caused the abacus plinth upon the calyx to be heightened to a cube, and
even increased to twice the height of the capital itself, in which case
it was ornamented by the heads of Athor and Typhon, or by the entire
dwarfed figure of the latter. In rare cases, piers take the place of
columns in the temple courts, and are masked by statues of Osiris or of
Typhon. (_Fig._ 16.) These figures have of themselves no constructive
function as supports, and are not to be classed with the caryatides and
telamones of Greece.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.--Calyx Capital from Carnac.]
The great variety of form in the column and capital is not shared by the
entablature. This consists, as seen at the tombs of Beni-hassan, of two
members. The lower stretches from pier to pier, or from column to
column, as a connecting epistyle. The upper, representing the horizontal
ceiling, reposes thereupon, and is crowned by the universal
cornice-moulding--a boldly projecting Egyptian scotia. Between these two
members there is a continuous roundlet, often characterized, by its
ornament of an encircling ribbon, as a bundle of reeds. The cornice is
sometimes marked by rows of reed-leaves bent forward at the top, the
epistyle covered with hieroglyphics. In later times, the decoration of
the entablature became more florid, repetitions of the uræos serpent
appearing as a cornice ornament.
The columns of the new kingdom had, meanwhile, been given up in the
rock-cut tombs, where they first occurred. Yet the cavern sepulchres
themselves remained so much in vogue that they even served the kings of
the Theban dynasties in place of pyramids. Their tendency was rather to
burrow deeply into the cliff than to create large sepulchral chambers,
where the support of columns would have been necessary. The principal
intention of the excavators--to make the royal burial-place as
inaccessible as possible--was adverse to any monumental development of
the interior. The decoration was restricted to paintings upon the long
and repeatedly closed corridors, and sufficed only to rank these above
the bare channels of the pyramids. The formation of the earth on the
border of the desert offered no ground for the exterior architectural
treatment of these graves, and a simple portal is generally all that
designates the entrance to the shafts which were the sepulchres of the
Theban dynasties. The plan of that at Biban-el-Moluc is given in _Fig._
17.
[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Capitals from Edfou.]
The temples of the new kingdom with their numerous halls and courts
offered, on the other hand, most ample scope for the application of
columnar architecture. These extended series of strangely enclosed
rooms and courts, though richly decorated with paintings, would have
seemed bare within and without if the column had not entered into their
composition, and if the building had not been expanded and ornamented by
its help. With the floral orders, the temple interior became an
architectural organism truly deserving of study and admiration.
With exception of that portion of the structure which stood before the
chief portal, and cannot be considered as an integral part of the
building, every Egyptian temple was divided into three principal parts,
contained within an oblong enclosure: namely, the court, the hall of
columns, and the holy of holies--a series of cellas. (_Fig._ 18.) Long
rows of sphinxes generally stand facing the avenue which leads to the
entrance of the temple, and prepare for the sacred silence within. The
doorway is flanked by two enormous towers, so-called pylons, formed like
steep truncated pyramids. The walls of these masses of masonry,
ornamented with coilanaglyphic paintings, show slots upon the front for
the reception of the high flag-poles which are represented upon
contemporary wall-decorations. The towers are crowned with the scotia
cornice, the roundlet of which is continued down the angles. Within they
are pierced by stairways and small chambers, scantily lighted by narrow
slits in the wall. It is probable that the summits of these pylons,
without doubt the highest standpoints in the valley of the Nile, served
as observatories for the Egyptian astronomers and astrologers; a
practical use was thus added to the original purpose of monumental
decorative gate-ways. Two or four colossal sitting figures were
generally placed before the pylons, and sometimes also two obelisks,
bearing the dedicatory inscriptions of the temple.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.--Osiris Pier.]
The obelisks are among the most curious and characteristic structures of
Egypt. They are very comparable to the pyramids, and perhaps may even
be regarded as small pyramids placed as an apex upon a tall shaft. Few
deviate from this type; one of the obelisks of Carnac, crowned by a
profile like a pointed arch, and the obelisk of Medinet-el-Fayoum with
rounded end, are exceptions. The obelisks are monolithic. In
consideration of the difficulty of procuring so large a block from the
granite quarries, of transporting its enormous weight and erecting its
tall mass, this peculiarity added greatly to the imposing effect of the
monument. The delight of the later Roman emperors in the possession of
obelisks caused many of these to be transported to Rome, where they
still form prominent ornaments of the city. Most of those remaining in
Egypt lie overthrown, and often deeply buried under the accumulating
earth of centuries. The two before the Temple of Luxor were both erect
until 1831, in which year one of them was removed to the Place de la
Concorde in Paris. The removal during 1877-78 of an obelisk, and its
erection in London, show what difficulties must have attended the
quarrying, carving, transport, and elevation of these gigantic monuments
in primitive times.[C]
[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Royal Grave near Thebes.]
The chief portal of the temple, flanked by the two pylons, opens upon
the great peristyle court. The colonnades are upon two or three of its
sides, seldom towards the entrance. In the most elaborate instances, as
the Temple of Luxor, the court is bordered with double rows of
supports--columns alternating with piers--before which stand the
above-mentioned figures of Osiris. Sometimes this peristyle court is
duplicated, as in the great Memnonium of Ramses II. and the temples of
Medinet-Abou and Luxor, the two spaces being separated either by smaller
second pylons (Medinet-Abou), by a simple wall pierced by a gate
(Memnonium), or by a narrow colonnade between them (Luxor). In such
cases the architectural treatment of the courts differs, the second
usually being more richly provided with columns and piers than the
first. Smaller temples are often so built against these courts that they
can be entered only from within them (_Fig._ 20.), while they project,
with the greater part of their plan, beyond the chief enclosure.
[Illustration: Fig. 18.--Southern Temple of Carnac.]
[Illustration: Fig. 19.--Temple of Edfou.]
The second chief division of the building--the hall of columns, the
hypostyle--is entered from the court, either directly or through new
pylons. This space, generally not so deep as the outer peristyle, is
entirely covered, the stone ceiling being upheld by close-standing
columns, the number of which varies greatly according to the dimensions
of the building. In the southern Temple of Carnac, the plan of which
(_Fig._ 18.) may be regarded as typical of the usual Egyptian
arrangement, eight columns are sufficient, while the dimensions of the
hypostyle hall of Medinet-Abou render twenty-four necessary--a number
increased to thirty-two in Luxor, forty-eight in the Memnonium of Ramses
II., and to a maximum of one hundred and thirty-four in the Great Temple
of Carnac. Smaller halls may have received their light through the
portal. The upper half of the intercolumniations of the court colonnades
was also occasionally left open, as shown by _Fig._ 19.; but, with the
enormous dimensions of the hypostyle and the close ranges of shafts so
frequent, a more perfect system of illumination was necessary. The light
of day was procured for the hall by an eminently satisfactory
arrangement, which gives the key to the true manner of lighting any
enclosed space from above--the clerestory--so effectively developed in
later ages. The two rows of columns nearest the longitudinal axis were
made half as high again as their neighbors, thus lifting their
entablature and ceiling well above that of the remaining space. These
two ceilings on different levels were connected by piers placed upon the
next range of shorter columns, which supported the edge of the higher
covering. The light entered between these piers, their openings being
but little impeded by stone tracery. The central aisle was thus
brilliantly lighted, and, under the cloudless sky, rays and reflections
could find their way into the most remote corners of the forest of
columns. As shown by _Fig._ 21., the larger central columns were
distinguished by the broad-spreading calyx capital from the others,
which retained the simpler forms of the folded bud. The effect of such a
hall, especially of the great hypostyle of Carnac, must have been
magnificently rich and imposing. The dimensions of the chief columns
were in this instance gigantic. They were 22.86 m. high. Their calyx
capitals were 6.10 m. in diameter, the epistyle beams 6.70 by 1.83 by
1.22 m. The entire hall was 91.44 m. in length. Walls and columns were
thickly covered with carved and painted decorations, which were kept
well subordinated to the grand forms of the architecture, and were so
blended by the varying light and shade that a rich and sober effect was
produced by the somewhat gaudy colors.
[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Great Temple of Carnac.]
One example, the Temple of Soleb, shows this second division of the
building also repeated: that such a duplication was less common than
that of the courts is explained by the far greater requirements of its
construction. The last of the three chief temple divisions was reached
from the hypostyle hall, either by a simple gateway or by a third pylon
portal. The Egyptian priests performed their mystic rites and guarded
the sacred animals in a series of chambers, the innermost of which--the
real temple cella--was exceedingly small in proportion to the entire
building, being sometimes even cut from a single stone.
As the temple served the priesthood for a dwelling, a cloister-like
arrangement of this third space was necessary. The long-accepted
supposition that even the royal palaces were included in the temple
enclosure has recently been questioned, although the hieratic character
of the monarchy, and the strict religious ritual by which the life of
the king in his function of high-priest was governed, even to the
smallest particulars, would render this of itself not improbable. The
plan of the Great Temple of Carnac shows the dwelling of the priests,
with its halls and smaller rooms, separated by a court from the places
of worship.
[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Section of the Hypostyle Hall, Great Temple of
Carnac.]
[Illustration: Fig. 22.--Chapel upon the Platform of the Temple of
Dendera.]
Magnificently as the temple architecture of the Egyptians had developed
since the eighteenth dynasty, its advance had mainly affected the
interior. The temples of every other people were built with more or less
reference to an imposing exterior effect, but those of Egypt generally
remained the fortress-like enclosures which had become typical in the
earliest ages of the land’s history. The peripteral plan, indeed, occurs
in several small cellas of the ancient kingdom, but it was exceptional,
and did not arrive at any systematic development. It has been seen that
Egyptian architecture, though it chanced upon the channelled shaft of
the Proto-Doric column, was apparently unable to utilize this motive,
the great importance of which was not recognized in the land of the
Nile. The peripteral temple plan is a similar advance, which, not fitted
for the requirements and tendencies of Egyptian architecture, lay
dormant for centuries. The unbroken fortress-like walls of the temple
were not pierced and resolved into the surrounding pteroma until the
sceptre of Egypt had been swayed during three centuries by the
semi-Hellenic Ptolemies. These rulers, warned by the example of
Cambyses, were wise enough not to interfere with their Egyptian subjects
in their most sensitive point of religious conceptions, rendered sacred
by the traditions of thousands of years. But they did not hesitate to
reintroduce into the land the exterior splendor of the peripteral plan,
by that time so fully developed in Greece. The free and cheerful
religious rites of the Greeks, performed before the temple, and not
within it, agreed, as did the natural character of the people, with the
peripteral temple, which was opened outwardly by its pteroma. It was
otherwise with the mysterious and sombre precision of the Egyptian
ritual, which demanded absolute seclusion. Though the peripteral temple
plan was in some measure brought into vogue by the Ptolemies, it was, in
Egypt, deprived of its chief characteristic--the freely opened
intercolumniation. The Romans, in their desire similarly to combine
columnar architecture with entire enclosure, merely decorated exterior
walls with engaged shafts and pilasters, giving up the columns as
supporting members of independent function, and using them only as a
suggestive ornament. This merely decorative treatment, rare in Greece,
was not adopted in Egypt until the latest times. The Egyptian preferred
to place a screen-like wall, half the height of the columns, in each
opening; this hid all the interior from view, even when the building was
of small dimensions, as in _Fig._ 22., and permitted the access of light
and air through the upper half of the intercolumniation. The one used as
an entrance was also closed by a door-frame of greater height than the
side screens. Upon the corners of the peripteral building inclined piers
were often retained, as a reminiscence of the original enclosure wall as
well as for greater constructional security. This is shown by the Temple
of Philæ. (_Fig._ 23.) That the arrangement of outstanding columns did
not entirely supplant the closed surrounding walls is evident from the
same plan, where both methods occur side by side in a group of buildings
of the same date.
[Illustration: Fig. 23.--Temple of Philæ.]
There were parts of the narrow valley of the Nile where the cliffs of
the desert so advanced upon the river as to leave absolutely no room for
the erection of temples occupying so much ground. The inhabitants here
had recourse to grotto temples; that is to say, they transferred the
principal rooms of the sanctuary to an excavation in the cliff. When the
space between rock and stream permitted it, the courts and pylons were
built, and only the hypostyle hall and the holy of holies, reduced to
the minimum necessary for the performance of the rites, were cut from
the rock. This is the case in El-Cab, Redesie, Silsilis, and Girsheh.
The last of these, the largest, had a court with Osiris piers upon the
sides and with four columns upon the front, which seems never to have
been flanked by pylons. Its largest excavated space, apparently
corresponding to a second court, is also decorated upon the longer
sides with Osiris piers. Thereupon follows a narrow hall, which but
inadequately represents the hypostyle; and, finally, as the holy of
holies, a small chamber with an altar.
[Illustration: Fig. 24.--Façade of the Rock-cut Temple of Abou-Simbel.]
Far more important than these are the grotto temples of Abou-Simbel, in
the vicinity of the second cataract, where the portals are also cut
wholly from the rock. The larger of the two even attempts to approach,
as well as is possible, the enormous pylons of the great Theban temples.
(_Fig._ 24.) To this end the gentle inclination of the cliff was cut
away to the talus angle of the Egyptian walls and pylons, and the
cornice above, of roundlet and scotia, was worked from the rock. Four
such colossal sitting figures, as are often placed before the pylons,
were also cut from the cliff--an effective ornament and an economy of
labor thus being secured. The representation of the portal between two
pylons was given up; the whole front formed one wall in which the
entrance-door was cut without further decoration. The empty space above
the opening was filled by a high-relief, carved within an oblong niche.
(_Fig._ 24.) The entrance, which has now been cleared of the sand, leads
in natural order to a space corresponding to the court of the
free-standing temples; it is somewhat similar to that of Girsheh, which
was also erected by Ramses II., though more imposing and of better
proportions. (_Fig._ 25.) A following room, the ceiling of which is
supported by four piers, suggests the temple hypostyle, here much
dwindled in extent from the difficulty of its excavation as well as from
the general restriction of this space in Nubian monuments compared with
those of Central Egypt. The innermost chambers of the holy of holies are
not only as small as those of the free-standing temples, but are reduced
in number.
[Illustration: Fig. 25.--Hall of the Rock-cut Temple of Abou-Simbel.]
The second rock-cut temple of Abou-Simbel, situated near the one
described, is of smaller dimensions. It has upright colossal statues
upon the front, which, instead of being cut in the round, have more the
effect of reliefs from the fact that they stand in niches, a difference
arising from the greater steepness of the cliff at this point. The
treatment appears rational in consideration of the smaller amount of
material thereby removed, though the unmonumental effect of the reliefs,
which lean with the inclination of the wall, is an unfortunate result of
this economy. The first hall, analogous to the temple court, has its
ceiling supported by six piers, which are decorated upon the side
towards the central aisle by Athor masks. Three entrances lead from this
hall into a narrow space, here entirely at variance with the character
of a hypostyle, and through this into the holy of holies.
Notwithstanding the contraction of the two inner departments, the three
principal divisions of the free-standing buildings can be recognized in
all rock-cut temples.
[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Interior of a House. Egyptian Wall-painting.]
The existing ruins allow a comparatively clear understanding of the
religious architecture of Egypt, in which class the monumental tombs
must be reckoned as well as the various forms of temples; but we are
left almost entirely uninstructed as to the nature of the private
dwellings. The plan of the cloisters within the great temple of Carnac
(compare _Fig._ 20.) is indeed clear, though, being only a portion of a
larger scheme, it had no individual or exterior expression. The manner
in which these spaces were roofed and lighted is not evident.
The so-called royal pavilion of Medinet-Abou is a complete puzzle in its
development of plan and assumed connection with other structures; it can
only be held to prove that some private buildings were of several
stories. Other peculiarities here noticeable are windows framed by
lintels and jambs of enormous blocks, and rounded battlements above a
projecting cornice.
Egyptian sculptures and wall-paintings often represent the interiors of
well-to-do private houses and of palaces; they show the plans of
dwellings and adjoining vegetable-gardens so well that the very products
of the latter can be distinguished; but, though these plans designate
the separate rooms and their entrances, it is still impossible to
comprehend the general arrangement of a normal house, or its exterior
appearance. The views of the interiors, with their slim columns and
narrow entablatures, with a system of perspective which shows things
above one another instead of behind one another, with their evident
misrepresentations and constructive impossibilities, must have stood in
very much the same relation to the Egyptian reality as the fictitious
architecture of the Pompeian wall-decorations does to the buildings of
the Greeks and Romans. The architectural details introduced by the
painter served only as a frame for the figures or for the contents of
the store-rooms which he represented.
It may be concluded that, when private dwellings were more pretentious
than the single room necessary to provide the most imperative shelter,
columns were not excluded from them; and, from the absence of any
remains of these supports, it is probable they were of wood. The ruins
and rubbish of sun-dried bricks, which compose the overthrown cities
hitherto excavated, show that the great majority of dwellings were no
more than low hovels.
Even palaces seldom went beyond a series of small chambers, and thus did
not present an important architectural problem. This is illustrated by
the gigantic labyrinth, famed in so many fables of antiquity, and
somewhat known by the excavations of Lepsius in the Fayoum. (_Fig._ 27.)
A great number of small chambers are here grouped in three rectangular
wings around an oblong space, which was probably divided into several
courts. The walls remaining do not show that geometrical regularity of
arrangement described by Herodotos, Strabo, Diodoros, and Pliny, but a
really labyrinthic aggregate of small chambers, the destination of which
is not clear. The pyramid which closes the fourth side of the square is
alone of monumental importance. It seems possible that, instead of one
or more palaces, we have here the remains of some city. It is certainly
wrong to connect the work with the Dodecarchia (twenty-sixth dynasty,
685 to 525 B.C.): the twelve pretenders would hardly have united to
erect a common monument. In the list of Manetho, Amenophis III., the
sixth king of the twelfth dynasty, is mentioned as the founder, a notice
corroborated by inscriptions discovered on the site.
[Illustration: Fig. 27.--Labyrinth of the Fayoum.]
That the private buildings were so unimportant in comparison with the
religious architecture of Egypt is explained by the excessive
subjugation of the people to a monastic ritual, and by the favorable
character of the Egyptian climate. It is necessity that prompts
invention, and Egypt, with its ever-cloudless sky and constant
temperature, required no protection against the inclemency of the
weather; the climate did not force man to spend his days within doors,
nor did it destroy the lightest shelter. In the absence of rain, the
most primitive horizontal ceiling was sufficient. According to the
religious conceptions of the Egyptian, it was more important for him to
prepare a permanent house for his death-sleep--he had more at heart the
protection of his corpse than of his living body. Thus thousands of
graves have been preserved, while science cannot find a single dwelling
remaining to betray even the general character of Egyptian domestic
architecture. To these considerations it must be added that the
dwellings stood in the valley of the Nile, and have been subjected to
annual inundations which have formed a considerable alluvial deposit,
while the graves were almost without exception situated upon the
changeless cliffs that border on the desert.
* * * * *
The architecture of Egypt was practised in a manner to show almost no
historical development--with the sculpture this is the case in still
greater degree. The most ancient carved remains, which with reasonable
security may be assigned to the fifth dynasty, show the formal system,
retained during the subsequent twenty centuries, as already perfected.
Even at that early date the network of lines, which the Egyptian
sculptors (more as mechanics than as artists) followed down to the time
of the Ptolemies, was already calculated and introduced as a canon.