away from the eye instead of boldly challenging observation; but, on the other hand, no form is so stable, none so capable of resisting the injuries of time or force, and none, consequently, so well calculated to attain the object for which the pyramids were erected.' While there is little that indicates a notion of architectural design, the mechanical execution of plain masonry had already attained to perfection. The external coating of the great pyramid, which Herodotus tells us was of polished stone, fitted together with the utmost care,' no longer exists, but the passages and chambers of the interior are lined with slabs of polished granite, and the joints are so fine that they can scarcely be distinguished. * The remains of a temple at Ghizeh, believed to belong to the age of the pyramids, confirms the conclusion that architecture was yet in its infancy. The piers which run down the centre of the principal chambers, as props to the roof are, says Mr. Fergusson, simple prisms of Syenite granite, without base or capital, and support architraves as simple in outline as themselves. The walls are generally wainscoted with immense slabs of alabaster, or of Syenite beautifully polished, but with sloping joints and uneven beds.' The contemporaneous tombs which surround the pyramids are lined with coloured representations of scenes from Egyptian life, but the temple has no trace of either painting or sculpture. There is not so much as a moulding to relieve the pervading bareness. Chambers, piers, and architraves are unadorned rectangles, without an attempt at invention. The temple derives no assistance from its size, for its length does not exceed 100 feet. The passion of the royal pyramid builders for vastness seems to have been confined to their tombs. The progress from the early stone-mason structures of Egypt to its palmiest days of architecture can be only imperfectly traced, and without lingering over what is known of the intermediate stages we pass at once to the great Pharaonic period. The five centuries which elapsed between the accession of the new dynasty, B.C. 1820, to the exode of the Jews, B.c. 1312, are said by Mr. Fergusson to be the culminating era of artistic development with the Egyptians. The seat of empire was transferred from Memphis to Thebes, and the edifices proclaim that another race, distinct in its mental tendencies, had got possession of the throne. The regular forms have given way to a deliberate rejection of geometrical precision. The gateways of the temples, Two of the coping-stones were discovered by Colonel Howard Vyse. 'buried in the rubbish at the base of the pyramid,' and their workmanship vindicates the account of Herodotus. flanked flanked by their pyramidal towers, 'are seldom,' says Mr. Fergusson, 'in the axis of the plan; the courts seldom square; the angles frequently not right angles, and one court succeeding another without the least reference to symmetry.' The columns are sometimes unequally spaced, and the capitals spring from their shafts at different levels. The neat execution of the old builders is exchanged for 'masonry which is frequently of the rudest and clumsiest kind.' 'It would long ago have perished," says Mr. Fergusson, but for its massiveness, and there is in all the works an appearance of haste and want of care that sometimes goes far to mar the value of the grandest conceptions.' In these particulars the edifices of the Pharaonic kings are inferior to the buildings of their predecessors. In general splendour of design they completely eclipse the more primitive structures. For the prosaic pyramid and bare rectangle we have vast poetic conceptions which appeal with overwhelming power to the imagination. Temples are approached by long avenues of sphinxes, and the vista is terminated by the imposing pyramidal towers at the entrance. Within the walls court follows court, and hall follows hall. The columns ranged row behind row, 'gradually fade into obscurity, and convey an idea of infinite space.' The dimensions both of the whole and its separate portions are on a mighty scale. The great hall of the temple at Karnac is 340 feet by 170; the central columns are 12 feet in diameter and 66 feet high; the diameter of the side columns is 9 feet, and their height 42. The architect has gone to the vegetable world for the model of his gigantic pillars, which are copied from the reeds of the papyrus in bud or in bloom. The Egyptian had none of our English admiration for the naked surface of stone. He painted his temples inside and out, and most of the patterns, figures, and hieroglyphics are sculptured as well as coloured. The gay, decided hues were rendered grateful by their harmony, and tempered the ponderous proportions of the fabric without impairing its majesty. The variety and immensity of the plan, the prodigious massiveness of the construction, and the endless accumulation of decorative details appear to be the work of a more than mortal race, and impress the pigmy spectator with a sense of the sublime. The plan of the great hall at Karnac, and the section of its central portion will show the arrangement of this part of the temple, and convey a notion of the contrivances by which the Egyptians produced their grand effects. The hall is what is called hypostyle, or has a clerestory carried up upon the first row of the lesser columns. The openings openings in the raised sides lighted the grove of pillars to the right and the left by an oblique light which, intense in the Section of central portion of Hypostyle Hall at Karnac. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in. central avenue, was almost lost in the distance. The files of gigantic columns grew dim in the rear, their number seemed endless, endless, their ultimate boundary undefined, and enormous as was the structure, the skill of the designer magnified it immensely to the mind. As the shape of the large piers in the centre of the hall was suggested by the papyrus in bloom, it was evidently thought that there was a fitness in framing the smaller piers on the pattern of the papyrus in bud. The representation is conventional, but the intention was rendered apparent by the leaflets at the bottom of the capital or the shaft. In the earliest form of the plant-column several buds, with their stalks, are tied in a bundle, as in the pillar from the rock-cut tomb at Beni Hassan. The bands which fastened the cluster together were usually retained when the column was reduced to a single enormous stem, and there was nothing left to bind. There are two theories of the manner in which slender plants became the archetype for mighty props that exceed in their dimensions the giants of the forest. Wood is scarce in Egypt, and some suppose that reeds tied together were used for posts in slight structures, and were afterwards imitated in stone. Others maintain that since the plants were painted for ornament on the square piers which originally prevailed, and were next cut in relief, the decorative outline on the surface was finally Pillar from Beni Hassan. adopted for the outline of the column itself. Whichever view is correct, the existing examples prove that the device followed the usual architectural rule, and was matured by degrees. 'If,' says Herodotus of the Labyrinth in Egypt, 'all the walls and other great works of the Greeks could be put together in one they would not equal this either for labour or expense. The pyramids, likewise, surpass description, and are severally equal to a number of the greatest works of the Greeks, but the Labyrinth surpasses the pyramids.' The army of labourers and artisans who reared the colossal buildings of the Egyptian kings were beyond the resources of the little States of Greece. large temples are late and exceptional structures. In the formation of their style they were obliged to renounce the impressions which depended on size, and seek for a substitute in the exquisite beauty of the smaller edifices within their means. Few things in the history of architecture are more instructive than the manner in which they attained their end. Their They They borrowed nearly all the fundamental parts of their system, but went on refining upon the originals until they had distanced every nation in artistic taste and skill. Among the rock-hewn tombs at Beni Hassan in Middle Egypt there is one with a portico, which plainly reveals whence the Greeks derived their Doric order. The fluted columns would naturally be educed from the square pier. The corners would be cut off when they stood in the way; the faces would soon be multiplied by repeating the Tomb at Beni Hassan. process, and when in a polygon of many sides the angles became so obtuse as to be barely perceptible, the grooves would be ploughed to restore sharpness to the edges, and give brilliancy to the pillars. In the Beni Hassan specimen the square cap or abacus rests immediately on the shaft without the interposition of the moulding or echinus which enters into the Doric of the Greeks. This, however, is present in other Egyptian examples, as in a capital from the southern temple at Karnac. The ligatures which bound the water-plants have been transferred to the fluted column where they have no significance, and to complete the evidence of the origin of the Grecian Doric, they reappear in the annuli at the top of its shaft. The Greek architecture was homogeneous in the midst of its varieties, which was due to the harmonising tact of the race, for the elements were gleaned from different quarters. It is not more clear that the Doric came from Egypt than that the Ionic order was an importation from Asia. The general conception of a capital with volutes is seen in the representation of a pavilion among the Assyrian sculptures brought from Khorsabad. The double tier of scrolls was rejected by the Greeks, and the lower half alone was retained. They had better guides than rude models Capital in Temple at Karnac. like |