A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Volume II Part 7

However that may be, it is the fact that in a bas-relief of the fifth dynasty we find a capital presenting the outline, in full detail, of a lotus-flower which has just opened its petals (Figs. 56 and 57).

Rarer and later types than these are also foreshadowed in the early bas-reliefs. We shall hereafter have to speak of a campaniform capital in which the bell is not inverted, in the part constructed by Thothmes of the great temple at Karnak. Its prototype may certainly be recognized in a figured pavilion at Sakkarah, dating from the sixth dynasty. We reproduce it from a squeeze sent to us by M. Bourgoin (Figs. 58 and 59).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 56.--Bas-relief from the 5th dynasty; from Lepsius.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 57.--Details of columns in Fig. 56.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 58.--Pavilion from Sakkarah, 6th dynasty.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 59.--Details of column in Fig. 58.]

During the Ptolemaic period, the Egyptian architects made frequent use of the form of capital which is now called _hathoric_, in which a masque of Hathor, the cow-headed G.o.ddess, is the ruling principle.

This capital is to be seen, in a rudimentary condition, in a pavilion dating from the fifth dynasty (Figs. 60 and 61). It there occurs, as will be seen by referring to our ill.u.s.trations, as the roughly blocked-out head of a cow.

In connection with the last two bas-reliefs, we must call attention to the fact that the structures from which they were imitated must have been erected in some kind of metal. Their forms are inconsistent with the use of any other material. The way in which the capital is connected with the member to which it acts as support, in Fig. 59, and the open-work of the architrave in Fig. 61, are especially suggestive.

In the latter bas-relief the figures introduced are evidently behind a grille, and the whole structure is expressive of metal-work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 60.--Bas-relief from the 5th dynasty; from Lepsius.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 61.--Details of the columns.]

We suspect that the pavilion shown in Fig. 56 was also of metal, which seems to have played an important part in all that light form of architecture with which we make acquaintance in the sepulchral decorations. This is very clearly seen in the examples of painted columns, which we borrow from Prisse (Figs. 62-65). They present forms which could only have been compa.s.sed by the use of some metal like bronze. If the use of metal be admitted, we have no difficulty in accounting for the playful and slender grace found in some of these columns, and the ample tufted capitals of others. The natural tendency in painted decorations of this kind to exaggerate the characteristics of their models must not, however, be overlooked. Not being compelled to apportion the strength of supports to the weight which they have to carry, it is always inclined to elongate forms. The decorations at Pompeii are a striking instance of this. Pompeian painters gave impossible proportions to their columns, which evidently existed no where but in their own fancies. We admit that the Egyptian decorators did something of the same kind, that they exaggerated proportions and acc.u.mulated motives on a single capital, which were not to be found co-existing in reality. But, with these reserves, we think it more than probable that the columns shown in their paintings have preserved the general aspect of the supports employed in those curiously elegant pavilions to which they belonged. The forms in Fig. 62 are explained, on the one hand, by the imitation of vegetable forms, on the other by the behaviour of a metal plate under the hand of the workman. The curve which was afterwards, under the name of a _volute_, to play such an important part in Greek architecture, was thus naturally obtained.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 62-65.--Columns from bas-reliefs (Prisse).]

It will thus be seen that during the Ancient Empire the lighter forms of architecture were far in advance of that which made use of stone.

It possessed a richness and variety of its own, which were rendered possible by the comparative ease with which wood and metal could be manipulated, an ease which gradually led the artist onwards to the invention of forms conspicuous for their playful originality and their singular diversity.

As for the quadrangular pier, with which the stone architecture of the Ancient Empire was contented, we are a.s.sured that it had its origin in the rock-cut tombs. In the oldest works of the kind in Egypt, the funerary grottos of Memphis, "these piers (we are told) owe their existence to the natural desire to cause the light from without to penetrate to a second or even to a third chamber. In order to obtain this result, openings were made in the front wall on each side of the door, and the parts of the rock which were left for support became for that reason objects of care, and finally took the form of piers. The rock over these piers was the prototype of the architrave."[91]

[91] EBERS, _aegypten_, vol. ii., p. 186. All this pa.s.sage of Ebers is, however, nothing more than an epitome of a paper by LEPSIUS, ent.i.tled: _Ueber einige aegyptische Kunstformen und ihre Entwickelung_ (in the _Transactions of the Berlin Academy_, 1871, 4to). This paper contains many just observations and ingenious notions; but, to our mind it is over systematized, and its theories cannot all be accepted.

It may be so. But, on the other hand, the pier of dressed stone may have had a still more simple origin. It may have resulted from the obvious requirements of construction. As soon as wooden buildings began to be supplemented by work in stone, it became necessary to find supports strong enough for the weight of stone roofs. Nothing could be more natural than to take a block of stone as it came from the quarry, and to set it up on end. In course of time its faces would be dressed and its section accommodated to a square, for the love of symmetry is innate in man. The pier may also be seen foreshadowed in the squared beams of that closed form of wooden architecture which has been already noticed.

We see, then, that the earliest Egyptian art of which we have any remains comprised the princ.i.p.al elements of which later architects made use. But it is among the ruins of the great monuments constructed during the Theban supremacy that we must attempt to form an exhaustive list of their architectural forms, and to show how the genius of the race, obeying that mysterious law which governs all organic development, arrived at the complete realization of the ideal towards which it had been advancing through so many centuries. At Thebes alone can the architectural genius of the Egyptians be judged.

GENERAL TYPES OF SUPPORTS.

In the following pages all the princ.i.p.al varieties of Egyptian pier and column are pa.s.sed in review. We believe that no type of any importance has been omitted. The ill.u.s.trations are all drawn to one scale of about ten feet to the inch. The difference in the size of the reproductions is therefore a guide to the relative proportions of the originals, and an idea can be easily formed of their comparative importance in the buildings in which they occur.

The quadrangular pier is the simplest form of support, and, as might be expected, it is also the most ancient. In the example which we have taken from a tomb in the necropolis of Sakkarah, a tomb dating from the Ancient Empire, it has already a base (Fig. 66), an addition which is not to be found in the Temple of the Sphinx (Fig. 204, vol. i.).

Elsewhere it tapers to the top; an instance of this, dating from a much later period, is found in the speos of Phre, at Ipsamboul (Fig.

67). In all these cases the architrave rests directly upon the shaft, an arrangement which gives the pier an archaic character in spite of its base.

A very different appearance was obtained when, in the time of Rameses, the pier was provided with a more ample base, and covered with hieroglyphs and figures. It received a capital at the same time, and became worthy of playing its part in a richly-decorated building like the great temple at Karnak, from which our Fig. 68 is taken. The same may be said of the hathoric pier. The example shown in Fig. 69 is taken from the speos of Hathor at Ipsamboul. The lower part of the shaft is covered with inscriptions above which appears a mask of Hathor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 66.--Quadrangular pier; from Prisse.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 67.--Tapering quadrangular pier; from Gailhabaud.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 68.--Pier with capital; from Prisse.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 69.--Hathoric pier; from Gailhabaud.]

The form of pier called _osiride_ is still more elaborate and decorative. These piers consist of two parts; a quadrangular shaft covered with inscriptions, and a colossal statue of the king who was the constructor of the building in which they are found, endowed with the head-dress and other attributes of Osiris. The motive was a favourite one with the princes of the nineteenth dynasty, and it is continuously repeated both in the great temples of the left bank at Thebes and in the rock-cut temples of Nubia. Our ill.u.s.tration is taken from an osiride pier in the second court of Medinet-Abou. The word _caryatid_ cannot strictly be applied to these piers, because the statues do not help to support the ma.s.s above, they are merely affixed to the pier which actually performs that office.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 70.--Osiride pillar.]

The Ethiopian architects borrowed the motive of these osiride pillars.

They introduced into colonnaded buildings, copied from those of the Rameses, some colossal figures in which the Typhon of the Greeks has sometimes been recognized. They probably represent the G.o.d Set. They, too, are only applied to the supports. There is but one instance in the whole of Egyptian architecture of the human figure being frankly employed as a support, namely, in the case of those brackets or balconies which overhang the courts of the Royal Pavilion at Medinet-Abou (Fig. 10). But even here the support is more apparent than real, for the slabs between which the figures are crouched are upheld by the wall at their backs. In this there is nothing that can be compared to the work done by the dignified virgins of the Erectheum or the muscular giants of Agrigentum, in upholding the ma.s.sive architraves confided to their strength.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 71.--Ornamented pier; Karnak.]

A last and curious variety of pier is found in the granite chambers of the Great Temple at Karnak. Upon two of their faces are carved groups of three tall stems surmounted by flowers. Upon one face these flowers are shaped like inverted bells (see Fig. 71), on the other they resemble the curling petals of the lily. Flower and stem are painted with colours which make them stand out from the red of the polished granite. These piers are two in number, and the faces which are without the decoration described are covered with finely executed sculptures in intaglio.[92]

[92] See PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art egyptien_, pp. 359, 360.

These piers are 29 feet high. "Their height, as well as their situation, seems to indicate that they never bore any architrave. They were once, however, crowned by some royal symbol; probably by bronze hawks, which may have been ornamented with enamel. There are many representations of such arrangements in the bas-reliefs at Karnak."[93] Supposing this hypothesis to be well founded, these piers had something in common with a stele; had their height been less they might have been called pedestals; had their shape been less uncompromisingly rectangular, they might have been called obelisks.

Like the steles they are self-contained and independent of their surroundings.[94]

[93] _Ibid._

[94] At Dayr-el-Bahari there are some pillars of the same shape but engaged in the wall. They support groups--carved in stone and painted--comprising a hawk, a vulture, cynocephali, and so on. They are in the pa.s.sage which leads to the north-western _speos_. Their total height, inclusive of the animals which surmount them, is nearly 18 feet, of which the groups make up nearly a third. The lower part is ornamented by mouldings in the shape of panels. These pilasters should be more carefully studied and reproduced if they still exist: the sketches from which we have described them were made some fifteen years ago.

In that monument of Egyptian sculpture which is, perhaps, the oldest of all, namely, the bas-relief engraved by Seneferu upon the rocks of Wadi-Maghara, a hawk crowned with the _pschent_ stands before the conqueror upon a quadrangular pier which has panels marked upon it in the same fashion as at Dayr-el-Bahari.

We see, then, that as time went on the Egyptian architects have transformed the old, plain, rectangular pier--by giving it capital and base, by adorning it with painted and sculptured decorations--until it became fit to take its place in the most ornate architectural composition. We have yet to follow the same constructive member in a further series of modifications which ended by making it indistinguishable from the column proper.

In order thoroughly to understand all these intermediary types we must return to the rock-cut tombs, in which the ceilings were upheld by piers left standing when the excavation was made. The desire to get as much light as possible past these piers led to their angles being struck off in the first instance, and thus a quadrangular pier became an octagonal prism (Fig. 72), and was connected with the soil by a large, flat, disk-shaped base.

By repeating the same process and cutting off the eight angles of this prism, a sixteen-sided shaft was obtained, examples of which are to be found at Beni-Ha.s.san in the same tomb as the octagonal column (Fig.

73).

"The practical difficulty of cutting these sixteen faces with precision and of equalizing the angles at which they met each other, added to the natural desire to make the division into sixteen planes clearly visible, and to give more animation to the play of light and shade, inspired the Egyptian architects with the happy notion of transforming the obtuse angles into salient ridges by hollowing out the s.p.a.ces between them."[95] The highest part, however, of these pillars remained quadrangular, thus preserving a reminiscence of the original type, and supplying a connecting link between the shaft and the architrave which almost exactly corresponds to the Greek _abacus_.

This quadrangular member was advantageous in two ways; it prevented any incoherence between the diameter of the shaft and the depth of the architrave, and it supplied an unchanging element to the composition.[96] The persistence of this square abacus helps to call our attention to the continual changes undergone by the shaft which it surmounts. The slight inclination of the sides gives to the latter the effect of a cone, and the contrast between its almost circular top and the right-angles of the abacus helps us to remember that the square pier was its immediate progenitor.

[95] EBERS, _aegypten_, vol. ii., p. 184.

[96] CHIPIEZ, _Histoire critique des Origines et de la Formation des Ordres Grecques_, p. 44.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 72.--Octagonal pillar; Beni-Ha.s.san.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 73.--Sixteen-sided pillar; fluted.]

The conical form of the pillars at Beni-Ha.s.san, their want of a well-marked base, their sixteen flutes, the square abacus interposed between their shafts and the architrave, made, when taken together, a great impression upon the mind of Champollion. He thought that in them he had found a first sketch for the oldest of the Greek orders, and that the type brought to perfection by the builders of Corinth and Paestum had its origin in the tombs of Beni-Ha.s.san; he accordingly proposed to call their columns _proto-doric_.

Here we shall not attempt to discuss Champollion's theory. It would be impossible to do so with advantage without having previously studied the doric column itself, and pointed out how little these resemblances amount to. The doric column had no base; the diminution of its diameter was much more rapid; its capital, which comprised an echinus as well as an abacus, was very different in importance from the little tablet which we find at Beni-Ha.s.san. The general proportions of the Greek and Egyptian orders are, however, almost identical; the shafts are fluted in each instance, and they both have the same air of simplicity and imposing gravity.

But it is futile to insist upon any such comparison. The polygonal column had long been disused when the Greeks first penetrated into the Nile valley and had an opportunity of imitating the works of the Egyptians. It was in use in the time of the Middle Empire, during the eleventh and twelfth dynasties. The earlier princes of the Second Theban Empire introduced it into their stone buildings, but there are no examples which we can affirm to be later than the eighteenth dynasty. The Rameses and their successors preferred forms less bold and severe; their columns were true columns with swelling entasis and rich and varied capitals. It is no doubt true that towards the seventh century the Greeks could find the polygonal column which we have described in many an ancient monument. But those early visitors were not archaeologists. Astonished and dazzled by the pompous buildings of a Psemethek or an Amasis, they were not likely to waste their attention upon an abandoned and obsolete type. Their admiration would be reserved for the great edifices of the nineteenth and later dynasties, for such creations as Medinet-Abou, the Ramesseum, and the Great Hall at Karnak; creations which had their equals in those cities of the Delta which were visited by Herodotus and Hecataeus. If Greek art had borrowed from the Egypt of that day it would have transferred to its own home not the simple lines of the porticos at Beni-Ha.s.san, but something ornate and complex, like the order of the small temple of Nectanebo at Philae.