IT is a curious chance that the most ancient monuments of human civilization should stand upon a land which is one of the youngest geological formations of our earth. The scene of that artistic activity made known to us by the oldest architectural remains of Africa and of the world was not Upper Egypt, where steep primeval cliffs narrow the valley of the Nile, but the alluvion of the river’s delta. It would be difficult to decide whether the impulse of monumental creativeness were here first felt, or whether the mere fact of the preservation of these Egyptian works, secured by the indestructibility of their construction as well as by the unchangeableness of Egyptian art, be sufficient to explain this priority to other nations of antiquity—notably to Mesopotamia. Although no ruins have been found in ChaldÆa of earlier date than the twenty-third century B.C., it is not at all impossible that remains of greater antiquity may yet come to light in a country which is by no means thoroughly explored. Nor should we deem the oldest structures now preserved to be necessarily those first erected. The perishable materials of the buildings which stood in the plains of the Euphrates and Tigris, generally sun-dried bricks with asphalt cement, were not calculated to insure long duration, or to prevent their overthrow and obliteration by the continual changes in the course of these rivers, through the silting and swamping of their valleys. Yet, though tradition would incline us to assume that ChaldÆan civilization and art were the more ancient, the oldest monuments known exist upon the banks of the Nile.

The changeless blue of the Egyptian sky, the strictly regular return of all the natural phenomena connected with the Nile, that wonderful stream of the land’s life, are entirely in accord with the fixedness of Egyptian civilization in all its branches. Though the high state of advance which we first find in Egyptian art, three thousand years before the Christian era, must necessarily have been preceded by less perfected degrees, it is wholly impossible to perceive such stages of development in any of the monuments known. After Egypt had attained a certain height of civilization, its history, during the thousands of years known to us, shows none of those phases of advance or decline, of development in short, to be observed in Europe during every century, if not during every decade.

The Egyptian completed buildings and statues begun by his remote ancestors without the slightest striving for individual peculiarity. He commenced new works in the same spirit, leaving them for similar execution by his great-grandchildren. Numberless generations thus dragged on without bequeathing a trace of any peculiar character and ability. It is only by the cartouches of the kings in the hieroglyphic inscriptions that it is possible to separate the dynasties, and to group into periods of a thousand years or more, works of art which seem from their style to belong to one and the same age. What gigantic revolutions have affected the civilization of Europe during the fourteen centuries elapsed since the overthrow of the Roman Empire, and how slight are the appreciable changes during the nearly equal number of years of the ancient dynasties of Memphis—the period of the pyramids, or again of the Theban kingdom—from the seventeenth dynasty to the rule of the Ptolemies!

The true age of the monuments of Lower Egypt has not long been known. When Napoleon I. fired the spirits of his troops before the Battle of the Pyramids by the well-known words “Forty centuries look down upon you from the heights of these pyramids,” he must have been aware that, according to the conceptions of the archÆological science of the time, he was exaggerating. In fact, however, he was far behind the truth. The pyramids of Abousere, possibly also those of Dashour, are of the third dynasty (3338 to 3124 B.C., according to Lepsius), those of Gizeh of the fourth dynasty of Manetho (3124 to 2840 B.C.). These are structures which have stood for five thousand years. The pyramids of Cochome, referred to as the first dynasty of Manetho, are still older, dating from a time nearly coincident, according to Biblical authority, with the creation of the world itself (3761 B.C.).

It is true we are still so far from chronological certainty that dates often differ astonishingly. Osburn, for instance, places the fourth and fifth dynasties as late as the period between 2228 and 2108 B.C., and notably the two kings of the fourth dynasty, Shofo and Nu-Shofo, about 2170 B.C. The first twelve dynasties of Memphis, dated by Lepsius about 3892 to 2167, and by Osburn as late as 1959 B.C., are now known principally by their monumental tombs. Among these, the sepulchres of the kings are prominent in like manner as the ruler in an absolute and theocratic monarchy is elevated above his subjects.

The enslaved people labored upon the monuments of their masters, often during the entire lifetime of these latter. It may be seen from contemporary wall-paintings that the discipline maintained during the work of construction was not lacking in strictness, but it was certainly not that excessive oppression generally imagined. A body of over one hundred thousand workmen sorely oppressed might, even in Egypt, have been difficult to manage by a hated despot. It was principally during the annual inundations of the Nile that the kings employed and fed the poorer classes, at that time, perhaps, unable otherwise to subsist. During other seasons the rulers could not have taken the tillers of the soil from fields and flocks without great injury to their own interests. It is no mark of a selfish despotism, which builds without reference to the welfare of land and subjects, that the kings removed their enormous sepulchral piles from the vicinity of their residences—from the valuable alluvion of the Nile to the barren edge of the desert. They thus, as Plato recommends, occupied no place with dwellings of the dead where it would be possible for the living to find nourishment. The fertile ground of the valley was not encumbered by the colossal pyramids, which were so numerous in ancient Egypt that Lepsius found the remains of sixty-seven in the forty-eight kilometers alone between Cairo and the Fayoum, on the western bank of the river. Supposing only five score such pyramids, with an average area of one hundred ares each, two elevenths of that of the great pyramid of Gizeh, to have stood in the narrow valley of the Nile, what an enormous loss in the grain production of that most fertile but limited land would so great a reduction of arable surface have caused during the past five thousand years!

The fundamental motive of the pyramid is the funeral mound. A small upheaval above the natural level of the ground results of itself from the earth displaced by the bulk of the buried body. Our present practice of interment clearly illustrates this. Increased dimensions elevate the mound to an independent monument. Many nations, some of a high degree of civilization, have contented themselves with such imposing hills of earth over the grave,—tumuli, which, from the manner of their construction, assumed a conical form. Others placed the mound upon a low cylinder, thus better marking its distinction from accidental natural elevations. The Egyptians and the Mesopotamians rejected the cone entirely, and formed, with plane surfaces upon a square plan, the highly monumental pyramid. Peculiar to the former people are the inclined sides which give to the pyramid its absolute geometrical form, as opposed to the terraced structures of ChaldÆa. The sand of the desert ebbed and flowed fifty centuries ago as constantly as in our time, when the sphinx, after being uncovered to its base, has been quickly hidden again to the neck. Rulers, unwilling that their gigantic tombs should be thus submerged, were obliged to secure to them great height, with inclined and unbroken sides, upon which the sand could not lodge.

The typical pyramid of Gizeh, near Cairo—the monument of Cheops (Shofo, Suphis), the first or second king of the fourth dynasty—rises above the broad necropolis of Memphis, by far the largest and one of the most marvellous works of mankind. (Fig. 1.) With a ground-line mean of 232.56 m., the great pyramid attained an altitude of 148.21 m., of which the entire apex is now overthrown, leaving a height of about 138 m.[A] The original intention of the builders was doubtless an absolutely square plan. The greatest difference in the length of the ground-lines of the base is 0.45 m. The angle of the upward inclination of the sides has been found, by measurements at various points, to average 51° 51´ 43´´. The entire pyramid is solidly built of massive blocks, pierced by a few narrow passages which lead to small chambers. (Fig. 2.) Like most of these monuments, the entrance is situated somewhat above the ground; it opens to a passage which descends with a gentle inclination. The shaft is covered with stones leaning against each other, so as to present the great resistance of a gable to the superimposed mass. In passing out of the masonry it is continued into the natural rock under the same angle, 26° 27´. Near the point of separation it meets with another passage, which ascends with an inclination of 26° 6´ to the centre of the structure, sending off a nearly horizontal branch at half-way. All three shafts lead to grave-chambers, the highest being the most important. As the ascent continues above the horizontal branch, its importance is emphasized by the passage being increased from 1.2 or 1.5 m. high to a corridor 8.5 m. in height, roofed by gradually projecting blocks, and having upon its floor a slide to facilitate the transport of the sarcophagus. Thereupon follows a horizontal vestibule, closed most securely by four blocks of granite which fell like portcullises. Only three of these had been let down; the fourth remained in its original position, the lower grooves never having been cut to allow its descent. The upper chamber, of polished granite, but otherwise not ornamented, is 10.48 m. long, 5.24 m. broad, and 5.84 m. high.[B] It is ceiled horizontally with nine colossal lintels of granite, a detail which seemed at first surprising, as other voids of far less width were more firmly covered, either by projecting and gradually approaching stones, as in the ascending corridor; or with blocks leaned together so as to form a gable, as in the other passages, and in the middle chamber, called that of the Queen. Yet it was for the security of this upper chamber that the greatest care proved to have been taken. The weight of the half-height of the pyramid remaining above it was by no means allowed to rest upon its horizontal lintels. There are above them five low relieving spaces separated by four stone ceilings similar to the first; mighty blocks are inclined over all these to a gable triangle. In case of rupture the horizontal beams would of themselves have formed new triangles and prevented direct downward pressure. Cheops certainly did not need to fear the ceiling of his chamber falling in upon him. Ventilation was provided for the room by two narrow air-channels, which, inclining upwards, took the shortest course to the outside.

Fig. 2.—The Great Pyramid of Gizeh. Section North and South, looking West.
Fig. 2.—The Great Pyramid of Gizeh. Section North and South, looking West.

The perfectly geometrical form of the pyramids of Gizeh has from early times led to speculations upon their having been erected in conformity with mathematical or astronomical calculations; and endless attempts have been made to discover the fixed proportions which they are supposed to embody, and to determine their symbolical or metrical significance. Too much is often assumed upon the strength of accidental coincidences, generally only approximate; but if such proportions indeed existed, whatever may have been their intention, they are evidently beyond the true province of art.

The second great pyramid, built by the successor of Cheops, Chephren (Sophris), seems not to have been so regular in its interior arrangement. The third, that of Chephren’s successor, Mykerinos (Menkera), is of the most beautiful execution. The unevenness of the ground was so considerable that a substructure of masonry was here necessary. The entire kernel is of rectangular courses of stone, and, with the exception of the exterior casing, is built in the form of steps. This manner of construction was employed in most of the pyramids, but is here particularly noticeable. The casing of granite, highly polished, is still partly intact; the joints of its stones are scarcely perceptible, and are not wider than the thickness of a sheet of paper.

The mechanical excellence of all these pyramids is indeed wonderful; they remain as a marvellous proof of the constructive ability of man in ages far anterior to known periods of the world’s history. Nor are they mere piles of masonry which could have been erected by an enslaved people without the guidance of skilled and thoughtful designers. The arrangement of the passages, of the chambers and their portcullises, of the quarried stone and polished revetment, was admirably adapted to the required ends.

In the third pyramid two corridors have been found, one above the other. The upper, opening within from the first chamber, at some height above the floor, does not reach the exterior surface, but ends suddenly against the unpierced outside casings. This peculiarity is explained by, and in turn gives weight to, the statement that this pyramid, as originally built by Mykerinos, was considerably smaller than it is at present, measuring, according to the end of the unfinished upper corridor, 54.86 m. on the side of the plan, and 42.20 m. in vertical height. Nitocris, the last queen of the sixth dynasty, prepared the pyramid to serve also as her own monument by adding courses of stone which increased these dimensions to 117.29 and 66.75 m. respectively. But as the original entrance, by the prolongation of its inclined line outward, would thereby have opened much too high above the ground, a new corridor beneath the first was rendered necessary. The second chamber, which probably once contained the sarcophagus of the queen, was found entirely plundered. The third and lowest, better protected, had been opened; but in it there still remained in position a magnificent coffer of basalt. The exterior of this sarcophagus was sculptured with lattice-work in imitation of a palace-like structure with portals. Fragments of the wooden coffin, with carved hieroglyphics, once within it, and of the mummy itself, were flung about the room. The sarcophagus, of the greatest value as illustrating the architectural forms of its time, sank in the Mediterranean with the ship which was carrying it away to England. The mummy and the lid of the coffin are in the British Museum. Hieroglyphics upon the latter designate the venerable remains as those of King Menkera, the same Mykerinos whom Herodotos, following traditions of the Egyptian priests, mentions as one of the best rulers of the land. The stone ceiling of the Mykerinos chamber was at first thought to be vaulted, it having the form of a low pointed arch. This peculiarity proved, however, to be due to a hollowing-out of the inclined gable blocks.

Fig. 3.—Section of the Great Pyramid of Saccara.
Fig. 3.—Section of the Great Pyramid of Saccara.

Fig. 4.—The Pyramid of Meydoun.
Fig. 4.—The Pyramid of Meydoun.

Princes and princesses of these early dynasties appear to have been buried in smaller pyramids, like those which stand in groups of three near the first and third great pyramids of Gizeh. Prominent subjects were allowed to take a place in the royal necropolis; but their pyramids were always truncated, in form resembling the Egyptian footstool—the pyramidal point remained the peculiar privilege of the kings. It appears to have been customary to commence all these structures with a few large terraces of masonry, which were not fully developed into the perfectly pyramidal structure until the last stones, the revetments, were put in place. These terraces generally had vertical sides. Occasionally this construction was varied by being formed with sloping sides, which repeated the obtuse ascending angle of the footstool, so that the separate steps, elsewhere with a vertical rise, were here somewhat inclined. It is not certain whether the absolute pyramidal form was always intended to be carried out upon the completion of these latter monuments. The examples of the inclined terraces which have been preserved rather seem to show that various attempts were made to develop architecturally upon the exterior the peculiarity of its inner construction. The arrangement and line of the kernel were more or less strictly adhered to, so that the last course of facing-stones showed the original angle of the interior masonry. The increasing of the terraces by successive courses—coats, as it were—seems to have been generally continued as long as the reign of a Pharaoh would permit. The layers, when inclined, were most numerous at the foot of the pyramid, decreasing in number as they ascend, that the mass might not take the proportions of a tower. This manner of building is displayed by the section of the first pyramid of Saccara (Fig. 3.), which, if the courses had been continued in equal number, would have reached a height of at least one hundred and fifty meters, instead of the 57.91 m. effected by its terrace-like contractions. The pyramid of Meydoun shows that this contraction did not necessarily take place in regular and equal steps. (Fig. 4.) There the layers were added, without decreasing in number, to a considerable height, when the structure was quickly completed by broad and low terraces. Similar to this must have been those pyramids which ended in a platform and served as the mighty pedestals of colossal figures, described by Herodotos as existing in Lake Moeris. A remarkable variation from these forms is finally to be noticed in the stone pyramid of Dashour. (Fig. 5.) Rising at first with steep inclination, 54° 14´, it changes its slant at half-height to reach, with a smaller angle, 42° 59´, a more rapid conclusion. This artistically unfortunate form seems to have been owing to a change of plan during the execution of the work; it was doubtless originally designed to have been finished like the pyramid of Meydoun. It is hardly necessary to seek the origin of the double angle in the analogous obtuse termination of Egyptian obelisks. This pyramid of Dashour is further remarkable on account of its magnificent revetment of polished Mocattam limestone, which is almost entirely preserved.

There is as great a difference in the material as in the form of the pyramids. As early as the third dynasty King Asychis (Asuchra) built a pyramid of what Herodotos terms Nile mud; that is to say, of sun-dried bricks. It is not improbable that the great pyramid of Dashour may be identified with this. Besides this peculiarity of material, it is of unusual construction, not having been immediately built upon the natural ground, but standing on a thick layer of sand, which, enclosed by retaining-walls, forms an excellent foundation.

Fig. 5.—Southern Stone Pyramid of Dashour.
Fig. 5.—Southern Stone Pyramid of Dashour.

One of the group of pyramids at Abousere is built of rubble-stones, quarried from the high plateau of the desert itself, and roughly cemented with Nile mud. The builder of this irregular masonry held it the more necessary to insure the ceiling of his grave-chamber with the greatest care, and three gables of stones, 10.90 m. long and 3.66 m. thick, provide a resistance as sufficient against the imposed mass as does the sixfold roofing of the King’s Chamber at Gizeh. (Fig. 6.) The exterior layers were carefully constructed of blocks from the quarries of Tourah. Immense dikes, forerunners of our modern causeways, led from these quarries to the buildings at Abousere. Although intended only for the conveyance of materials, they were yet so firmly built that they exist at the present time. Egyptian wall-paintings show in the clearest manner the transportation of colossal monolithic statues along these ways upon sledges, either moved upon rollers or dragged over an oiled slide, as in Fig. 7. The pyramid of Illahoun, like the northern pyramid of Dashour and others, is built of brick; its masonry was additionally strengthened by walls of stone, the thickest being upon the diagonals of the plan. The pyramid of Meydoun is built of alternate horizontal courses of variously quarried stone. The following are the most important pyramids still standing, with their dimensions in meters:

	Name of Pyramid.	Original Height.	Present Height.	Side of Plan.	Angle of Ascent.
1.	Great pyramid of Gizeh	148.21	137.34	232.56	51° 52´
2.	Second pyramid of Gizeh	139.39	136.37	215.09	52° 21´
3.	Northern stone pyramid of Dashour	104.39	99.49	219.28	43° 36´
4.	Southern stone pyramid of Dashour	103.29	97.28	187.93	{above 54° 14´ {below 42° 59'
5.	Pyramid of Illahoun	—	39.62	now, 170.69	—
6.	Pyramid of Meydoun	—	68.40	now, 161.54	74° 10´
7.	Northern Pyramid of Lisht	—	20.85	now, 137.16	—
8.	Pyramid of Hovara	—	32.31	116.92	—
9.	Northern pyramid of Lisht	—	27.31	now, 109.73	—
10.	Southern brick pyramid of Dashour	81.46	47.55	104.39	57° 20´
11.	Great pyramid of Abousere	69.39	49.99	109.60	51° 42´
12.	Third pyramid of Gizeh	66.83	61.87	77.04	51° 10´
13.	Northern brick pyramid of Dashour	65.25	27.43	104.34	51° 20´
14.	Great pyramid of Saccara	61.06	57.91	E. × W. 120.02 N. × S. 107.01	73° 30´
15.	Pyramid of Abou-Roash	—	—	104.39	—

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.

Fig. 6.—Section of the Middle Pyramid of Abousere.
Fig. 6.—Section of the Middle Pyramid of Abousere.

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.

Fig. 7.—Transport of a Colossus. Egyptian Wall-painting.
Fig. 7.—Transport of a Colossus. Egyptian Wall-painting.

Fig. 8.—Section and Plan of the Northernmost Rock-cut Tomb at Beni-hassan.
Fig. 8.—Section and Plan of the Northernmost Rock-cut Tomb at Beni-hassan.

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.

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.

Fig. 15.—Capitals from Edfou.
Fig. 15.—Capitals from Edfou.

The temples of the new kingdom with their numerous halls and courts offered, on the other hand, most ample scope for the application of columnar architecture. These extended series of strangely enclosed rooms and courts, though richly decorated with paintings, would have seemed bare within and without if the column had not entered into their composition, and if the building had not been expanded and ornamented by its help. With the floral orders, the temple interior became an architectural organism truly deserving of study and admiration.

With exception of that portion of the structure which stood before the chief portal, and cannot be considered as an integral part of the building, every Egyptian temple was divided into three principal parts, contained within an oblong enclosure: namely, the court, the hall of columns, and the holy of holies—a series of cellas. (Fig. 18.) Long rows of sphinxes generally stand facing the avenue which leads to the entrance of the temple, and prepare for the sacred silence within. The doorway is flanked by two enormous towers, so-called pylons, formed like steep truncated pyramids. The walls of these masses of masonry, ornamented with coilanaglyphic paintings, show slots upon the front for the reception of the high flag-poles which are represented upon contemporary wall-decorations. The towers are crowned with the scotia cornice, the roundlet of which is continued down the angles. Within they are pierced by stairways and small chambers, scantily lighted by narrow slits in the wall. It is probable that the summits of these pylons, without doubt the highest standpoints in the valley of the Nile, served as observatories for the Egyptian astronomers and astrologers; a practical use was thus added to the original purpose of monumental decorative gate-ways. Two or four colossal sitting figures were generally placed before the pylons, and sometimes also two obelisks, bearing the dedicatory inscriptions of the temple.

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.

Fig. 18.—Southern Temple of Carnac.
Fig. 18.—Southern Temple of Carnac.

Fig. 19.—Temple of Edfou.
Fig. 19.—Temple of Edfou.

The second chief division of the building—the hall of columns, the hypostyle—is entered from the court, either directly or through new pylons. This space, generally not so deep as the outer peristyle, is entirely covered, the stone ceiling being upheld by close-standing columns, the number of which varies greatly according to the dimensions of the building. In the southern Temple of Carnac, the plan of which (Fig. 18.) may be regarded as typical of the usual Egyptian arrangement, eight columns are sufficient, while the dimensions of the hypostyle hall of Medinet-Abou render twenty-four necessary—a number increased to thirty-two in Luxor, forty-eight in the Memnonium of Ramses II., and to a maximum of one hundred and thirty-four in the Great Temple of Carnac. Smaller halls may have received their light through the portal. The upper half of the intercolumniations of the court colonnades was also occasionally left open, as shown by Fig. 19.; but, with the enormous dimensions of the hypostyle and the close ranges of shafts so frequent, a more perfect system of illumination was necessary. The light of day was procured for the hall by an eminently satisfactory arrangement, which gives the key to the true manner of lighting any enclosed space from above—the clerestory—so effectively developed in later ages. The two rows of columns nearest the longitudinal axis were made half as high again as their neighbors, thus lifting their entablature and ceiling well above that of the remaining space. These two ceilings on different levels were connected by piers placed upon the next range of shorter columns, which supported the edge of the higher covering. The light entered between these piers, their openings being but little impeded by stone tracery. The central aisle was thus brilliantly lighted, and, under the cloudless sky, rays and reflections could find their way into the most remote corners of the forest of columns. As shown by Fig. 21., the larger central columns were distinguished by the broad-spreading calyx capital from the others, which retained the simpler forms of the folded bud. The effect of such a hall, especially of the great hypostyle of Carnac, must have been magnificently rich and imposing. The dimensions of the chief columns were in this instance gigantic. They were 22.86 m. high. Their calyx capitals were 6.10 m. in diameter, the epistyle beams 6.70 by 1.83 by 1.22 m. The entire hall was 91.44 m. in length. Walls and columns were thickly covered with carved and painted decorations, which were kept well subordinated to the grand forms of the architecture, and were so blended by the varying light and shade that a rich and sober effect was produced by the somewhat gaudy colors.

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.

Fig. 21.—Section of the Hypostyle Hall, Great Temple of Carnac.
Fig. 21.—Section of the Hypostyle Hall, Great Temple of Carnac.

Fig. 22.—Chapel upon the Platform of the Temple of Dendera.
Fig. 22.—Chapel upon the Platform of the Temple of Dendera.

Magnificently as the temple architecture of the Egyptians had developed since the eighteenth dynasty, its advance had mainly affected the interior. The temples of every other people were built with more or less reference to an imposing exterior effect, but those of Egypt generally remained the fortress-like enclosures which had become typical in the earliest ages of the land’s history. The peripteral plan, indeed, occurs in several small cellas of the ancient kingdom, but it was exceptional, and did not arrive at any systematic development. It has been seen that Egyptian architecture, though it chanced upon the channelled shaft of the Proto-Doric column, was apparently unable to utilize this motive, the great importance of which was not recognized in the land of the Nile. The peripteral temple plan is a similar advance, which, not fitted for the requirements and tendencies of Egyptian architecture, lay dormant for centuries. The unbroken fortress-like walls of the temple were not pierced and resolved into the surrounding pteroma until the sceptre of Egypt had been swayed during three centuries by the semi-Hellenic Ptolemies. These rulers, warned by the example of Cambyses, were wise enough not to interfere with their Egyptian subjects in their most sensitive point of religious conceptions, rendered sacred by the traditions of thousands of years. But they did not hesitate to reintroduce into the land the exterior splendor of the peripteral plan, by that time so fully developed in Greece. The free and cheerful religious rites of the Greeks, performed before the temple, and not within it, agreed, as did the natural character of the people, with the peripteral temple, which was opened outwardly by its pteroma. It was otherwise with the mysterious and sombre precision of the Egyptian ritual, which demanded absolute seclusion. Though the peripteral temple plan was in some measure brought into vogue by the Ptolemies, it was, in Egypt, deprived of its chief characteristic—the freely opened intercolumniation. The Romans, in their desire similarly to combine columnar architecture with entire enclosure, merely decorated exterior walls with engaged shafts and pilasters, giving up the columns as supporting members of independent function, and using them only as a suggestive ornament. This merely decorative treatment, rare in Greece, was not adopted in Egypt until the latest times. The Egyptian preferred to place a screen-like wall, half the height of the columns, in each opening; this hid all the interior from view, even when the building was of small dimensions, as in Fig. 22., and permitted the access of light and air through the upper half of the intercolumniation. The one used as an entrance was also closed by a door-frame of greater height than the side screens. Upon the corners of the peripteral building inclined piers were often retained, as a reminiscence of the original enclosure wall as well as for greater constructional security. This is shown by the Temple of PhilÆ. (Fig. 23.) That the arrangement of outstanding columns did not entirely supplant the closed surrounding walls is evident from the same plan, where both methods occur side by side in a group of buildings of the same date.

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.

Fig. 24.—FaÇade of the Rock-cut Temple of Abou-Simbel.
Fig. 24.—FaÇade of the Rock-cut Temple of Abou-Simbel.

Far more important than these are the grotto temples of Abou-Simbel, in the vicinity of the second cataract, where the portals are also cut wholly from the rock. The larger of the two even attempts to approach, as well as is possible, the enormous pylons of the great Theban temples. (Fig. 24.) To this end the gentle inclination of the cliff was cut away to the talus angle of the Egyptian walls and pylons, and the cornice above, of roundlet and scotia, was worked from the rock. Four such colossal sitting figures, as are often placed before the pylons, were also cut from the cliff—an effective ornament and an economy of labor thus being secured. The representation of the portal between two pylons was given up; the whole front formed one wall in which the entrance-door was cut without further decoration. The empty space above the opening was filled by a high-relief, carved within an oblong niche. (Fig. 24.) The entrance, which has now been cleared of the sand, leads in natural order to a space corresponding to the court of the free-standing temples; it is somewhat similar to that of Girsheh, which was also erected by Ramses II., though more imposing and of better proportions. (Fig. 25.) A following room, the ceiling of which is supported by four piers, suggests the temple hypostyle, here much dwindled in extent from the difficulty of its excavation as well as from the general restriction of this space in Nubian monuments compared with those of Central Egypt. The innermost chambers of the holy of holies are not only as small as those of the free-standing temples, but are reduced in number.

Fig. 25.—Hall of the Rock-cut Temple of Abou-Simbel.
Fig. 25.—Hall of the Rock-cut Temple of Abou-Simbel.

The second rock-cut temple of Abou-Simbel, situated near the one described, is of smaller dimensions. It has upright colossal statues upon the front, which, instead of being cut in the round, have more the effect of reliefs from the fact that they stand in niches, a difference arising from the greater steepness of the cliff at this point. The treatment appears rational in consideration of the smaller amount of material thereby removed, though the unmonumental effect of the reliefs, which lean with the inclination of the wall, is an unfortunate result of this economy. The first hall, analogous to the temple court, has its ceiling supported by six piers, which are decorated upon the side towards the central aisle by Athor masks. Three entrances lead from this hall into a narrow space, here entirely at variance with the character of a hypostyle, and through this into the holy of holies. Notwithstanding the contraction of the two inner departments, the three principal divisions of the free-standing buildings can be recognized in all rock-cut temples.

Fig. 26.—Interior of a House. Egyptian Wall-painting.
Fig. 26.—Interior of a House. Egyptian Wall-painting.

The existing ruins allow a comparatively clear understanding of the religious architecture of Egypt, in which class the monumental tombs must be reckoned as well as the various forms of temples; but we are left almost entirely uninstructed as to the nature of the private dwellings. The plan of the cloisters within the great temple of Carnac (compare Fig. 20.) is indeed clear, though, being only a portion of a larger scheme, it had no individual or exterior expression. The manner in which these spaces were roofed and lighted is not evident.

The so-called royal pavilion of Medinet-Abou is a complete puzzle in its development of plan and assumed connection with other structures; it can only be held to prove that some private buildings were of several stories. Other peculiarities here noticeable are windows framed by lintels and jambs of enormous blocks, and rounded battlements above a projecting cornice.

Egyptian sculptures and wall-paintings often represent the interiors of well-to-do private houses and of palaces; they show the plans of dwellings and adjoining vegetable-gardens so well that the very products of the latter can be distinguished; but, though these plans designate the separate rooms and their entrances, it is still impossible to comprehend the general arrangement of a normal house, or its exterior appearance. The views of the interiors, with their slim columns and narrow entablatures, with a system of perspective which shows things above one another instead of behind one another, with their evident misrepresentations and constructive impossibilities, must have stood in very much the same relation to the Egyptian reality as the fictitious architecture of the Pompeian wall-decorations does to the buildings of the Greeks and Romans. The architectural details introduced by the painter served only as a frame for the figures or for the contents of the store-rooms which he represented.

It may be concluded that, when private dwellings were more pretentious than the single room necessary to provide the most imperative shelter, columns were not excluded from them; and, from the absence of any remains of these supports, it is probable they were of wood. The ruins and rubbish of sun-dried bricks, which compose the overthrown cities hitherto excavated, show that the great majority of dwellings were no more than low hovels.

Even palaces seldom went beyond a series of small chambers, and thus did not present an important architectural problem. This is illustrated by the gigantic labyrinth, famed in so many fables of antiquity, and somewhat known by the excavations of Lepsius in the Fayoum. (Fig. 27.) A great number of small chambers are here grouped in three rectangular wings around an oblong space, which was probably divided into several courts. The walls remaining do not show that geometrical regularity of arrangement described by Herodotos, Strabo, Diodoros, and Pliny, but a really labyrinthic aggregate of small chambers, the destination of which is not clear. The pyramid which closes the fourth side of the square is alone of monumental importance. It seems possible that, instead of one or more palaces, we have here the remains of some city. It is certainly wrong to connect the work with the Dodecarchia (twenty-sixth dynasty, 685 to 525 B.C.): the twelve pretenders would hardly have united to erect a common monument. In the list of Manetho, Amenophis III., the sixth king of the twelfth dynasty, is mentioned as the founder, a notice corroborated by inscriptions discovered on the site.

Fig. 27.—Labyrinth of the Fayoum.
Fig. 27.—Labyrinth of the Fayoum.

That the private buildings were so unimportant in comparison with the religious architecture of Egypt is explained by the excessive subjugation of the people to a monastic ritual, and by the favorable character of the Egyptian climate. It is necessity that prompts invention, and Egypt, with its ever-cloudless sky and constant temperature, required no protection against the inclemency of the weather; the climate did not force man to spend his days within doors, nor did it destroy the lightest shelter. In the absence of rain, the most primitive horizontal ceiling was sufficient. According to the religious conceptions of the Egyptian, it was more important for him to prepare a permanent house for his death-sleep—he had more at heart the protection of his corpse than of his living body. Thus thousands of graves have been preserved, while science cannot find a single dwelling remaining to betray even the general character of Egyptian domestic architecture. To these considerations it must be added that the dwellings stood in the valley of the Nile, and have been subjected to annual inundations which have formed a considerable alluvial deposit, while the graves were almost without exception situated upon the changeless cliffs that border on the desert.

The architecture of Egypt was practised in a manner to show almost no historical development—with the sculpture this is the case in still greater degree. The most ancient carved remains, which with reasonable security may be assigned to the fifth dynasty, show the formal system, retained during the subsequent twenty centuries, as already perfected. Even at that early date the network of lines, which the Egyptian sculptors (more as mechanics than as artists) followed down to the time of the Ptolemies, was already calculated and introduced as a canon.

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.

Egyptian Profile. Fig. 28. Greek Profile.
Egyptian Profile. Fig. 28. Greek Profile.

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.

Fig. 31.—Lion of Reddish Granite. (British Museum.)
Fig. 31.—Lion of Reddish Granite. (British Museum.)

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.

Fig. 32.—Sculptural Work. Egyptian Wall-painting.
Fig. 32.—Sculptural Work. Egyptian Wall-painting.

The relief is a transitional stage between sculpture and painting; it works upon a more or less flat surface, seeks its chief effect in outline, and lends itself readily to the heightening of color. The most common Egyptian relief, which has been termed coilanaglyphic, being hollowed out, stands even nearer to painting than to sculpture. In real reliefs the surface is so cut away as to leave the figures embossed; but here the forms do not rise above the background, and the original plane remains untouched: the sculptor contented himself with firmly incising the outlines, and slightly rounding the forms of the body within them. This incised outline is clearly seen only by sharp side light, but it has the advantage of protecting the borders of the figures and thus securing the indestructibility of the representation. In other respects the coilanaglyphics are nothing else than paintings, the space within the carved outlines being colored in the same manner as are all Egyptian wall decorations. The limits of the latter art were thus greatly extended, for all temples were covered with such colored coilanaglyphics, while the stuccoed sides of rock-cut tombs and of brick masonry were richly ornamented by paintings.

The number of ancient painted decorations which have been preserved is very great, notwithstanding their age and the perishable nature of all pigments exposed to air and light. The subjects represented and often repeated are, for the greater part, religious scenes, which share the monotony of the strict Egyptian ritual, though often allowing an interesting insight into the customs of interment, the transport of mummies by the processional boat, the sacred dances and sacrifices. Representations of profane scenes are more varied and are exceedingly interesting; the technicalities of Egyptian art are shown by the cutting of a monolithic palm-column, the polishing of a granite chapel, the painting of walls, the writing of hieroglyphics upon tablets and papyrus, the carving and painting of sphinxes and statues (Fig. 32.), the transport of a colossal figure upon a sledge (Fig. 7.), the making of bricks and walling of brick masonry, the interior of houses (Fig. 26.), even the plans of dwellings and gardens. Besides numerous tools and the products of manufacturing trades, there may be recognized upon these paintings weavers, rope-makers, the preparers of paper and of linen cloth, ship-builders, carpenters with hand-saw and auger, and the cutters of bows and lances (Fig. 33.), who employ adzes quite similar to those still in use. Commerce on land and sea is represented by wares, unpacked or in bales, by scales, various kinds of wagons and trading vessels, etc., all shown in the clearest manner possible. Ploughs, sowing and harvesting, the gathering of figs and grapes, the pressing of oil and wine, illustrate the condition of agriculture; while the especial ability of the Egyptians for animal representations is exercised in the hunting scenes of lions, tigers, buffaloes, jackals, and gazelles; by the snaring of birds and fishes in nets, as well as by the admirably characterized figures of apes, porcupines, etc. There are also historical paintings, great battle scenes, the storming of cities, and the triumph of the returning victors, who bring with them booty and prisoners, the nationality of whom is often readily distinguishable by peculiarities of physiognomy and costume. (Fig. 34.) The Egyptian kings appear of superhuman size, either fighting from splendid war-chariots, or striding forward to sacrifice their kneeling enemies, a dozen of whom, seized at once by the hair, are decapitated at a blow.

Fig. 34.—Prisoners of Different Nationalities. Egyptian Wall-painting.
Fig. 34.—Prisoners of Different Nationalities. Egyptian Wall-painting.

Extended and varied as these Egyptian representations were, and instructive as that which through their agency has been preserved now is, it yet must be confessed that the painting was more a conventional picture-writing than an art. The seven colors used—red, blue, brown, yellow, green, black, and white—are, as a rule, applied simply, without mixture or variation, and without much reference to the appearance of nature. At least, it is very rarely that any striving after natural effect is to be noticed; that, for instance, the skin of a negress appears bluish-gray through a partially transparent white drapery, or that the typical red-brown complexion of an Egyptian, under similar conditions, is of a broken yellow. Within the sharply drawn outlines the colors are flat and without any modification by light and shade, upon the changing effects of which all pictorial illusion is based. This illusion is the fundamental principle of painting, the aim of which is to render the appearance of objects. It being here entirely lacking, we cannot properly speak of an art of painting in Egypt, or, indeed, in antiquity at all, before the time of Polygnotos. Egyptian paintings are entirely of the nature of ornament; the representation of human beings is conventionalized in the same manner as are floral ornaments,—while imitated to a certain degree from nature, it is simplified according to the requirements of decorative laws. The actions shown are all without truth and life. The beauty of decoration demands a certain harmony in the choice of colors, which is there unfettered; in Egyptian paintings this is sought and attained at the cost of truth to nature. It was not distasteful to the Egyptian to see the same figure repeated a dozen times in absolute similarity, for an ornament can always bear repetition.

To these considerations must be added a marked peculiarity of Egyptian painting. Although the art had been restricted to the portrayal of merely exterior actions, even this end could hardly have been attained without the complement of a written explanation, which was here so adjoined as to harmonize with the figures in composition and even in color. This conjunction is far more intimate than is that of picture and text in an illustrated chronicle: the hieroglyphic writing and the painting are closely allied in character. It was only a step from the one to the other, and their limits are sometimes hardly distinguishable, especially in the stucco paintings of the mummy-coffins and the pen and brush drawings upon papyrus manuscripts, where the carelessness of the execution increases the similarity. The hieroglyphic inscriptions might even be considered as the extreme consequence of the hieratically conventionalized pictures.

The painting of Egypt existed unchanged for a period of more than two thousand years, with a stability unequalled in the other civilizations of the world. It was perhaps not quite so extensively employed in the ancient kingdom as in later times: paintings can be dated as far back as the third dynasty (3338 to 3124 B.C., according to Lepsius), but they were restricted to interior decoration. The walls of the pyramids were unadorned by color. After the practice of art had been greatly limited by the invasion of the Hycsos (from the thirteenth to the seventeenth dynasty, 2136 to 1591 B.C.), it arose with new vigor at the advent of the modern kingdom, especially during the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, when the architecture which flourished at Thebes offered a wide field for painted decorations. From that time the walls lost their bareness, and richly colored ornaments were employed even upon the exterior, enlivening the dead and heavy character of Egyptian building and somewhat supplying the deficiency of its exterior development.

The art of Egypt attained its greatest elaboration—not, indeed, without some loss of national character—in the time of Alexander and the Ptolemies (332 to 30 B.C.), when Hellenic influence broke through the sombre massiveness of the unmembered walls and applied the brilliant decoration of colored columns to the exterior.

But, delightful as the island of PhilÆ appears because of these changes, it yet marks the commencing decline of Egyptian art, with the negation of the serious and mystical peculiarities of the land. The excellence of Egyptian technical processes could only delay the utter exhaustion and extinction of their art until the time of the later Roman empire.

Fig. 35.—Assyrian Shrines. Relief from Corsabad.
Fig. 35.—Assyrian Shrines. Relief from Corsabad.