Method of lighting one of the rooms in the
Temple of Khons. _Description_, iii. 55.]
[Illustration: FIG. 161.--Light openings in a lateral aisle of the
Hypostyle Hall in the Ramesseum. From a photograph.]
The Ptolemaic Temple of Edfou is much more generously treated in the
matter of light. Its flat roof is pierced by two large rectangular
openings resembling the _compluvium_ of a Pompeian house, and making
it, in a certain sense, hypæthral. No example of such an arrangement
has been met with in the Pharaonic temples. It is possible that its
principle was directly borrowed from the Greeks. It is hardly so
consistent with the national ideas and traditions as the _claustra_.
[Illustration: FIG. 162.--The Temple of Amada.]
[Illustration: FIG. 163.--_Claustra_, from a painting.]
Palaces and private houses were, as we have said, better lighted than
the temples. The illustrations in the preceding chapter show private
houses with their windows. Some of those houses had windows formed of
stone _claustra_. The window copied by Champollion[142] from the walls
of a small chamber in the Temple of Thothmes at Medinet-Abou (Fig.
163), shows this, as well as an opening in the house illustrated in
Fig. 19, which we here reproduce upon a larger scale (Fig. 164). We do
the same for a window belonging to the building shown in Fig. 1. It is
closed by a mat which was raised, no doubt, by means of a roller and
cords (Fig. 165).
[142] _Notices Descriptives_, p. 332, fig. 2.
[Illustration: FIG. 164.--Window of a house in the form of
_claustra_.]
[Illustration: FIG. 165.--Window closed by a mat.]
§ 10. _The Obelisks._
We cannot bring our analysis of the forms and motives of Egyptian
architecture to an end without mentioning a monumental type which is
peculiar to Egypt, that of the _obelisks_. These are granite
monoliths[143] of great height, square on plan, dressed on all four
faces, and slightly tapering from base to summit. They usually
terminate in a small pyramid, whose rapidly sloping sides contrast
strongly with the gentle inclination of the main block beneath. This
small pyramid is called the pyramidion.
[143] In front of the sphinxes which stand before the great
pylon at Karnak there are two small obelisks of sandstone.
The tall and slender shapes of these monoliths and their pointed
summits have led to their being compared, in popular language, with
needles and spindles.[144] The first Greeks who visited the country
and found a monumental type so unlike anything they had at home,
wished to convey a good idea of it to their compatriots; they
accordingly made use of the word ὀβελός, a spindle. It is
difficult to understand how their descendants came to prefer ὀβελίσκος,
a little spindle.[145] A diminutive hardly seems the right
kind of word under the circumstances; an augmentative would, perhaps,
have been better. But it was this diminutive that the Romans borrowed
from the Greeks of Alexandria and transmitted to the modern world.
[144] The Italians call them _guglie_, needles, and the Arabs
_micellet Faraoun_, Pharaoh's needles. The obelisks now in
London and New York respectively, which were taken by the Romans
from the ruins of Heliopolis, in order to be erected in front of
the Cæsareum at Alexandria, were known as Cleopatra's Needles.
Herodotus only used the expression, ὀβελός. Ἐν τῷ τεμένει
ὀβελοὶ ἑστάσι μεγάλοι λίθινοι (ii. 172; also ii. 111).
[145] DIODORUS (i. 57, 59), always uses the word ὀβελίσκος. The
termination is certainly that of a diminutive. See AD. REGNIER,
_Traité de la Formation des Mots dans la Langue Grecque_, p.
207.
This is not the place for an inquiry into the meaning of the obelisk.
It may symbolize, as we have often been told, the ray of the sun, or
it may be an emblem of Amen-Generator.[146] It seems to be well
established, that in the time of the New Empire at least, it was used
to write the syllable _men_, which signified _firmness_ or
_stability_.[147]
[146] DE ROUGÉ, _Étude sur les Monuments de Karnak_.
[147] PIERRET, _Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne_.
The usual situation of the obelisks was in front of the first pylon of
the temples. There they stood in couples, one upon each side of the
entrance. Those instances where they are found, as at Karnak,
surrounded by the buildings of the temple, are easily explained. The
two obelisks in the caryatid court were erected during the eighteenth
dynasty, at a time when those parts of the temple which lie between
the obelisks and the outer wall were not yet in existence. The
obelisks of Hatasu, when first erected, were in front of the Temple of
Amen as it was left by the early sovereigns of the eighteenth dynasty.
But the obelisk was not the exclusive property of the temples. Some
little ones of limestone have been found in the mastabas,[148] and
Mariette has described those which formerly stood in front of the
royal tombs belonging to the eleventh dynasty, in the Theban
necropolis. He has published the inscription which covers the four
faces of one of these obelisks, a monolith some ten feet nine inches
high.[149] Obelisks seem also to have been employed for the decoration
of palaces, as we may conclude from a Theban painting in which one
appears before the principal entrance to a villa surrounded with
beautiful gardens.[150] Judging by the sizes of people in the same
painting, this obelisk must have been about thirteen feet high.
[148] A small funerary obelisk, about two feet high, is now in
the museum of Berlin. It is figured in the _Denkmæler_, part ii.
pl. 88. It was found in a Gizeh tomb dating from the fifth
dynasty.
[149] MARIETTE, _Monuments Divers_, pl. 50. The obelisks
illustrated in this chapter are all drawn to the same scale in
order to facilitate comparison.
[150] WILKINSON, _Manners and Customs_, etc., p. 396.
Diodorus speaks of obelisks erected by Sesostris which were 120
cubits, nearly 180 feet, high;[151] and different texts allude to
monoliths which were 130, 117, and 114 feet high. We have some
difficulty in accepting the first of these figures. The obelisk of
Hatasu, at Karnak, which is the tallest known, is 108 feet 10 inches
in height.[152] That which is still standing at Matarieh, on the site
of the ancient Heliopolis, is only 67 feet 4 inches high. But the fact
that it is the oldest of the colossal obelisks of Egypt makes it more
interesting than some which surpass it in size (Fig. 167). It bears
the name of Ousourtesen I., of the twelfth dynasty. As a rule, the
inscriptions cut upon the four sides of those obelisks which are
complete are very insignificant. They consist of little but pompous
enumerations of the royal titles.[153]
[151] DIODORUS, i. 57.
[152] Recent measurement has shown that the height given on page
105, Vol. I., is incorrect.--ED.
[153] In the _Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne_ of M.
PIERRET, a translation of the hieroglyphics upon one side of the
Paris obelisk will be found under the word _Obélisque_. The
_Athenæum_ for October 27, 1877, contains a complete translation
of the inscription upon the London obelisk, by DR. BIRCH.--ED.
[Illustration: FIG. 166.--Funerary obelisk in the Necropolis of
Thebes. From Mariette.[154]]
[154] _Monuments Divers_, pl. 50.
The two obelisks erected by Rameses II. in front of the first pylon at
Luxor were slightly unequal in height. One was 83 feet 4 inches, the
other 78 feet 5 inches. To hide this difference to some extent they
were set upon bases also of unequal height, and the shorter was placed
slightly in advance of its companion, _i.e._ slightly nearer to the
spectator approaching the temple by the dromos.[155] By these means
they hoped to make the difference between the two less conspicuous.
This difference may have been caused by any slight accident, or by the
discovery of a flaw in the granite during the operation of cutting it
in the quarry. In dealing with huge blocks like these, such
_contretemps_ must have been frequent.
[155] _Description, Antiquites_, vol. ii. pp. 371-373. In our
view of Luxor on page 345 we have restored the base of the
larger obelisk after that belonging to the one now at Paris. We
were without any other means of ascertaining its form.
The smaller of the two obelisks was chosen for transport to Paris in
1836. In its present situation on the Place de la Concorde it is
separated from the sculptured base upon which it stood at Luxor. The
northern and southern faces of that pedestal were each ornamented with
four cynocephali adoring the rising sun; the other two had figures of
the god Nile presenting offerings to Amen (Fig. 168).
In order to restore this and other obelisks to the form which they
enjoyed in the days of the Pharaohs we should have to give them back
their original summits as well as their pedestals. Hittorf has shown
that these probably consisted of caps of gilded copper fitted over the
pyramidion,[156] in those cases where the latter was not ornamented
with carved figures. A curious passage in Abd-al-latif, which has been
often cited, proves that the pyramid of Ousourtesen preserved its cap
as late as the thirteenth century. "The summit," says the Arab
historian, "is covered with a kind of funnel-shaped copper cap, which
descends about three cubits from the apex. The weather of so many
centuries has made the copper green and rusty, and some of the green
has run down the shaft of the obelisk."[157] In the plate attached to
his essay, Hittorf gives us a plan and elevation of the pyramidion of
the smaller obelisk of Luxor. He shows how its broken and irregular
mass implies a metallic covering, a covering whose existence is
moreover proved by the groove or rebate, about an inch and a half
deep, which runs round the summit of the shaft. His Figs. 3 and 4 show
that this groove was carefully polished. His conclusions have failed
to find acceptance in some quarters. It has been asserted that the
rays of the sun, striking upon such a surface, would be reflected in a
dazzling fashion, and that the general effect would have been
unsatisfactory. The Egyptians had no such fear. They made lavish use
of gold in the decoration of their buildings. According to the
inscription which covers the four sides of the pedestal under the
obelisk of Hatasu at Karnak, the pyramidion was covered "with pure
gold taken from the chiefs of the nations," which seems to imply
either a cap of gilded copper, like that of the obelisk at Heliopolis,
or a golden sphere upon the very apex. An object of this latter kind
is figured in some of the bas-reliefs at Sakkarah. Besides this there
is no doubt that the obelisk in question was gilded from head to foot.
"We remark, in the first place, that the beds of the hieroglyphs were
carefully polished; secondly, that the four faces of the obelisk
itself were left comparatively rough, from which we should conclude
that the latter alone received this costly embellishment, the
hieroglyphs preserving the natural colour of the granite."[158]
[156] _Precis sur les Pyramidions de Bronze doré Employés par
les Anciens Égyptiens comme couronnement de quelques-uns de
leurs Obélisques_, etc. J. J. HITTORF, 8vo, 1836.
[157] ABD-AL-LATIF, _Relation de l'Égypte_; French translation
by Silvestre de Sacy, published in 4to, in 1810, p. 181.--ED.
[158] MARIETTE, _Itinéraire de la Haute-Égypte_, third edition,
p. 142.
[Illustration: FIG. 167.--The obelisk of Ousourtesen. _Description_,
v. 26.]
[Illustration: FIG. 168.--The obelisk in the Place de la Concorde,
restored to its original base. From Prisse.]
In that transplantation of which the Ptolemies first set the example,
the obelisk at Paris was deprived of its original pedestal, as we have
seen; it was erected in an open space of such extent that its
dimensions seem almost insignificant; it was placed upon a pedestal
which, neither in dimensions nor design, has anything Egyptian about
it: and finally it was deprived of its metal finial. It can therefore
give but little idea of the effect which the obelisks produced while
they still remained in the places for which they were designed. The
artistic instinct of Théophile Gautier was quite alive to this fact
when he penned his fanciful but charming lines on the _Nostalgie
d'Obélisque_.
A curious fact has been ascertained in connection with the obelisks of
Luxor. Their faces present a slight convexity, the total protuberance
at the base being rather more than an inch and three-tenths. It is
probable that the same arrangement would be found in other obelisks if
they were carefully examined. Its explanation is easy. If the surfaces
had been absolute planes they would have been made to appear concave
by the sharpness of the corners. It was necessary, therefore, to give
them a gentle entasis which should gradually diminish towards the
summit, completely disappearing by the time the pyramidion was
reached.[159]
[159] _Description_, _Antiquités_, vol. ii. p. 369.--CHARLES
BLANC, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, p. 150.
The obelisk at Beggig, in the Fayoum, offers a singular variant upon
the type which we have described. It was formerly a monolith about 43
feet high; it is now overthrown and broken into two pieces. It bears
the ovals of Ousourtesen I., and would seem, therefore, to be
contemporary with the obelisk at Heliopolis.[160] Its peculiarity
consists in its shape. It is a rectangular oblong, instead of a
square, on plan. Two of its sides are 6 feet 9 inches wide, and the
other two about 4 feet. It has no pyramidion. The summit is rounded
from front to back, forming a ridge, and the upper part of its
principal faces are filled with sculptures in low relief (Fig 170).
All this makes it resemble a gigantic stele rather than an obelisk
(Fig. 169).
[160] For an interesting description of the present state and
curious situation of this obelisk, see _The Land of Khemi_, by
LAURENCE OLIPHANT, pp. 98-100, (Blackwood. 1882).--ED.
[Illustration: FIG. 169.--The obelisk of Beggig. From the elevation of
Lepsius.[161]]
[161] _Denkmæler_, part ii. pl. 119.
[Illustration: FIG. 170.--Upper part of the obelisk at Beggig. From
the elevation of Lepsius.]
Whatever may have been the origin of this form it never became popular
in Egypt. In Nubia alone do we find the type repeated, and that only
in the debased periods of art. On the other hand, the obelisks proper
seem to have been made in truly astonishing numbers in the time of the
Middle and New Empires. Egypt has supplied Rome, Constantinople,
Paris, London, and even New York with these monoliths, and yet she
still possesses many at home. Of these several are still standing and
in good preservation, others are broken and buried beneath the ruins
of the temples which they adorned. At Karnak alone the sites of some
ten or twelve have been found. Some of these are still standing, some
are lying on the ground, while of others nothing is left but the
pedestals. At the beginning of the century the French visitors to the
ruins of San, the ancient Tanis, found the fragments of nine different
obelisks.[162]
[162] _Description_, _Antiquités_, ch. 23.--M. EDOUARD NAVILLE
has recently (June 16, 1882) published in the _Journal de
Genève_ an account of a visit to these ruins, during which he
counted the fragments of no less than fourteen obelisks, some of
them of extraordinary size.--ED.
§ 11. _The Profession of Architect._
It may seem to some of our readers that we have spent too much time
and labour on our analysis of Egyptian architecture. Our excuse lies
in the fact that architecture was the chief of the arts in Egypt. We
know nothing of her painters. The pictures in the Theban tombs often
display great taste and skill, but they seem to have been the work of
decorators rather than of painters in the higher sense of the word.
Sculptors appear, now and then, to have been held in higher
consideration. The names of one or two have come down to us, and we
are told how dear they were to the kings who employed them.[163] But
the only artists who had a high and well defined social position in
ancient Egypt, a country where ranks were as distinctly marked as in
China, were the architects or engineers, for they deserve either name.
Their names have been preserved to us in hundreds upon their
elaborate tombs and inscribed steles.
[163] The sculptor who made the two famous colossi of Amenophis
III. had the same name as his master, Amenhotep. (BRUGSCH,
_History_, 1st edition, vol. i. pp. 425-6). Iritesen, who worked
for Menthouthotep II. in the time of the first Theban Empire,
was a worker in stone, gold, silver, ivory, and ebony. He held a
place, he tells us, at the bottom of the king's heart, and was
his joy from morning till night. (MASPERO, _la Stèle_ C. 14 _du
Louvre_, in the _Transactions of the Society of Biblical
Archæology_, vol. v. part ii. 1877.)
We might, then, amuse ourselves by making out a long list of Egyptian
builders, a list which would extend over several thousands of years,
from Nefer, of Boulak (Fig. 171),[164] who may have built one of the
Pyramids, to the days of the Ptolemies or of the Roman emperors. In
the glyptothek at Munich there is a beautiful sepulchral statue of
Bakenkhonsou, who was chief prophet of Amen and principal architect of
Thebes, in the time of Seti I. and Rameses II. From certain phrases in
the inscription, Devéria believes that Bakenkhonsou built the temple
of Gournah.[165] In his epitaph he boasts of the great offices which
he had filled and of the favour which had been shown to him by his
sovereign. Every Egyptian museum contains some statue and inscription
of the same kind. Brugsch has proved that under the Memphite dynasties
the architects to the king were sometimes recruited among the princes
of the blood royal, and the texts upon their tombs show that they all,
or nearly all, married daughters or grand-daughters of Pharaoh, and
that such a marriage was not looked upon as _mesalliance_.[166]
[164] See _Notice des Principaux Monuments exposés dans le Musée
de Boulak_, 1876, No. 458.
[165] DEVÉRIA, _Bakenkhonsou_ (_Revue Archéologique_, new
series, vi. p. 101).
[166] BRUGSCH, _History of Egypt_ (English edition), vol. i. p.
47. Ti, whose splendid tomb has been so often mentioned, was
"First Commissioner of Works" for the whole of Egypt, as well as
"Secretary of State" to Pharaoh.
[Illustration: FIG. 171.--Limestone statue of the architect Nefer, in
the Boulak Museum. Drawn by Bourgoin.]
Similar evidence is forthcoming in connection with the first Theban
Empire, but it was chiefly under the three great dynasties that the
post of architect to Pharaoh became one of great responsibility, and
carried with it great influence and authority.
For the building and keeping in repair of the sumptuous monuments
then erected a great system of administration must have been devised,
and Thebes, like modern London, must have had its
"district-surveyors."[167]
[167] We have here ventured to take a slight liberty with M.
Perrot's local tints.--ED. PAUL PIERRET ("_Stèle de Suti et de
Har, architectes de Thèbes_," in the _Recueil de Travaux_, vol.
i. p. 70), says, "This is said by him who has charge of the
works of Amen in Southern Ap." Suti-Har says in his turn: "I
have the direction of the west, he of the east. We are the
directors of the great monuments in Ap, in the centre of Thebes,
the city of Amen."
So far as we can tell there was a chief architect, or superintendent
general of buildings, for the whole kingdom; his title was _Overseer
of the buildings of Upper and Lower Egypt_.[168] For how many scribes
and draughtsmen must the offices of Bakenkhonsou or of Semnat, the
favourite architect of the great regent Hatasu, have found
employment?[169]
[168] PIERRET, _Dictionnaire d'Archéologie Égyptienne_, p. 59.
[169] See BRUGSCH, _History of Egypt_, 1st edition, vol. i. p.
302.
Who would not like to know the course of study by which the ancient
Egyptian builders prepared themselves for the great public enterprises
which were always going on in their country? We may admit that the
methods employed by their engineers were much more primitive than it
has been the fashion to suppose, we may prove that their structures
were far from possessing the accuracy of plan that distinguishes ours,
but yet we cannot deny that those who transported and raised the
obelisks and colossal statues, and those who constructed the hypostyle
hall of Karnak, or even the pyramids of Gizeh, must have learnt their
trade. How and where they learnt it we do not know. It is probable
that they learnt it by practice under a master. Theory cannot have
held any great part in their teaching. Their system must have been
composed of a collection of processes and receipts which grew in
number as the centuries passed away. There is nothing in the texts to
show that these receipts were the property of any close corporation,
but heredity is sure to have played an important part and to have made
them, to some extent, the property of a class. Architects were
generally the sons of architects. Brugsch has given us one
genealogical table in which the profession descended from father to
son for twenty-two generations. By help of the inscriptions he traced
the family in question from the time of Seti I. to that of Darius the
son of Hystaspes. But even then he may not have tracked the stream to
its source. The rule and compass may have entered that family long
before the time of Seti; their use may also have continued long after
the Persian kings had been driven from Egypt.
[Illustration]