Read Ebook: Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt by Maspero G Gaston Edwards Amelia B Translator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 181 lines and 86934 words, and 4 pages

ARCHITECTURE--CIVIL AND MILITARY.

? 1. HOUSES:--Bricks and Brickmaking--Foundations--Materials--Towns-- Plans--Decoration

? 2. FORTRESSES:--Walls--Plans--Migdols, etc.

? 3. PUBLIC WORKS:--Roads--Bridges--Storehouses--Canals--Lake Moeris-- Dams--Reservoirs--Quarries

RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE.

? 1. MATERIALS; PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTION:--Materials of Temples-- Foundations of Temples--Sizes of Blocks--Mortars--Mode of hoisting Blocks--Defective Masonry--Walls--Pavements--Vaultings--Supports-- Pillars and Columns--Capitals--Campaniform Capitals--Lotus-bud Capitals--Hathor-headed Capitals

? 2. TEMPLES:--Temples of the Sphinx--Temples of Elephantine--Temple at El Kab--Temple of Khons?--Arrangement of Temples--Levels--Crypts-- Temple of Karnak--Temple of Luxor--Philae--The Speos, or Rock-cut Temple--Speos of Horemheb--Rock-cut Temples of Ab? Simbel--Temple of Deir el Bahar?--Temple of Abydos--Sphinxes--Crio-sphinxes

? 3. DECORATION:--Principles of Decoration--The Temple a Symbolic Representation of the World--Decoration of Parts nearest the Ground-- Dadoes--Bases of Columns--Decoration of Ceilings--Decoration of Architraves--Decoration of Wall-surfaces--Magic Virtues of Decoration --Decoration of Pylons--Statues--Obelisks--Libation-tables--Altars-- Shrines--Sacred Boats--Moving Statues of Deities

TOMBS.

? 2. PYRAMIDS:--Plan of the Pyramid comprises three leading features of the Mastaba--Materials of Pyramids--Orientation--Pyramid of Kh?f?-- Pyramids of Khafra and Menkara--Step Pyramid of Sakkarah--Pyramid of ?nas--Decoration of Pyramid of ?nas--Group of Dash?r--Pyramid of Medum

PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.

? 2. TECHNICAL PROCESSES:--The Preparation of Surfaces--Outline-- Sculptors' Tools--Iron and Bronze Tools--Impurity of Iron--Methods of Instruction in Sculpture--Models--Methods of cutting Various Stones-- Polish--Painted Sculptures--Pigments--Conventional Scale of Colour-- Relation of Painting to Sculpture in Ancient Egypt

THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS.

? 1. STONE, CLAY, AND GLASS:--Precious Stones--Lapidary Art--Beads and Amulets--Scarabaei--Statuettes--Libation Tables--Perfume Vases--Kohl- pots--Pottery--Clay--Glazes--Red and Painted Wares--?shabti?--Funerary Cones--Painted Vases--"Canopic" Vases--Clay Sarcophagi--Glass--Its Chemical Constituents--Clear Glass--Coloured Glass--Imitations of Precious Stones in Glass--Glass Mosaics--Miniature Objects in Coloured Glass--Glass Amulets--Coloured Glass Vases--Enamels--The Theban Blue-- The Enamels of Tell el Amarna--Enamelled ?shabti? of Amen Ptahmes-- Enamelled Tiles of the Step Pyramid at Sakkarah--Enamelled Tiles of Tell el Yah?deh

? 2. WOOD, IVORY, LEATHER; TEXTILE FABRICS:--Bone and Ivory--Elephant Tusks--Dyed Ivory--Egyptian Woods--Wooden Statuettes--Statuette of Hori--Statuette of Na?--Wooden Toilet Ornaments--Perfume and Unguent Spoons--Furniture--Chests and Coffers--Mummy-cases--Wooden Effigies on Mummy Cases--Huge Outer Cases of Ahmesnefertari and Aahhotep--Funerary Furniture--Beds--Canopies--Sledges--Chairs--Stools--Thrones-- Textiles--Methods of Weaving--Leather--Breast-bands of Mummies-- Patchwork Canopy in Coloured Leather of Princess Isiemkheb-- Embroideries--Muslins--Celebrated Textiles of Alexandria

NOTES

INDEX

FIGURE

EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY.

Archaeologists, when visiting Egypt, have so concentrated their attention upon temples and tombs, that not one has devoted himself to a careful examination of the existing remains of private dwellings and military buildings. Few countries, nevertheless, have preserved so many relics of their ancient civil architecture. Setting aside towns of Roman or Byzantine date, such as are found almost intact at Koft , at Kom Ombo, and at El Agandiyeh, one-half at least of ancient Thebes still exists on the east and south of Karnak. The site of Memphis is covered with mounds, some of which are from fifty to sixty feet in height, each containing a core of houses in good preservation. At Kah?n, the ruins and remains of a whole provincial Twelfth Dynasty town have been laid bare; at Tell el Mask-h?tah, the granaries of Pithom are yet standing; at S?n and Tell Basta , the Ptolemaic and Sa?tic cities contain quarters of which plans might be made , and in many localities which escape the traveller's notice, there may be seen ruins of private dwellings which date back to the age of the Ramessides, or to a still earlier period. As regards fortresses, there are two in the town of Abydos alone, one of which is at least contemporary with the Sixth Dynasty; while the ramparts of El Kab, of Kom el Ahmar, of El Hibeh, and of Dakkeh, as well as part of the fortifications of Thebes, are still standing, and await the architect who shall deign to make them an object of serious study.

The soil of Egypt, periodically washed by the inundation, is a black, compact, homogeneous clay, which becomes of stony hardness when dry. From immemorial time, the fellahin have used it for the construction of their houses. The hut of the poorest peasant is a mere rudely-shaped mass of this clay. A rectangular space, some eight or ten feet in width, by perhaps sixteen or eighteen feet in length, is enclosed in a wickerwork of palm- branches, coated on both sides with a layer of mud. As this coating cracks in the drying the fissures are filled in, and more coats of mud are daubed on until the walls attain a thickness of from four inches to a foot. Finally, the whole is roofed over with palm-branches and straw, the top being covered in with a thin layer of beaten earth. The height varies. In most huts, the ceiling is so low that to rise suddenly is dangerous both to one's head and to the structure, while in others the roof is six or seven feet from the floor. Windows, of course, there are none. Sometimes a hole is left in the middle of the roof to let the smoke out; but this is a refinement undreamed of by many.

The nature of the soil does not allow of deep foundations. It consists of a thin bed of made earth, which, except in large towns, never reaches any degree of thickness; below this comes a very dense humus, permeated by slender veins of sand; and below this again--at the level of infiltration-- comes a bed of mud, more or less soft, according to the season. The native builders of the present day are content to remove only the made earth, and lay their foundations on the primeval soil; or, if that lies too deep, they stop at a yard or so below the surface. The old Egyptians did likewise; and I have never seen any ancient house of which the foundations were more than four feet deep. Even this is exceptional, the depth in most cases being not more than two feet. They very often did not trouble themselves to cut trenches at all; they merely levelled the space intended to be covered, and, having probably watered it to settle the soil, they at once laid the bricks upon the surface. When the house was finished, the scraps of mortar, the broken bricks, and all the accumulated refuse of the work, made a bed of eight inches or a foot in depth, and the base of the wall thus buried served instead of a foundation. When the new house rose on the ruins of an older one decayed by time or ruined by accident, the builders did not even take the trouble to raze the old walls to the ground. Levelling the surface of the ruins, they-built upon them at a level a few feet higher than before: thus each town stands upon one or several artificial mounds, the tops of which may occasionally rise to a height of from sixty to eighty feet above the surrounding country. The Greek historians attributed these artificial mounds to the wisdom of the kings, and especially to Sesostris, who, as they supposed, wished to raise the towns above the inundation. Some modern writers have even described the process, which they explain thus:--A cellular framework of brick walls, like a huge chess-board, formed the substructure, the cells being next filled in with earth, and the houses built upon this immense platform .

But where I have excavated, especially at Thebes, I have never found anything answering to this conception. The intersecting walls which one finds beneath the later houses are nothing but the ruins of older dwellings, which in turn rest on others still older. The slightness of the foundations did not prevent the builders from boldly running up quite lofty structures. In the ruins of Memphis, I have observed walls still standing from thirty to forty feet in height. The builders took no precaution beyond enlarging the base of the wall, and vaulting the floors . The thickness of an ordinary wall was about sixteen inches for a low house; but for one of several storeys, it was increased to three or four feet. Large beams, embedded here and there in the brickwork or masonry, bound the whole together, and strengthened the structure. The ground floor was also frequently built with dressed stones, while the upper parts were of brick. The limestone of the neighbouring hills was the stone commonly used for such purposes. The fragments of sandstone, granite, and alabaster, which are often found mixed in with it, are generally from some ruined temple; the ancient Egyptians having pulled their neglected monuments to pieces quite as unscrupulously as do their modern successors. The houses of an ancient Egyptian town were clustered round its temple, and the temple stood in a rectangular enclosure to which access was obtained through monumental gateways in the surrounding brick wall. The gods dwelt in fortified mansions, or at any rate in redoubts to which the people of the place might fly for safety in the event of any sudden attack upon their town. Such towns as were built all at once by prince or king were fairly regular in plan, having wide paved streets at right angles to each other, and the buildings in line. The older cities, whose growth had been determined by the chances and changes of centuries, were characterised by no such regularity. Their houses stood in a maze of blind alleys, and narrow, dark, and straggling streets, with here and there the branch of a canal, almost dried up during the greater part of the year, and a muddy pond where the cattle drank and women came for water. Somewhere in each town was an open space shaded by sycamores or acacias, and hither on market days came the peas-ants of the district two or three times in the month. There were also waste places where rubbish and refuse was thrown, to be quarrelled over by vultures, hawks, and dogs.

The lower classes lived in mere huts which, though built of bricks, were no better than those of the present fellahin. At Karnak, in the Pharaonic town; at Kom Ombo, in the Roman town; and at Medinet Hab?, in the Coptic town, the houses in the poorer quarters have seldom more than twelve or sixteen feet of frontage. They consist of a ground floor, with sometimes one or two living-rooms above. The middle-class folk, as shopkeepers, sub- officials, and foremen, were better housed. Their houses were brick-built and rather small, yet contained some half-dozen rooms communicating by means of doorways, which were usually arched over, and having vaulted roofs in some cases, and in others flat ones. Some few of the houses were two or three storeys high, and many were separated from the street by a narrow court, beyond which the rooms were ranged on either side of a long passage . More frequently, the court was surrounded on three sides by chambers ; and yet oftener the house fronted close upon the street. In the latter case the fa?ade consisted of a high wall, whitewashed or painted, and surmounted by a cornice. Even in better houses the only ornamentation of their outer walls consisted in angular grooving, the grooves being surmounted by representations of two lotus flowers, each pair with the upper parts of the stalks in contact . The door was the only opening, save perhaps a few small windows pierced at irregular intervals . Even in unpretentious houses, the door was often made of stone. The doorposts projected slightly beyond the surface of the wall, and the lintel supported a painted or sculptured cornice. Having crossed the threshold, one passed successively through two dimly-lighted entrance chambers, the second of which opened into the central court . The best rooms in the houses of wealthier citizens were sometimes lighted through a square opening in the centre of a ceiling supported on wooden columns. In the Twelfth Dynasty town of Kah?n the shafts of these columns rested upon round stone bases; they were octagonal, and about ten inches in diameter . Notwithstanding the prevalence of enteric disease and ophthalmia, the family crowded together into one or two rooms during the winter, and slept out on the roof under the shelter of mosquito nets in summer. On the roof also the women gossiped and cooked. The ground floor included both store-rooms, barns, and stables. Private granaries were generally in pairs , brick-built in the same long conical shape as the state granaries, and carefully plastered with mud inside and out. Neither did the people of a house forget to find or to make hiding places in the walls or floors of their home, where they could secrete their household treasures--such as nuggets of gold and silver, precious stones, and jewellery for men and women--from thieves and tax-collectors alike. Wherever the upper floors still remain standing, they reproduce the ground- floor plan with scarcely any differences. These upper rooms were reached by an outside staircase, steep and narrow, and divided at short intervals by small square landings. The rooms were oblong, and were lighted only from the doorway; when it was decided to open windows on the street, they were mere air-holes near the ceiling, pierced without regularity or symmetry, fitted with a lattice of wooden cross bars, and secured by wooden shutters. The floors were bricked or paved, or consisted still more frequently of merely a layer of rammed earth. The rooms were not left undecorated; the mud-plaster of the walls, generally in its native grey, although whitewashed in some cases, was painted with red or yellow, and ornamented with drawings of interior and exterior views of a house, and of household vessels and eatables . The roof was flat, and made probably, as at the present day, of closely laid rows of palm-branches covered with a coating of mud thick enough to withstand the effects of rain. Sometimes it was surmounted by only one or two of the usual Egyptian ventilators; but generally there was a small washhouse on the roof , and a little chamber for the slaves or guards to sleep in. The household fire was made in a hollow of the earthen floor, usually to one side of the room, and the smoke escaped through a hole in the ceiling; branches of trees, charcoal, and dried cakes of ass or cow dung were used for fuel.

The mansions of the rich and great covered a large space of ground. They most frequently stood in the midst of a garden, or of an enclosed court planted with trees; and, like the commoner houses, they turned a blank front to the street, consisting of bare walls, battlemented like those of a fortress . Thus, home-life was strictly secluded, and the pleasure of seeing was sacrificed for the advantages of not being seen. The door was approached by a flight of two or three steps, or by a porch supported on columns and adorned with statues , which gave it a monumental appearance, and indicated the social importance of the family.

Sometimes this was preceded by a pylon-gateway, such as usually heralded the approach to a temple. Inside the enclosure it was like a small town, divided into quarters by irregular walls. The dwelling-house stood at the farther end; the granaries, stabling, and open spaces being distributed in different parts of the grounds, according to some system to which we as yet possess no clue. These arrangements, however, were infinitely varied. If I would convey some idea of the residence of an Egyptian noble,--a residence half palace, half villa,--I cannot do better than reproduce two out of the many pictorial plans which have come down to us among the tomb-paintings of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The first represent a Theban house. The enclosure is square, and surrounded by an embattled wall. The main gate opens upon a road bordered with trees, which runs beside a canal, or perhaps an arm of the Nile. Low stone walls divide the garden into symmetrical compartments, like those which are seen to this day in the great gardens of Ekhm?m or Girgeh.

In the centre is a large trellis supported on four rows of slender pillars. Four small ponds, two to the right and two to the left, are stocked with ducks and geese. Two nurseries, two summer-houses, and various avenues of sycamores, date-palms, and d?m-palms fill up the intermediate space; while at the end, facing the entrance, stands a small three-storied house surmounted by a painted cornice.

The decoration of walls and ceilings in no wise resembled such scenes or designs as we find in the tombs. The panels were whitewashed or colour- washed, and bordered with a polychrome band. The ceilings were usually left white; sometimes, however they were decorated with geometrical patterns, which repeated the leading motives employed in the sepulchral wall- paintings. Thus we find examples of meanders interspersed with rosettes , parti-coloured squares , ox-heads seen frontwise, scrolls, and flights of geese .

I have touched chiefly upon houses of the second Theban period, this being in fact the time of which we have most examples. The house-shaped lamps which are found in such large numbers in the Fay?m date only from Roman times; but the Egyptians of that period continued to build according to the rules which were in force under the Pharaohs of the Twelfth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties. As regards the domestic architecture of the ancient kingdom, the evidences are few and obscure. Nevertheless, the stelae, tombs, and coffins of that period often furnish designs which show us the style of the doorways , and one Fourth Dynasty sarcophagus, that of Kh?f? Poskh?, is carved in the likeness of a house .

Many of the rooms at Kahun had vaulted ceilings.

Seventeenth to Twentieth Dynasties.

Most of the towns, and even most of the larger villages, of ancient Egypt were walled. This was an almost necessary consequence of the geographical characteristics and the political constitution of the country. The mouths of the defiles which led into the desert needed to be closed against the Bedaw?n; while the great feudal nobles fortified their houses, their towns, and the villages upon their domains which commanded either the mountain passes or the narrow parts of the river, against their king or their neighbours.

The oldest fortresses are those of Abydos, El Kab, and Semneh. Abydos contained a sanctuary dedicated to Osiris, and was situate at the entrance to one of the roads leading to the Oasis. As the renown of the temple attracted pilgrims, so the position of the city caused it to be frequented by merchants; hence the prosperity which it derived from the influx of both classes of strangers exposed the city to incursions of the Libyan tribes. At Abydos there yet remain two almost perfect strongholds. The older forms, as it were, the core of that tumulus called by the Arabs "Kom es Sultan," or "the Mound of the King." The interior of this building has been excavated to a point some ten or twelve feet above the ground level, but the walls outside have not yet been cleared from the surrounding sand and rubbish. In its present condition, it forms a parallelogram of crude brickwork measuring 410 feet from north to south, and 223 feet from east to west. The main axis of the structure extends, therefore, from north to south. The principal gateway opens in the western wall, not far from the northwest corner: but there would appear to have been two smaller gates, one in the south front, and one in the east. The walls, which now stand from twenty-four to thirty-six feet high, have lost somewhat of their original height. They are about six feet thick at the top. They were not built all together in uniform layers, but in huge vertical panels, easily distinguished by the arrangement of the brickwork. In one division the bedding of the bricks is strictly horizontal; in the next it is slightly concave, and forms a very flat reversed arch, of which the extrados rests upon the ground. The alternation of these two methods is regularly repeated. The object of this arrangement is obscure; but it is said that buildings thus constructed are especially fitted to resist earthquake shocks. However this may be, the fortress is extremely ancient, for in the Fifth Dynasty, the nobles of Abydos took possession of the interior, and, ultimately, so piled it up with their graves as to deprive it of all strategic value. A second stronghold, erected a few hundred yards further to the south-east, replaced that of Kom es Sultan about the time of the Twelfth Dynasty, and narrowly escaped the fate of the first, under the rule of the Ramessides. Nothing, in fact, but the sudden decline of the city, saved the second from being similarly choked and buried.

At Medinet Hab?.

A permanent network of roads would be useless in a country like Egypt. The Nile here is the natural highway for purposes of commerce, and the pathways which intersect the fields suffice for foot-passengers, for cattle, and for the transport of goods from village to village. Ferry-boats for crossing the river, fords wherever the canals were shallow enough, and embanked dams thrown up here and there where the water was too deep for fordings, completed the system of internal communication. Bridges were rare. Up to the present time, we know of but one in the whole territory of ancient Egypt; and whether that one was long or short, built of stone or of wood, supported on arches or boldly flung across the stream from bank to bank, we cannot even conjecture. This bridge, close under the very walls of Zar?, crossed the canal which separated the eastern frontier of Egypt from the desert regions of Arabia Petraea. A fortified enclosure protected this canal on the Asiatic side, as shown in the accompanying illustration . The maintenance of public highways, which figures as so costly an item in the expenses of modern nations, played, therefore, but a very small part in the annual disbursements of the Pharaohs, who had only to provide for the due execution of three great branches of government works,--namely, storage, irrigation, mining and quarrying.

The taxation of ancient Egypt was levied in kind, and government servants were paid after the same system. To workmen, there were monthly distributions of corn, oil, and wine, wherewith to support their families; while from end to end of the social scale, each functionary, in exchange for his labour, received cattle, stuffs, manufactured goods, and certain quantities of copper or precious metals. Thus it became necessary that the treasury officials should have the command of vast storehouses for the safe keeping of the various goods collected under the head of taxation. These were classified and stored in separate quarters, each storehouse being surrounded by walls and guarded by vigilant keepers. There was enormous stabling for cattle; there were cellars where the amphorae were piled in regular layers , or hung in rows upon the walls, each with the date written on the side of the jar; there were oven-shaped granaries where the corn was poured in through a trap at the top , and taken out through a trap at the bottom. At Th?k?, identified with Pithom by M. Naville, the store-chambers are rectangular and of different dimensions , originally divided by floors, and having no communication with each other. Here the corn had to be not only put in but taken out through the aperture at the top. At the Ramesseum, Thebes, thousands of ostraka and jar-stoppers found upon the spot prove that the brick-built remains at the back of the temple were the cellars of the local deity. The ruins consist of a series of vaulted chambers, originally surmounted by a platform or terrace . At Philae, Ombos, Daphnae, and most of the frontier towns of the Delta, there were magazines of this description, and many more will doubtless be discovered when made the object of serious exploration.

Most of the localities from which the Egyptians derived their metals and choicest materials in hard stone, were difficult of access, and would have been useless had roads not been made, and works of this kind carried out, so as to make life somewhat less insupportable there.

In order to reach the diorite and grey granite quarries of the Hammamat Valley, the Pharaohs caused a series of rock-cut cisterns to be constructed along the line of route. Some few insignificant springs, skilfully conducted into these reservoirs, made it possible to plant workmen's villages in the neighbourhood of the quarries, and also near the emerald mines on the borders of the Red Sea. Hundreds of hired labourers, slaves, and condemned criminals here led a wretched existence under the rule of some eight or ten overseers, and the brutal surveillance of a company of Libyan or negro mercenary troops. The least political disturbance in Egypt, an unsuccessful campaign, or any untoward incident of a troubled reign, sufficed to break up the precarious stability of these remote establishments. The Bedaw?n at once attacked the colony; the workmen deserted; the guards, weary of exile, hastened back to the valley of the Nile, and all was at a standstill.

The most important limestone quarries are at T?rah and Massarah, nearly opposite Memphis. This stone lends itself admirably to the most delicate touches of the chisel, hardens when exposed to the air, and acquires a creamy tone most restful to the eye. Hence it was much in request by architects and sculptors. The most extensive sandstone formations are at Silsilis . Here the cliffs were quarried from above, and under the open sky. Clean cut and absolutely vertical, they rise to a height of from forty to fifty feet, sometimes presenting a smooth surface from top to bottom, and sometimes cut in stages accessible by means of steps scarcely large enough for one man at a time. The walls of these cuttings are covered with parallel striae, sometimes horizontal, sometimes slanting to the left, and sometimes to the right, so forming lines of serried chevrons framed, as it were, between grooves an inch, or an inch and a half, in width, by nine or ten feet in length. These are the scars left upon the surface by the tools of the ancient workmen, and they show the method employed in detaching the blocks. The size was outlined in red ink, and this outline sometimes indicated the form which the stone was to take in the projected building. The members of the French Commission, when they visited the quarries of Gebel Ab?feydeh, copied the diagrams and squared designs of several capitals, one being of the campaniform pattern, and others prepared for the Hathor-head pattern . The outline made, the vertical faces of the block were divided by means of a long iron chisel, which was driven in perpendicularly or obliquely by heavy blows of the mallet. In order to detach the horizontal faces, they made use of wooden or bronze wedges, inserted the way of the natural strata of the stone. Very frequently the stone was roughly blocked out before being actually extracted from the bed. Thus at Syene we see a couchant obelisk of granite, the under side of which is one with the rock itself; and at Tehneh there are drums of columns but half disengaged. The transport of quarried stone was effected in various ways. At Syene, at Silsilis, at Gebel Sheikh Herideh, and at Gebel Ab?feydeh, the quarries are literally washed by the waters of the Nile, so that the stone was lowered at once into the barges. At Kasr es Sa?d, at T?rah, and other localities situate at some distance from the river, canals dug expressly for the purpose conveyed the transport boats to the foot of the cliffs. When water transit was out of the question, the stone was placed on sledges drawn by oxen , or dragged to its destination by gangs of labourers, and by the help of rollers.

Chenoboscion.--A.B.E.

In the civil and military architecture of Ancient Egypt brick played the principal part; but in the religious architecture of the nation it occupied a very secondary position. The Pharaohs were ambitious of building eternal dwellings for their deities, and stone was the only material which seemed sufficiently durable to withstand the ravages of time and man.

It is an error to suppose that the Egyptians employed only large blocks for building purposes. The size of their materials varied very considerably according to the uses for which they were destined. Architraves, drums of columns, lintel-stones, and door-jambs were sometimes of great size. The longest architraves known--those, namely, which bridge the nave of the hypostyle hall of Karnak--have a mean length of 30 feet. They each contain 40 cubic yards, and weigh about 65 tons. Ordinarily, however, the blocks are not much larger than those now used in Europe. They measure, that is to say, about 2-1/2 to 4 feet in height, from 3 to 8 feet in length, and from 2 to 6 feet in thickness.

The ground-level of the courts and halls was flagged with rectangular paving stones, well enough fitted, except in the intercolumniations, where the architects, hopeless of harmonising the lines of the pavement with the curved bases of the columns, have filled in the space with small pieces, set without order or method . Contrary to their practice when house building, they have scarcely ever employed the vault or arch in temple architecture. We nowhere meet with it, except at Deir el Bahar?, and in the seven parallel sanctuaries of Abydos. Even in these instances, the arch is produced by "corbelling"; that is to say, the curve is formed by three or four superimposed horizontal courses of stone, chiselled out to the form required . The ordinary roofing consists of flat paving slabs. When the space between the walls was not too wide, these slabs bridged it over at a single stretch; otherwise the roof had to be supported at intervals, and the wider the space the more these supports needed to be multiplied. The supports were connected by immense stone architraves, on which the roofing slabs rested.

The column does not rest immediately upon the soil. It is always furnished with a base like that of the polygonal pillar, sometimes square with the ground, and sometimes slightly rounded. This base is either plain, or ornamented only with a line of hieroglyphs. The principal forms fall into three types: the column with campaniform, or lotus-flower capital; the column with lotus-bud capital; the column with Hathor-head capital.

Under the Ptolemies and the Caesars the capital became a complete basket of flowers and leaves, ranged row above row, and painted in the brightest colours At Edf?, Ombos, and Philae one would fancy that the designer had vowed never to repeat the same pattern in the same portico.

Shafts of columns were regulated by no fixed rules of proportion or arrangement. The architect might, if he chose, make use of equal heights with very different diameters, and, regardless of any considerations apart from those of general harmony, might design the various parts according to whatever scale best suited him. The dimensions of the capital had no invariable connection with those of the shaft, nor was the height of the shaft dependent on the diameter of the column. At Karnak, the campaniform columns of the hypostyle hall measure 10 feet high in the capital, and 55 feet high in the shaft, with a lower diameter of 11 feet 8 inches. At Luxor, the capital measures 11-1/2 feet, the shaft 49 feet, and the diameter at the spring of the base 11-1/4 feet. At the Ramesseum, the shaft and capital measure 35 feet, and the spring diameter is 6-1/2 feet. The lotus-bud or clustered column gives similar results. At Karnak, in the aisles of the hypostyle hall, the capital is 10 feet high, the shaft 33 feet, and the base diameter 6-3/4 feet. At the Ramesseum, the capital is 5- 1/2 feet high, the shaft 24-1/2 feet, and the base diameter 5 feet 10 inches. We find the same irregularity as to architraves. Their height is determined only by the taste of the architect or the necessities of the building. So also with the spacing of columns. Not only does the inter- columnar space vary considerably between temple and temple, or chamber and chamber, but sometimes--as in the first court at Medinet Hab?--they vary in the same portico. We have thus far treated separately of each type; but when various types were associated in a single building, no fixed relative proportions were observed. In the hypostyle hall at Karnak, the campaniform columns support the nave, while the lotus-bud variety is relegated to the aisles . There are halls in the temple of Khons? where the lotus- bud column is the loftiest, and others where the campaniform dominates the rest. In what remains of the Medamot structure, campaniform and lotus-bud columns are of equal height. Egypt had no definite orders like those of Greece, but tried every combination to which the elements of the column could be made to lend themselves; hence, we can never determine the dimensions of an Egyptian column from those of one of its parts.

For an account of the excavations at Bubastis, see Eighth and Tenth Memoirs of the Egypt Exploration Fund, by M.E. Naville.

French "Promenoir"; this is perhaps best expressed by "Processional Hall," in accordance with the description of its purpose on p. 67. --A.B.E.

Some few scattered ruins in Nubia, the Fay?m, and Sinai, do not suffice to prove whether the temples of the Twelfth Dynasty merited the praises lavished on them in contemporary inscriptions or not. Those of the Theban kings, of the Ptolemies, and of the Caesars which are yet standing are in some cases nearly perfect, while almost all are easy of restoration to those who conscientiously study them upon the spot. At first sight, they seem to present an infinite variety as to arrangement; but on a closer view they are found to conform to a single type. We will begin with the sanctuary. This is a low, small, obscure, rectangular chamber, inaccessible to all save Pharaoh and the priests. As a rule it contained neither statue nor emblem, but only the sacred bark, or a tabernacle of painted wood placed upon a pedestal. A niche in the wall, or an isolated shrine formed of a single block of stone, received on certain days the statue, or inanimate symbol of the local god, or the living animal, or the image of the animal, sacred to that god. A temple must necessarily contain this one chamber; and if it contained but this one chamber, it would be no less a temple than the most complex buildings. Very rarely, however, especially in large towns, was the service of the gods thus limited to the strictly necessary. Around the sanctuary, or "divine house," was grouped a series of chambers in which sacrificial and ceremonial objects were stored, as flowers, perfumes, stuffs, and precious vessels. In advance of this block of buildings were next built one or more halls supported on columns; and in advance of these came a courtyard, where the priests and devotees assembled. This courtyard was surrounded by a colonnade to which the public had access, and was entered through a gateway flanked by two towers, in front of which were placed statues, or obelisks; the whole being surrounded by an enclosure wall of brickwork, and approached through an avenue of sphinxes. Every Pharaoh was free to erect a hall still more sumptuous in front of those which his predecessors had built; and what he did, others might do after him. Thus, successive series of chambers and courts, of pylons and porticoes, were added reign after reign to the original nucleus; and--vanity or piety prompting the work--the temple continued to increase in every direction, till space or means had failed.

We cannot say as much for the temple which the Pharaohs of the Twentieth Dynasty erected to the south of Karnak, in honour of the god Khons? ; but if the style is not irreproachable, the plan is nevertheless so clear, that one is tempted to accept it as the type of an Egyptian temple, in preference to others more elegant or majestic. On analysis, it resolves itself into two parts separated by a thick wall . In the centre of the lesser division is the Holy of Holies , open at both ends and isolated from the rest of the building by a surrounding passage 10 feet in width. To the right and left of this sanctuary are small dark chambers , and behind it is a hall of four columns , from which open seven other chambers . Such was the house of the god, having no communication with the adjoining parts, except by two doors in the southern wall . These opened into a wide and shallow hypostyle hall , divided into nave and aisles. The nave is supported by four lotus- flower columns, 23 feet in height; the aisles each contain two lotus-bud columns 18 feet high. The roof of the nave is, therefore, 5 feet higher than that of the sides. This elevation was made use of for lighting purposes, the clerestory being fitted with stone gratings, which admitted the daylight. The court was square, and surrounded by a double colonnade entered by way of four side-gates and a great central gateway flanked by two quadrangular towers with sloping fronts. This pylon measures 105 feet in length, 33 feet in width, and 60 feet in height. It contains no chambers, but only a narrow staircase, which leads to the top of the gate, and thence up to the towers. Four long grooves in the fa?ade, reaching to a third of its height, correspond to four quadrangular openings cut through. the whole thickness of the masonry. Here were fixed four great wooden masts, formed of joined beams and held in place by a wooden framework fixed in the four openings above mentioned. From these masts floated long streamers of various colours . Such was the temple of Khons?, and such, in their main features, were the majority of the greater temples of Theban and Ptolemaic times, as Luxor, the Ramesseum, Medinet Hab?, Edf?, and Denderah. Though for the most part half in ruins, they affect one with a strange and disquieting sense of oppression. As mystery was a favourite attribute of the Egyptian gods, even so the plan of their temples is in such wise devised as to lead gradually from the full sunshine of the outer world to the obscurity of their retreats. At the entrance we find large open spaces, where air and light stream freely in. The hypostyle hall is pervaded by a sober twilight; the sanctuary is more than half lost in a vague darkness; and at the end of the building, in the farthest of the chambers, night all but reigns completely. The effect of distance which was produced by this gradual diminution of light, was still further heightened by various structural artifices. The parts, for instance, are not on the same level. The ground rises from the entrance , and there are always a few steps to mount in passing from one part to another. In the temple of Khons? the difference of level is not more than 5-1/4 feet, but it is combined with a lowering of the roof, which in most cases is very strongly marked. From the pylon to the wall at the farther end, the height decreases continuously. The peristyle is loftier than the hypostyle hall, and the hypostyle hall is loftier than the sanctuary. The last hall of columns and the farthest chamber are lower and lower still. The architects of Ptolemaic times changed certain details of arrangement. They erected chapels and oratories on the terraced roofs, and reserved space for the construction of secret passages and crypts in the thickness of the walls, wherein to hide the treasure of the god . They, however, introduced only two important modifications of the original plan. The sanctuary was formerly entered by two opposite doors; they left but one. Also the colonnade, which was originally continued round the upper end of the court, or, where there was no court, along the fa?ade of the temple, became now the pronaos, so forming an additional chamber. The columns of the outer row are retained, but built into a wall reaching to about half their height. This connecting wall is surmounted by a cornice, which thus forms a screen, and so prevented the outer throng from seeing what took place within . The pronaos is supported by two, three, or even four rows of columns, according to the size of the edifice. For the rest, it is useful to compare the plan of the temple of Edf? with that of the temple of Khons?, observing how little they differ the one from the other.

That is to say, the wall is vertical on the inside; but is built much thicker at the bottom than at the top, so that on the outside it presents a sloping surface, retiring with the height of the wall.--A.B.E.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet