Chapter II (3)

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."

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.

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.

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.

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).

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).

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.

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).

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.

Here and there we find the spaces in a single row of columns increasing progressively from the two ends to the centre (Fig. 105).

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

THEBES

PORTICO IN THE TEMPLE OF MEDINET-ABOU (SECOND COURT)

Restored by Ch. Chipiez.

Imp. Ch. Chardon]

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.