Strange to say, Egyptian architecture has never yet been systematically studied; we know nothing of its proportions and variations.

The earliest constructions were of brick, or of palm-sticks interwoven. From the necessary forms of these all the details of the stone architecture have been copied. A parallel is seen in Greece, where the architecture was an exact transcription of a wooden building, the triglyphs, mutules, and guttae being the beam-ends, tie-boards, and pegs formerly belonging to woodwork.

For the greater security of the corners of brick buildings, the Egyptians tilted the courses up at each end, thus building in a concave bed, with faces sloping inwards. This slope was copied in the stone-work, and is seen on the outsides of all Egyptian buildings (see fig. 83). The inside faces are always vertical, and this serves to distinguish the meaning of small portions of wall in excavations.

Slight structures were made of palm-sticks, set upright, and lashed to a cross stick near the top, with other palm-sticks interwoven to stiffen the face, and the whole plastered with mud. Such construction is made now in Egypt, and is seen in the earliest figures of shrines. At the top the ends of the palm-sticks nod over, and form a fence to keep out intruders. This row of tops is the origin of the stone cavetto cornice, which always stands free above the level of the roof. At the corners the structure of palm-stick was strengthened by a bundle of sticks or reeds lashed round, and put as a buffer to prevent a blow breaking in the edge. This became the roll with lashing pattern which is seen down the edges of the stone buildings, and also beneath the cavetto cornice where it is copied from the line of sticks below the loose tops (see fig. 83).

Another form of construction was with papyrus stems. These had a loose, wiry head like an Equisetum or mare’s tail. When used for a cabin on a boat, the roofing stems were put through the loose head, which was tied above and below to hold them. Hence the row of heads became copied as an ornament along the tops of walls, and continued in use thus down to the latest times.

The use of the arch was familiar from early times. Even before the pyramid-builders small arches of bricks were made. They were the general mode of roofing in the XIIth dynasty, when we see them drawn and imitated in stone. From the XIXth dynasty there remain the great arched store-rooms of the Ramesseum. Being of dried mud brick, which is far more easily crushed than stone or burnt brick, the circular form was not suitable, as the apex would yield by crushing. A more or less parabolic form was therefore used, so as to give a sharper curve at the top. To protect these arches from the weather, they were laid four courses thick, with a deep layer of sand and gravel over the top, to absorb any rain as a sponge.

Arches were usually built without any centring; and to this day the Egyptian similarly builds arches and domes of any size without centring or support. Each ring of arch is laid on a sloping bed, so that the thin arch bricks on edge will stick in place by the mud-mortar until the ring is completed. The same construction is started in each corner of a room until the arching meets in a circle, when the dome is carried round ring on ring, increasing the dip toward the top. The successive coats of an arch are often bedded on opposite slopes, so that the rings cross each other.

The outer form of a temple was always a blank wall on all sides, as at Edfu, which preserves its circuit wall complete. Usually the outer wall has been removed for building (fig. 83), and the inner courts with columns are exposed. In further ruin all the walls of squared blocks are gone, and only a group of pillars is left on the site.

A typical building of the early age is the temple of red granite built by Khafra at Gizeh (fig. 81). The pillars are 41 inches square, and there are sixteen of them in the two halls. The work is perfectly plain; not a trace of ornament is to be seen in this or other temples of the IIIrd-IVth dynasties. Only on the outside was there a panelling, like that on the brick buildings and stone sarcophagi of this age. The masonry of this temple is much less exact than that of the early pyramids. The whole effect of it is grand and severe, with the noble breadth which belongs to the early times.

The tower front of the temple at Medinet Habu (fig. 82) is one of the few faÇades that is preserved. It was copied from the Syrian fortresses, and shows how the Asiatic influences had entered Egypt during the three centuries from about 1500 to 1200 B.C.

The most complete view of a whole temple is that of Dakkeh (fig. 83). The girdle wall has been destroyed, thus exposing the components of the temple clearly. At the left is the great pylon, the gateway through the girdle wall. This led to the portico, which was the front of the house of the god, like the porticoes to human houses. Behind this a cross passage, of which the door is seen at the side, passed in front of the shrine and its ante-chamber. This was one of the most perfect small temples, but it has been much destroyed in recent years.

The massive square pillars of the granite temple gave place before long to more ornamental forms. The principal types are the palm and lotus in the Vth dynasty, and later the papyrus. The palm capital is shown on the granite columns of Unas (fig. 84). It was probably derived from a bundle of palm-sticks bound together and plastered with mud to stiffen them, like the bundles of maize-stalks which are still used for columns. Around the top of it some of the loose ends of the palm-sticks were left with the leaves to form a head.

The lotus capital appears likewise as a shaft decorated with buds around it (fig. 85). In this case the buds are the short, thick ones of the rose lotus, with flowers of the blue lotus put in the intervals under the abacus. But the lotus bud soon became treated as a solid support, and in the capital of the blue lotus (fig. 86) the whole is formed of four lotus buds. The bands of the tie were always strongly marked, however changed the capital might become in later time. The papyrus column belongs mainly to the XIXth dynasty, as in the great hall of Karnak. It was the most incongruous of all, as a single gigantic head of loose filaments was represented as supporting the whole weight.

Plain polygonal shafts were also common. Some octagonal ones occur in the Vth dynasty. In the XIIth dynasty they are sixteen-sided, keeping the four main faces flat and slightly hollowing the others. This was continued in the earlier part of the XVIIIth dynasty, but after that the polygonal form almost disappears.

Here we can only touch on some of the artistic elements; the architecture as a whole is beyond the scope of so small a volume.