Chapter II: Part 2

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Name of Pyramid. | Original | Present |
| Height. | Height. |
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1. Great pyramid of Gizeh | 148.21 | 137.34 |
2. Second pyramid of Gizeh | 139.39 | 136.37 |
3. Northern stone pyramid of Dashour | 104.39 | 99.49 |
4. Southern stone pyramid of Dashour | 103.29 | 97.28 |
5. Pyramid of Illahoun | ---- | 39.62 |
6. Pyramid of Meydoun | ---- | 68.40 |
7. Northern Pyramid of Lisht | ---- | 20.85 |
8. Pyramid of Hovara | ---- | 32.31 |
9. Northern pyramid of Lisht | ---- | 27.31 |
10. Southern brick pyramid of Dashour | 81.46 | 47.55 |
11. Great pyramid of Abousere | 69.39 | 49.99 |
12. Third pyramid of Gizeh | 66.83 | 61.87 |
13. Northern brick pyramid of Dashour | 65.25 | 27.43 |
14. Great pyramid of Saccara | 61.06 | 57.91 |
15. Pyramid of Abou-Roash | ---- | ---- |
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Name of Pyramid. | Side of Plan. | Angle of Ascent.|
| | |
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1. Great pyramid of Gizeh | 232.56 | 51° 52´ |
2. Second pyramid of Gizeh | 215.09 | 52° 21´ |
3. Northern stone pyramid of Dashour | 219.28 | 43° 36´ |
4. Southern stone pyramid of Dashour | 187.93 | {above 54° 14´ |
| | {below 42° 59´ |
5. Pyramid of Illahoun | now, 170.69 | ---- |
6. Pyramid of Meydoun | now, 161.54 | 74° 10´ |
7. Northern Pyramid of Lisht | now, 137.16 | ---- |
8. Pyramid of Hovara | 116.92 | ---- |
9. Northern pyramid of Lisht | now, 109.73 | ---- |
10. Southern brick pyramid of Dashour | 104.39 | 57° 20´ |
11. Great pyramid of Abousere | 109.60 | 51° 42´ |
12. Third pyramid of Gizeh | 77.04 | 51° 10´ |
13. Northern brick pyramid of Dashour | 104.34 | 51° 20´ |
14. Great pyramid of Saccara | E. × W. 120.02 | 73° 30´ |
| N. × S. 107.01 | |
15. Pyramid of Abou-Roash | 104.39 | ---- |
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The Nubian pyramids on Mount Barkal and in Meroe, far more numerous than those of Lower Egypt, have lost much of their interest since investigations have shown that the civilization of Egypt and the prototypes of monumental art did not descend from Nubia, as was at first supposed, but arose in the delta and advanced up the stream. Inscriptions prove these pyramids to be some three thousand years younger than those of Memphis, dating them at as recent an epoch as the beginning of the Christian era. They are generally grouped in an extended necropolis, and differ from those of the ancient kingdom by a steeper angle of elevation, by a roundel-moulding upon the angles, and, above all, by much smaller dimensions.

Though the truncated pyramidal form, as has been seen in a number of tombs at Gizeh, was not excluded from the funeral architecture of Egyptian subjects, it was never general. Rock-cut tombs were much more customary. The upright cliffs which border the banks of the Nile led naturally to such a formation, and in their sides are excavated caverns of very different dimensions, from the prevalent small, square chambers, with a narrow entrance high above the level of the valley, to the most extended series of rooms. These tombs were commonly decorated by mural paintings alone, but occasionally by carved architectural details, which always represent a wooden sheathing of slats or lattice-work. The larger chambers, even of the most primitive period, have the roof supported by square piers.

It is from these piers that the Egyptian columns seem to have originated, dividing from the outset into two classes and developing in different directions.

One class of columns arose from chamfering the corners of the square pier, this support being thus transformed into an eight-sided, and, when the proceeding was repeated, to a sixteen-sided, shaft. The first phase of change, with its octagonal plan, was simple and advantageous--a predominance of vertical line was secured to the support, as well as greater room and ease of passage to the chamber. The second, the sixteen-sided figure, offered but few new advantages; on the contrary, the play of light and shade between the sixteen sides and angles was lost in proportion as the edges became more obtuse and less visible. As the sleek rotundity of an absolutely cylindrical shaft was not desirable, the blunt angles of the sixteen-sided prism, of rather coarse stone, were emphasized to avoid the disagreeable uncertainty which is felt when the plan is undecided between a polygon and a circle. This was effected by channelling the sides, making the arris more prominent and giving a more lively variation of vertical light and shade. The pier thus maintained, in some degree, its prismatic character while approaching the cylinder, and the channelled column arose.

Rock-cut tombs of the twelfth dynasty (2380-2167 B.C., according to Lepsius) situated at Beni-hassan, and part of the necropolis of the ancient Nus, a city early destroyed, show the polygonal pier in the two phases of eight and sixteen sided plan. The most northern of these has the octagonal unchannelled pier in the vestibule, and the sixteen-sided channelled column within. Only fifteen channels are executed on the latter, the sixteenth side being left plane for the reception of a painted row of hieroglyphics. Both exterior and interior shafts have a base like a large flat millstone, which projects far beyond the lower diameter of the column, its edge being bevelled inward. A square abacus plinth is the only medium between shaft and ceiling, the two columns of the vestibule lacking even this. A full entablature did not exist in the interior, as a representative of the outer edge of roof and ceiling there would naturally have been out of place. The northernmost tomb has no distinct entablature carved upon the exterior; but its neighbor (_Fig._ 9.) shows, cut from the solid rock, a massive horizontal epistyle above the columns, and upon this the projecting edge of the ceiling, which appears to consist of squarely hewn joists. Lattice-work was found represented upon the stone sarcophagus of Mykerinos. Here the model of a wooden ceiling is truthfully imitated upon the rock. As, in the flat coverings of rainless Egypt, roof and ceiling appear one and the same, this entablature has but two members--epistyle and cornice; while the frieze, in Greek architecture the representative of a horizontal ceiling beneath the inclined roof, does not here exist.

This order of architecture, called, because of the similarity of the shaft, the Proto-Doric, was predominant in the ancient kingdom. But at least as early as the twelfth dynasty another class of columns was in use which had been developed in an entirely different manner. The Proto-Doric columns originated from the mathematical duplication of the prismatic sides and angles of the square pier; these second made the same pier their model, but followed its painted ornament, not its architectural form. The primitive designer enriched his work with flowers, striving to preserve the quickly fading natural decoration by an imperishable imitation. Many of the bands of ornament customary in antiquity may be considered as rows or wreaths of leaves and flowers, although often they do not betray their derivation at first sight, because of the original imperfect representation of nature, the subsequent strict conventionalization, and final degeneracy into formalism.

In Egypt, ornamental adaptations of the lotos-flowers of the Nile appear at first in long, frieze-like rows, the blossoms being bound together by the stems in much the same arrangement as similar decorations in Assyria, or the better conventionalized anthemion friezes in Greece. When this horizontal ornament was transferred to the narrow vertical sides of a pier, it was necessary to place the flowers closely together, to lengthen the curled stems and bind them; in short, to form of the wreaths, which had answered for the narrow band, a bouquet better corresponding to the tall, upright space to be filled.

Such a bunch of long-stemmed lotos-buds is shown upon the pillars of the tombs near Sauiet-el-Meytin (_Fig._ 10.), which, certainly of the ancient kingdom, were probably of the sixth dynasty. This bouquet may have been as customary an ornament for the pier as the garlands of lotos-flowers were for the frieze.

The history of architectural decoration shows that the stone-cutter’s chisel everywhere followed in the footsteps of color. The four sides of the pier bore the same painted flowers; if these were to be sculptured, nothing could be more natural than to carry them from four-sided relief into the full round, where they offered the same face to all points of view, and transformed the painted pier into a column formed like a bunch of lotos-blossoms. This development must have taken place early in the ancient kingdom, for we find the floral column in the same tombs of the twelfth dynasty at Beni-hassan which show the so-called Proto-Doric shaft in its various phases. Form and color so work together in the floral column as to leave no doubt of the fundamental idea having been the bunch of lotos-buds painted upon the sides of the pier. Four stems of rounded profile are engaged, rising from a flat base similar to that of the polygonal column. They are tied together under the buds by fivefold ribbons of different colors. Above these the lotos-flowers spread from the stems, showing between their green leaves the opening buds in narrow slits of white. The flowers of the painted bouquet (_Fig._ 10.) are spread apart; but in the sculptured column they are necessarily united, forming the capital. Even the little blossoms with short stems, represented upon the painting of Sauiet-el-Meytin, are not neglected, although the calyx itself has become much smaller, owing to technical reasons of the execution.

Beni-hassan proves that the two orders, the channelled polygonal shaft and the lotos-column (_Fig._ 11.), had been developed as early as the twelfth dynasty; but as columnar architecture was not general in the ancient kingdom, the examples preserved are isolated. The little temple of that age discovered by Mariette Bey near the great sphinx of Gizeh shows no trace of columns, their place being supplied by monolithic piers. The period between the twenty-second and the sixteenth century B.C., during which the Nile-land was occupied by the nomadic Hycsos, the shepherd kings, enemies to all civilization, was not favorable to the further application and development of architectural genius. The columns do not again appear until the advent of the new Theban kingdom with the eighteenth dynasty (1591 B.C., according to Lepsius), when they were extensively employed, especially in temples. It was then that the typical forms of the orders were determined. The Proto-Doric, the channelled polygonal column of the tombs at Beni-hassan, fell into disuse. Its simplicity suited neither the desire for richness of form, peculiar to the later Egyptians, nor the delight in polychromatic ornament, which found only one unchannelled strip at its disposal.

The polygonal shaft received, in certain measure, a new lease of life by the invention of a necessary part, a capital in place of the meagre abacus plinth which had formerly been the insufficient medium of transition between the upright support and the horizontal entablature. The vegetable prototype was deserted, and a female head, or rather a fourfold mask about a cubical kernel, crowned the shaft, being surmounted by an ornament somewhat resembling a chapel. The column thereby became similar to a Hermes, or to a caryatid figure of Janus Quadrifrons, as it were. (_Fig._ 12.) But the representation of the deity Athor had only a limited application, and seems to have prevented the column from being generally employed.

A far wider field was opened to the floral column, which in its architectural and ornamental development was removed further and further from its original model. The changes were brought about in two ways, the most direct alterations being effected by the sculptor. The four buds and stems of the lotos-columns of Beni-hassan were increased to eight; the latter changed their round cylinders to angular prisms, thus giving up much of the vegetable character. The former straight and stiff shaft, rising directly from the base, was curved near the bottom by a short swelling, which suddenly increased the diameter. This entasis was surrounded by a row of leaves, again characterizing the ascending bundle as stems. Leaves were also added at the foot of the buds, these being out of place and impairing the consequential development expressed in the column of Beni-hassan, though corresponding well enough with the treatment adopted for the similar enlargement at the foot of the shaft. The four little flowers, which were tied in by the bands of the Beni-hassan column, naturally became eight in number with the duplication of the stems and blossoms. They were before much diminished in size, but here became an entirely unorganic, rectangular ornament. The binding ribbons of the neck retained their original variegated colors; but the painting of the capital itself put aside every likeness to the natural colors of the flower. (_Fig_. 13 _a_.)

An entirely picturesque transformation also affected the lotos-column, and led to the second phase of its development. The stone shaft was cut cylindrically, the memberings being omitted and all reminiscences of stem and bud being abandoned. The wreaths of leaves remained at the lower end of the shaft and of the capital, as did also the binding ribbons with the little flowers, which were still more broadened and distorted. The rest of the column gave space for painted, or rather coilanaglyphic, representations of devotional acts, for the cartouches of the kings and for hieroglyphic inscriptions (_Fig_. 13 _b_.) The capital, which had before consisted of four and of eight buds, became consolidated to a single one; the binding ribbon of the neck was retained without a function. It was the more natural to open the single bud to the calyx of a flower, a graceful and satisfactory solution of the problem which retained its sway henceforth in Egypt much as the Corinthian capital, so nearly related in form to this Egyptian calyx, predominated over other Roman varieties. The shaft and the ribbons remained, as in the painted column of the Memnonium. (_Fig._ 13 _b._) So also did the row of leaves at the base of the capital; the little flowers were entirely omitted, and the upper part of the calyx was thickly covered with royal seals painted between upright ornaments, so small that their line does not affect the composition of the whole. (_Fig._ 14.) A discord resulted from the retention of the abacus plinth of the former bud capital in its original proportions, a defect which in some degree defeated the æsthetic advantages of the boldly projecting calyx as a medium between the vertical support and the horizontal mass above it.

_a._ Sculptured Column from the Great Temple at Carnac.

_b._ Painted Column from the Memnonium of Ramses II.]

The calyx capital attained no typical and established form in Egyptian architecture, even as the Corinthian capital received no formal development in the Hellenic art which originated it. The decoration of the calyx continued to offer a wide field for the inventive talent of the Egyptian architect, which was here employed with most fortunate results. The ruined buildings, especially of later periods, show hundreds of different capitals, from the simplest upright forms of the papyrus to elaborately turned and rolled leaves; these floral ornaments being almost always composed and conventionalized with admirable taste.

A decided advance was made by separating the upper edge of the calyx, with notches, into four large petals, although the decoration did not have sufficient influence to affect the column as a whole. The most satisfactory among the varieties of the floral column, and that most thoroughly carried out, was certainly the palm; the capital of which was characterized as a crown of leaves, and the shaft, by an imitation of the bark, as a palm-stem. The tall leaves rendered a greater height of the palm capital necessary; thus increased, it most closely approached the Corinthian in beauty of outline. The division of the great calyx into eight lobes was another result of this decoration. As the palm capital was frequently placed among others, especially by the Egyptians of later periods, it naturally had the effect upon the varieties to be brought into harmony with it of lowering the necking of their shafts in the same measure as had been necessary for itself. (_Fig._ 15.)

The slender proportions prevalent during the time of the Ptolemies 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.

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.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

Besides figures of the gods, the sculpture of Egypt is rich in the images of kings, queens, and prominent subjects; and in such portraits the observation of the living model, of the peculiarities of character which lead to the differences of exterior appearance, would seem to be a natural consequence. But as the individual disappeared in the mass of the Egyptian people, so the appreciation of individuality was almost wholly lacking in the Egyptian artist. Sculptors and painters worked without the least desire for pre-eminence in ability and distinction, without thought of perpetuating their names, and the work they produced expressed these faults. As Brunn truly remarks, we can look upon whole rows of Egyptian sculptures without a question ever arising in our minds as to the authorship of this or that work, without observing that one is superior to the others, or that any were much above manufactures. The work became what the artist felt himself personally to be--a mere link in a monotonous chain. The result of this is that the statues generally represent an entirely abstract human being--not an absolute ideal, for that can hardly be said to exist in any art, but a type of the Egyptian race, well understood and unalterably repeated. As soon as the art had to a certain degree mastered the normal appearance of the human body, it contented itself therewith and came to a standstill. The peculiarities in the living model or in the attributed characters of the deities were rarely considered by the artist, who only distinguished by attributes what should be otherwise expressed; he did not attempt to show the effect of the mind upon the outer being, and thus to give to sculpture its true importance.

The description of single Egyptian works is consequently almost the same as the consideration of the entire sculpture and painting of the land--the more so as the artist not only employed generally one and the same conventional figure, but in position and movement mainly alternated between two types. The statues are, with a few exceptions, either sitting or in an act between standing and stepping, which does not appear to be an advance, because the feet are too near together; both soles being flat upon the ground, the centre of gravity falls between the two legs, almost more upon the one behind than upon the one before. A figure seems to move only when the body, advanced before the centre of its two supports, throws the greatest part of its weight upon the forward leg, and thus relieves the hinder foot, which, with uplifted heel, touches the ground with the toes, in readiness to be removed. Both sitting and standing statues have the arms pressed closely to the body--the former with bent elbows and hands resting flat upon the knees, the latter with arms hanging straightly and stiffly, the hands holding the so-called Nile key; or folded upon the breast, the hands grasping attributes, crook and plough or whip. Individual action is in every case excluded. If the formation of the body be more closely examined, the following peculiarities are remarkable: The head, as the comparison of it with a Greek type at _Fig._ 28. shows, deviates so greatly from the normal oval that it could almost be drawn within a square, the principal line of the face being about parallel to the back of the head, as is the flat outline of the top of the skull to the line from the chin to the neck. The general directions of the eye, the mouth, and the ear are not perpendicular to the sides of the parallelogram, inclining too markedly upward; the comparatively large ear is placed half as high again from the throat as it should be. These deviations are in some measure explained by the peculiarities of race characteristic of the Orientals, and especially of the Egyptians--by the different formation of the skull and position of the eye. The forehead is almost straight, being on a line with the upper lip; and, as it recedes from the nose, does not project at all. It is rendered still more unimportant by the curved ridge of the brows lacking decision, and the eye itself wanting in depth. The eye has remained in the rough condition of a primitive imitation of nature--thick strips surround it in place of lids, and continue, the upper overlapping the under, beyond its exterior angle towards the ear. The gently curved, round, broad nose projects but little over the upper lip, which, instead of preparing the close of the oval towards the chin, is pushed forward like the lower lip, upward and outward. The closed, sensually broad lips are sharply outlined. The corners of the mouth, slightly drawn upward, give, with the similar inclination of the angles of the eyes, a certain expression of smiling sarcasm not intended by the designer, and consequently cold and stiff. The chin is flat and pointed in profile, the line from it to the short and thin neck almost straight.

Such is the type that was retained through thousands of years, so unchangeably that even the sexes are scarcely to be distinguished by the heads. Male figures often have a kind of chin beard, cut at right angles, and bound on with ribbons which can sometimes be distinctly traced. The heads, and through them the whole figures, are characterized by head-dresses, referable to one fundamental form--the pshent, a high cap like a tiara; but they have been so modified from their prototype that the _Description de l’Égypte_, pl. 115, shows thirty distinct varieties.

The deities are frequently recognizable by the heads of animals--of a lion, ram, cow, ape, jackal, crocodile, hawk, or ibis, as the case may be. The worship of nature, peculiar to Egypt, found a better expression in these symbols than in the monotonous representations of man, in marked contrast to the incorporation of Hellenic myths, where, in the monstrous conjunction of human and animal forms, the human head was rarely given up, it being more generally placed upon the body of an animal.

The figure, as accepted by the Egyptian designer, was, to the smallest details, drawn according to a network of lines. Diodorus states it to have had 21¼ units in height, the unit being probably the length of the nose. The shoulders are drawn upward, and, like the flat breast, are broad; the hips, on the contrary, are narrow and weakly modelled: they are girded with a cloth which appears carefully folded and adjusted, but, with all its tightness, does not fit the forms of the body. When upon sitting figures, this cloth often stands out as stiffly and straightly as if carved of wood, giving no indication of the true nature of its material. The lean arms are muscular, dry, and hard; the hands are rendered clumsy by the equally thick and almost equally long fingers. The legs are not powerful, and rather slim, indicating great elasticity, and, like all other parts of the body, the ability to endure great exertion. The knees are sharp and drawn with anatomical understanding; the feet are narrow and long, as are also the toes, which, lying in their entire length upon the ground, do not greatly differ in dimensions and form. In female figures the breasts are fully developed, the nipples being formed like a rosette; a closely fitting gown reaches from the broad neck-ornament, common with both sexes, to the ankles, but, being represented without reference to the material and without the most necessary folds, appears so elastic that its existence is only surely to be perceived at the borders.

The most ancient sculptures and the later works of Nubia are somewhat heavy and full, those of the best period (the time of Ramses) more slim and elastic. After the fifth century B.C. the figures become better modelled, and a certain influence of Greek sculpture is betrayed. But the ancient type remained in the chief characteristics unchanged until the end of the Ptolemaic dynasties, and even to the later ages of the Roman Empire. Those works of Greek and Roman sculptors, so popular during the age of Hadrian, which borrowed the costume and position of Egyptian statues while having nothing else in common with Egyptian art (such, for instance, as the numerous figures of Antinous to be found in almost all the larger museums), must not be classed with the truly national works executed in Egypt and for that country.

The monotony of Egyptian sculpture was not without some exceptions. Less pretentious works, where the necessity of canonic idealization seems not to have been so imperative--as in the well-fed form of the so-called schoolmaster in the museum of Boulac (_Fig._ 30.), which shows not only in the head, but in the entire body, an undeniable portrait--make it questionable whether the conventionalized representations may not be more owing to the restraint of religious authority and tradition, to the hieratic laws which exercised so complete a sway over the life of the country in every respect, than to any absolute incapability of the Egyptian artist for individual characterization.

Egyptian sculpture, thus under the ban of religious conservatism, always dealt more successfully with the forms of animals than with human beings and deities. In hunting scenes there is wonderful spirit and character in the drawing of the dogs, and of the animals which they attack. The artist attained an elastic and life-like force in the representation of all animal forms, even when these were compelled into monstrous combinations with human members. The most common of the latter are the androsphinxes, which differ from the Greek sphinx in being male--having the head and breast of a man and the body of a crouching lion. At times the human head is supplanted by that of a ram or hawk. Rams were also treated as sphinxes, especially before the temples of Ammon and Kneph. The most important androsphinx is the well-known colossus of Gizeh with the head of Thothmes IV. The heads of the sphinxes seem usually to have been portraits of kings. This gigantic guardian of the necropolis of Memphis, the most enormous monumental figure of the world, with space between the outstretched front legs for a chapel there built, is now again buried to the neck by the shifting sand of the pyramid plateau after having been excavated with great labor. Its face alone is 12.2 m. long. But it is in cases where the entire lion is represented without deformation that Egyptian sculpture attains its greatest perfection. (_Fig._ 31.)

A great majority of the Egyptian works of sculpture were cut with marvellous patience in the hardest materials, in variously colored granite, diorite, syenite, and basalt. Limestone and alabaster were rarely employed for colossal or life-size statues, but were used more frequently for works of smaller dimensions; these were also burned in clay with a surface of blue or green glazing, or were cut in more valuable stones, such as agate, jasper, carnelian, and lapis-lazuli. Enamelled clay idols were manufactured in great numbers; modern museums contain hundreds of these little figures of perfectly similar form. The so-called scarabæus is also very common--beetle-shaped bodies of clay, or of the above-named stones--with incised figures or hieroglyphics upon their lower surface. Such amulets were perforated and worn as beads, and were placed loosely in the coffins with the mummies.

The artistic manufacture of colored glass was extensive. Fine metal-work was less common, although ornaments of enamelled gold, silver, and copper of high artistic value have occasionally been found. Wood-carving was practised upon the mummy-coffins. Although the valley of the Nile did not produce large pieces of a satisfactory material, this lack was supplied by gluing together layers of palm or sycamore wood, and hiding the defects of this process by a painted priming of stucco. The coffins themselves are in so far works of sculpture as they represent upon the cover the form of the swathed body placed within them, and even show the face as exposed.

The sculpture of reliefs was less developed and less correct than of the round. As the relief was always very low, and could not express the greater projections, the artist’s desire to represent the human body clearly and completely led to an unfortunate conflict between the profile and front view of the figure. While mostly drawn in profile, and showing particularly the head and legs in side view, which is the more favorable for representation in low-relief, the shoulders and breast are developed in the other direction, and are seen as from in front. It is only in this position that both arms are visible--an important consideration to the artist, whose object was solely to represent some action or attributes. It was also felt as a difficulty that in a relief of the side view the visible shoulder should project farther than any other part of the body, the breadth of the breast and arms being more than double that of the head. The primitive designer, to avoid these objections, resorted to a forced and clumsy torsion of the body, which may be noticed in the childhood of almost every art--in the Assyrian as well as in the most ancient Greek. The head, with exception of the eye, which was represented as in front, was taken in profile; shoulders and breast from in front, but arms and hands, as well as hips, legs, and feet, in profile again. The lower the relief, the less could the surface be modelled, and this led to a sharp demarcation of the outline, which exaggerated the peculiar leanness of the Egyptian race to a hard angularity.