A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Volume II Part 13

-- 8. _Doors and Windows._

So far we have been concerned with the structure and shape of Egyptian buildings; we have now to describe the openings pierced in their substance for the admission of light, for the circulation of their inhabitants and for the entrance of visitors from without. The doors and windows of the Egyptians were peculiar in many ways and deserve to be carefully described.

DOORS.

The plans of Egyptian doorways do not always show the same arrangements. The embrasure of which we moderns make use is seldom met with. It occurs in the peripteral temple at Elephantine, but that is quite an exception (Fig. 141). The doorways of the temples were generally planned as in Fig. 142, and in the pa.s.sage which traverses the thickness of the pylons, there is in the middle an enlargement forming a kind of chamber into which, no doubt, double doors fell back on either side (Fig. 143).

In their elevations doorways show still greater variety.

Let us consider in the first place those by which access was gained to the _temenos_, or outer inclosure, of the temple. They may be divided into three cla.s.ses.

First of all comes the pylon proper, with its great doorway flanked on either side by a tower which greatly exceeds it in height (Fig. 207, Vol. I.). Champollion has pointed out that even in the Egyptian texts themselves a distinction is made between the _pylon_ and that which he calls the _propylon_. The latter consists of a door opening through the centre of a single pyramidoid ma.s.s, and instead of forming a facade to the temple itself, it is used for the entrances to the outer inclosure. Figs. 144 and 145 show the different hieroglyphs which represent it.[136]

[136] From CHAMPOLLION, _Grammaire egyptienne_, p. 53.

These propylons, to adopt Champollion's term, seem to have included two different types which are now known to us only through the Ptolemaic buildings and the monumental paintings, as the boundary walls of the Pharaonic period have almost entirely disappeared and their gateways with them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 141.--Plan of doorway, Temple of Elephantine.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 142.--Plan of doorway, Temple of Khons.]

We have ill.u.s.trated the first type in our restoration, page 339, Vol.

I. (Fig. 206). The doorway itself is very high, in which it resembles many propylons of the Greek period which still exist at Karnak and Denderah.[137] The thickness of the whole ma.s.s and its double cornice, between which the covered way on the top of the walls could be carried, are features which we also encounter in the propylon of Denderah and in that of the temple at Daybod in Nubia.[138] We have added nothing but the wall, and a gateway, in Egypt, implies a wall; for there is no reason to suppose that the Egyptians had anything a.n.a.logous to the triumphal arches of the Romans. The temple was a closed building, to which all access was forbidden to the crowd. The doors may well have been numerous, but, if they were to be of any use at all, they must have been connected by a continuous barrier which should force the traffic to pa.s.s through them.

[137] EBERS, _aegypten_, p. 250.

[138] FELIX TEYNARD, _Vues d'egypte et de Nubie_, pl. 106.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 143.--Plan of doorway in the pylon, Temple of Khons. _Description_, iii. 54.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 144, 145.--The pylon and propylon of the hieroglyphs.]

In our restorations this doorway rises above the walls on each side and stands out from them, on plan, both within and without. We may fairly conjecture that it was so. The architect would hardly have wasted rich decoration and a well designed cornice upon a ma.s.s which was to be almost buried in the erections on each side of it. It must have been conspicuous from a distance, and this double relief would make it so. There are, moreover, a few instances in which these secondary entrances have been preserved together with the walls through which they provided openings, and they fully confirm our conjectures. One of these is the gateway to the outer court of the Temple of Thothmes at Medinet-Abou (Fig. 146). This gateway certainly belongs to the Ptolemaic part of the building, but we have no reason to suppose that the architects of the Macedonian period deserted the ancient forms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 146.--Gateway to the court-yard of the small Temple at Medinet-Abou. _Description_, ii. 4.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 147.--A propylon with its masts.]

The propylons were decorated with masts like the pylons, as we see by a figure in a painting in one of the royal tombs at Thebes, which was reproduced by Champollion[139] (Fig. 147). Judging from the scenes and inscriptions which accompany it, Champollion thought this represented a propylon at the Ramesseum. That the artist should, as usual, have omitted the wall, need not surprise us when we remember how monotonous and free from incident those great brick inclosures must have been.

[139] _Monuments de l'egypte et de la Nubie_, _Notices Descriptives_, p. 504.

The second type of propylon differs from the first in having a very much smaller doorway in comparison with its total ma.s.s. In the former the door reaches almost to the cornice, in the latter it occupies but a very small part of the front. This is seen in Fig. 147, and, still more conspicuously, in Fig. 148, which was also copied by Champollion from a tomb at Thebes.[140] In one of these examples the walls are nearly vertical, in another they have a considerable slope, but the arrangement is the same and the proportions of the openings to the towers themselves do not greatly differ. Our Fig. 149, which was composed by the help of those representations, is meant to give an idea of the general composition of which the door with its carved jambs and architrave, and the tower with its masts and banners, are the elements. The two types only differ from one another in the relative dimensions of their important parts, and the transition between them may have been almost imperceptible. It would seem that in the Ptolemaic epoch the wide and lofty doors were the chief objects of admiration, while under the Pharaohs, the towers through which they were pierced were thought of more importance.

[140] _Notices Descriptives_, p. 431.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 148.--A propylon.]

If we examine the doorways of the temples themselves we shall there also find great variety in the manner in which they are combined architecturally with the walls in which they occur.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 149.--Gateway in the inclosing wall of a Temple.

Restored by Ch. Chipiez.]

In the Temple of Khons the jambs of the door are one, architecturally, with the wall. The courses are continuous. The lintel alone, being monolithic, has a certain independence (Fig. 150). In the Temple of Gournah, on the other hand, the doorway forms a separate and self-contained composition. The jambs are monoliths as well as the lintel, and the latter, notwithstanding the great additional weight which it has to carry, does not exceed the former in section. At Abydos, on the other hand, the capital part which this stone has to play is indicated by the great size of the sandstone block of which it is composed (Fig. 154).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 150.--Doorway of the Temple of Khons.

_Description_, iii. 54.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 151.--Doorway of the Temple of Gournah.

_Description_, ii. 42.]

One of the doorways we have represented, that in Fig. 146, requires to be here mentioned again for a moment. Its lintel is discontinuous. The doorway in question dates from the Ptolemaic period, but there is undoubted evidence that the same form was sometimes used in the Pharaonic period for the openings in inclosing walls. There is a representation of such a door in a bas-relief at Karnak, where it is shown in front of a pylon and forms probably an opening in a boundary wall.[141] It was this representation that decided us to give a broken lintel to the doorway opposite to the centre of the royal pavilion at Medinet-Abou (Plate VIII.). This form of entrance may have originated in the desire to give plenty of head-room for the canopy under which the sovereign was carried, as well as for the banners and various standards which we see figured in the triumphal and religious processions of the bas-reliefs (Fig. 172, Vol. I.).

[141] PRISSE, _Histoire de l'Art egyptien_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 152.--Doorway of the Temple of Seti, at Abydos.]

WINDOWS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 153, 154.--Windows in the Royal Pavilion at Medinet-Abou.]

The royal pavilion at Medinet-Abou is the only building in Egypt which has preserved for us those architectural features which we call windows. They differ one from another, even upon this single building, as much as the doors. One of them (Fig. 153) is enframed like the doorway at Gournah; but the jambs are merely the ends of the courses which make up the wall, and their salience is very slight. On the other hand a window frame with a very bold relief (Fig. 154) is to be found in the same building. This window is a little work of art in itself. It is surmounted by a cornice, over which again appear various emblems carved in stone, making up one of the most graceful compositions to be found in Egyptian architecture.

-- 9. _The Illumination of the Temples._

We have described the way in which the Egyptian architects treated doors and windows from an artistic point of view; we have yet to show the method which they adopted for allowing sufficient light to penetrate into their temples, that is, into those buildings, which, being closely shut against the laity, could not be illuminated from windows in their side walls. Palaces and private houses could have their windows as large and as numerous as they chose, but the temple could only be lighted from the roof, or at least from parts contiguous to the roof.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 155.--Attic of the Great Hall at Karnak. Restored by Ch. Chipiez.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 156.--_Claustra_ of the Hypostyle Hall, Karnak.

_Description_, iii. 23.]

The hypostyle hall at Karnak, with its lofty walls and close ranges of columns, would have been in almost complete darkness had it been left to depend for light upon its doors alone. But the difference of height between the central aisle and those to the right and left of it, was taken advantage of to introduce the light required for the proper display of its magnificent decorations. The wall which filled up the s.p.a.ce between the lower and upper sections of roof, forming something almost identical with the clerestory of a Gothic cathedral, was constructed of upright sandstone slabs, about sixteen feet high, which were pierced with numerous perpendicular slits. Stone gratings, or _claustra_ as the Romans would have called them, were thus formed, through which the sunlight could stream into the interior. The slits were about ten inches wide and six feet high. The ill.u.s.tration on page 163 shows how the slabs were arranged and explains, moreover, the general disposition of the roof. Fig. 156 gives the _claustra_ in detail, in elevation, in plan, and in perspective.

The hypostyle halls are nearly always lighted upon the same principle.

The chief differences are found in the sizes of the openings. At the Temple of Khons, where the s.p.a.ce to be lighted was not nearly so large, the slabs of the _claustra_ were much smaller and the openings narrower (Fig. 157). In one of the inner halls at Karnak a different system has been used. The light penetrates through horizontal openings in the entablature, between the architrave and the cornice, divided one from another by cubes of stone (Fig. 158). In the inside the architrave was bevelled on its upper edge, so as to allow the light to penetrate into the interior at a better angle than it would otherwise have done.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 157.--_Claustra_ in the Hypostyle Hall of the Temple of Khons. Compiled from the elevations in the _Description_, iii. 28.]

The use of these _claustra_, full of variety though they were in the hands of a skilful architect, were not the only methods of lighting their temples to which the Egyptians had recourse. They were helped in their work, or, in the case of very small chambers, replaced, by oblique or vertical openings contrived in the roof itself. These oblique holes are found in the superior angles of the hypostyle hall at Karnak (Fig. 159). After the roof was in place it was seen, no doubt, that the _claustra_ did not of themselves give enough light for the huge chamber, and these narrow openings were laboriously cut in its ceiling. One of the inner chambers of the Temple of Khons is feebly lighted by vertical holes cut through the slabs of the roof (Fig. 160). Similar openings are to be seen in the lateral aisles of the hypostyle hall in the Ramesseum. The slight upward projection which surrounds the upper extremities of these holes should be noticed (Fig. 161). Finally there are buildings in which these openings are the only sources of illumination. This is notably the case in the Temple of Amada. The upper part of our plan (Fig. 162) represents the roof of that temple and the symmetrically arranged openings with which it is pierced.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 158.--Method of lighting in one of the inner halls of Karnak. Compiled from the plans and elevations of the _Description_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 159.--Auxiliary light-holes in the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. _Description_, iii. 26.]