A Text-Book of the History of Architecture Part 2

+TEMPLES OF KARNAK.+ Of these various temples that of +Amen-Ra+ is incomparably the largest and most imposing. Its construction extended through the whole duration of the New Empire, of whose architecture it is a splendid _resume_ (Fig. 11). Its extreme length is 1,215 feet, and its greatest width 376 feet. The sanctuary and its accessories, mainly built by Thothmes I. and Thothmes III., cover an area nearly 456 290 feet in extent, and comprise two hypostyle halls and countless smaller halls and chambers. It is preceded by a narrow columnar vestibule and two pylons enclosing a columnar atrium and two obelisks. This is entered from the +Great Hypostyle Hall+ (h in Fig. 11; Fig. 12), the n.o.blest single work of Egyptian architecture, measuring 340 170 feet, and containing 134 columns in sixteen rows, supporting a ma.s.sive stone roof.

The central columns with bell-capitals are 70 feet high and nearly 12 feet in diameter; the others are smaller and lower, with lotus-bud capitals, supporting a roof lower than that over the three central aisles. A clearstory of stone-grated windows makes up the difference in height between these two roofs. The interior, thus lighted, was splendid with painted reliefs, which helped not only to adorn the hall but to give scale to its ma.s.sive parts. The whole stupendous creation was the work of three kings--Rameses I., Seti I., and Rameses II. (XIXth dynasty).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 12.--CENTRAL PORTION OF HYPOSTYLE HALL AT KARNAK.

(From model in Metropolitan Museum, New York.)]

In front of it was the great court, flanked by columns, and still showing the ruins of a central avenue of colossal pillars begun, but never completed, by the Bubastid kings of the XXIId dynasty. One or two smaller structures and the curious lateral wing built by Amenophis III., interrupt the otherwise orderly and symmetrical advance of this plan from the sanctuary to the huge first pylon (last in point of date) erected by the Ptolemies.

The smaller temple of Khonsu, south of that of Amen-Ra, has already been alluded to as a typical example of templar design. Next to Karnak in importance comes the +Temple of Luxor+ in its immediate neighborhood. It has two forecourts adorned with double-aisled colonnades and connected by what seems to be an unfinished hypostyle hall. The +Ramesseum+ and the temples of +Medinet Abou+ and +Deir-El-Bahari+ have already been mentioned (p. 15). At Gournah and Abydos are the next most celebrated temples of this period; the first famous for its rich cl.u.s.tered lotus-columns, the latter for its beautiful sanctuary chambers, dedicated each to a different deity, and covered with delicate painted reliefs of the time of Seti I.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 13.--GREAT TEMPLE OF IPSAMBOUL.]

+GROTTO TEMPLES.+ Two other styles of temple remain to be noticed. The first is the subterranean or grotto temple, of which the two most famous, at Ipsamboul (Abou-simbel), were excavated by Rameses II. They are truly colossal conceptions, reproducing in the native rock the main features of structural temples, the court being represented by the larger of two chambers in the Greater Temple (Fig. 13) Their facades are adorned with colossal seated figures of the builder; the smaller has also two effigies of Nefert-Ari, his consort. Nothing more striking and boldly impressive is to be met with in Egypt than these singular rock-cut facades. Other rock-cut temples of more modest dimensions are at Addeh, Feraig, Beni-Ha.s.san (the "Speos Artemidos"), Beit-el-Wali, and Silsileh. At Gherf-Hossein, a.s.seboua, and Derri are temples partly excavated and partly structural.

+PERIPTERAL TEMPLES.+ The last type of temple to be noticed is represented by only three or four structures of moderate size; it is the _peripteral_, in which a small chamber is surrounded by columns, usually mounted on a terrace with vertical walls. They were mere chapels, but are among the most graceful of existing ruins. At Philae are two structures, one by Nectanebo, the other Ptolemaic, resembling peripteral temples, but without cella-chambers or roofs. They may have been waiting-courts for the adjoining temples. That at Elephantine (Amenophis III.) has square piers at the sides, and columns only at the ends.

Another by Thothmes II., at Medinet Abou, formed only a part (the sekos?) of a larger plan. At Edfou is another, belonging to the Ptolemaic period.

+LATER TEMPLES.+ After the architectural inaction of the Decadence came a marvellous recrudescence of splendor under the Ptolemies, whose h.e.l.lenic origin and sympathies did not lead them into the mistaken effort to impose Greek models upon Egyptian art. The temples erected under their dominion, and later under Roman rule, vied with the grandest works of the Ramessidae, and surpa.s.sed them in the rich elaboration and variety of their architectural details. The temple at Edfou (Figs. 9, 10, 14) is the most perfectly preserved, and conforms most closely to the typical plan; that of Isis, at Philae, is the most elaborate and ornate. Denderah also possesses a group of admirably preserved temples of the same period. At Esneh, and at Kalabshe and Karda.s.sy or Ghertashi in Nubia are others. In all these one notes innovations of detail and a striving for effect quite different from the simpler majesty of the preceding age (Fig. 14). One peculiar feature is the use of screen walls built into the front rows of columns of the hypostyle hall. Light was admitted above these walls, which measured about half the height of the columns and were interrupted at the centre by a curious doorway cut through their whole height and without any lintel. Long disused types of capital were revived and others greatly elaborated; and the wall-reliefs were arranged in bands and panels with a regularity and symmetry rather Greek than Egyptian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14.--EDFOU. FRONT OF HYPOSTYLE HALL.]

+ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS.+ With the exception of a few purely utilitarian vaulted structures, all Egyptian architecture was based on the principle of the lintel. Artistic splendor depended upon the use of painted and carved pictures, and the decorative treatment of the very simple supports employed. Piers and columns sustained the roofs of such chambers as were too wide for single lintels, and produced, in halls like those of Karnak, of the Ramesseum, or of Denderah, a stupendous effect by their height, ma.s.siveness, number, and colored decoration. The simplest piers were plain square shafts; others, more elaborate, had lotus stalks and flowers or heads of Hathor carved upon them. The most striking were those against whose front faces were carved colossal figures of Osiris, as at Luxor, Medmet Abou, and Karnak (Fig. 15). The columns, which were seldom over six diameters in height, were treated with greater variety; the shafts, slightly tapering upward, were either round or cl.u.s.tered in section, and usually contracted at the base. The capitals with which they were crowned were usually of one of the five chief types described below. Besides round and cl.u.s.tered shafts, the Middle Empire and a few of the earlier monuments of the New Empire employed polygonal or slightly fluted shafts (see p. 11), as at Beni Ha.s.san and Karnak; these had a plain square abacus, with sometimes a cushion-like echinus beneath it. A round plinth served as a base for most of the columns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15.--OSIRID PIER (MEDINET ABOU).]

+CAPITALS.+ The five chief types of capital were: a, the plain lotus bud, as at Karnak (Great Hall); b, the cl.u.s.tered lotus bud (Beni-Ha.s.san, Karnak, Luxor, Gournah, etc.); c, the _campaniform_ or inverted bell (central aisles at Karnak, Luxor, the Ramesseum); d, the palm-capital, frequent in the later temples; and e, the Hathor-headed, in which heads of Hathor adorn the four faces of a cubical ma.s.s surmounted by a model of a shrine (Sedinga, Edfou, Denderah, Esneh). These types were richly embellished and varied by the Ptolemaic architects, who gave a cl.u.s.tered or quatrefoil plan to the bell-capital, or adorned its surface with palm leaves. A few other forms are met with as exceptions. The first four are shown in Fig. 16.

Every part of the column was richly decorated in color. Lotus-leaves or petals swathed the swelling lower part of the shaft, which was elsewhere covered with successive bands of carved pictures and of hieroglyphics.

The capital was similarly covered with carved and painted ornament, usually of lotus-flowers or leaves, or alternate stalks of lotus and papyrus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 16.--TYPES OF COLUMN.

a, _Campaniform_; b, _Cl.u.s.tered Lotus-Column_; c, _Simple Lotus-Column_; d, _Palm-Column_.]

The lintels were plain and square in section, and often of prodigious size. Where they appeared externally they were crowned with a simple cavetto cornice, its curved surface covered with colored flutings alternating with _cartouches_ of hieroglyphics. Sometimes, especially on the screen walls of the Ptolemaic age, this was surmounted by a cresting of adders or uraei in closely serried rank. No other form of cornice or cresting is met with. Mouldings as a means of architectural effect were singularly lacking in Egyptian architecture. The only moulding known is the cl.u.s.tered torus (_torus_ = a convex moulding of semicircular profile), which resembles a bundle of reeds tied together with cords or ribbons. It forms an astragal under the cavetto cornice and runs down the angles of the pylons and walls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 17.--EGYPTIAN FLORAL ORNAMENT-FORMS.]

+POLYCHROMY AND ORNAMENT.+ Color was absolutely essential to the decorative scheme. In the vast and dim interiors, as well as in the blinding glare of the sun, mere sculpture or relief would have been wasted. The application of brilliant color to pictorial forms cut in low relief, or outlined by deep incision with the edges of the figures delicately rounded (_intaglio rilievo_) was the most appropriate treatment possible. The walls and columns were covered with pictures treated in this way, and the ceilings and lintels were embellished with symbolic forms in the same manner. All the ornaments, as distinguished from the paintings, were symbolical, at least in their origin. Over the gateway was the solar disk or globe with wide-spread wings, the symbol of the sun winging its way to the conquest of night; upon the ceiling were sacred vultures, zodiacs, or stars spangled on a blue ground.

Externally the temples presented only ma.s.ses of unbroken wall; but these, as well as the pylons, were covered with huge pictures of a historical character. Only in the tombs do we find painted ornament of a purely conventional sort (Fig. 17). Rosettes, diaper patterns, spirals, and checkers are to be met with in them; but many of these can be traced to symbolic origins.[3]

[Footnote 3: See Goodyear's _Grammar of the Lotus_ for an elaborate and ingenious presentation of the theory of a common lotus-origin for all the conventional forms occurring in Egyptian ornament.]

+DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.+ The only remains of palaces are the pavilion of Rameses III. at Medinet Abou, and another at Semneh. The Royal Labyrinth has so completely perished that even its site is uncertain. The Egyptians lived so much out of doors that the house was a less important edifice than in colder climates. Egyptian dwellings were probably in most cases built of wood or crude brick, and their disappearance is thus easily explained. Relief pictures on the monuments indicate the use of wooden framing for the walls, which were probably filled in with crude brick or panels of wood. The architecture was extremely simple. Gateways like those of the temples on a smaller scale, the cavetto cornice on the walls, and here and there a porch with carved columns of wood or stone, were the only details pretending to elegance. The ground-plans of many houses in ruined cities, as at Tel-el-Amarna and a nameless city of Amenophis IV., are discernible in the ruins; but the superstructures are wholly wanting. It was in religious and sepulchral architecture that the constructive and artistic genius of the Egyptians was most fully manifested.

+MONUMENTS+: The princ.i.p.al necropolis regions of Egypt are centred about Ghizeh and ancient Memphis for the Old Empire (pyramids and mastabas), Thebes for the Middle Empire (Silsileh, Beni Ha.s.san), and Thebes (Vale of the Kings, Vale of the Queens) and Abydos for the New Empire.

The Old Empire has also left us the Sphinx, Sphinx temple, and the temple at Meidoum.

The most important temples of the New Empire were those of Karnak (the great temple, the southern or temple of Khonsu), of Luxor, Medinet Abou (great temple of Rameses III., lesser temples of Thothmes II. and III. with peripteral sekos; also Pavilion of Rameses III.); of Abydos; of Gournah; of Eilithyia (Amenophis III.); of Soleb and Sesebi in Nubia; of Elephantine (peripteral); the tomb temple of Deir-el-Bahari, the Ramesseum, the Amenopheum; hemispeos at Gherf Hossein; two grotto temples at Ipsamboul.

At Meroe are pyramids of the Ethiopic kings of the Decadence.

Temples of the Ptolemaic period: Philae, Denderah.

Temples of the Roman period: Koum Ombos, Edfou; Kalabshe, Karda.s.sy and Dandour in Nubia; Esneh.

CHAPTER IV.

CHALDaeAN AND a.s.sYRIAN ARCHITECTURE.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Reber. Also, Babelon, _Manual of Oriental Antiquities_. Botta and Flandin, _Monuments de Ninive_.

Layard, _Discoveries in Nineveh_; _Nineveh and its Remains_.

Loftus, _Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana_. Perrot and Chipiez, _History of Art in Chaldaea and a.s.syria_. Peters, _Nippur_. Place, _Ninive et l'a.s.syrie_.

+SITUATION; HISTORIC PERIODS.+ The Tigro-Euphrates valley was the seat of a civilization nearly or quite as old as that of the Nile, though inferior in its monumental art. The kingdoms of Chaldaea and a.s.syria which ruled in this valley, sometimes as rivals and sometimes as subjects one of the other, differed considerably in character and culture. But the scarcity of timber and the lack of good building-stone except in the limestone table-lands and more distant mountains of upper Mesopotamia, the abundance of clay, and the flatness of the country, imposed upon the builders of both nations similar restrictions of conception, form, and material. Both peoples, moreover, were probably, in part at least, of Semitic race.[4] The Chaldaeans attained civilization as early as 4000 B.C., and had for centuries maintained fixed inst.i.tutions and practised the arts and sciences when the a.s.syrians began their career as a nation of conquerors by reducing Chaldaea to subjection.

[Footnote 4: This is denied by some recent writers, so far as the Chaldaeans are concerned, and is not intended here to apply to the Accadians and Summerians of primitive Chaldaea.]

The history of Chaldaeo-a.s.syrian art may be divided into three main periods, as follows:

1. The EARLY CHALDaeAN, 4000 to 1250 B.C.

2. The a.s.sYRIAN, 1250 to 606 B.C.

3. The BABYLONIAN, 606 to 538 B.C.

In 538 the empire fell before the Persians.

+GENERAL CHARACTER OF MONUMENTS.+ Recent excavations at Nippur (Niffer), the sacred city of Chaldaea, have uncovered ruins older than the Pyramids. Though of slight importance architecturally, they reveal the early knowledge of the arch and the possession of an advanced culture.

The poverty of the building materials of this region afforded only the most limited resources for architectural effect. Owing to the flatness of the country and the impracticability of building lofty structures with sun-dried bricks, elevation above the plain could be secured only by erecting buildings of moderate height upon enormous mounds or terraces, built of crude brick and faced with hard brick or stone. This led to the development of the stepped pyramid as the typical form of Chaldaeo-a.s.syrian architecture. Thick walls were necessary both for stability and for protection from the burning heat of that climate. The lack of stone for columns and the difficulty of procuring heavy beams for long spans made broad halls and chambers impossible. The plans of a.s.syrian palaces look like a.s.semblages of long corridors and small cells (Fig. 18). Neither the wooden post nor the column played any part in this architecture except for window-mullions and subordinate members.[5]

It is probable that the vault was used for roofing many of the halls; the arch was certainly employed for doors and the barrel-vault for the drainage-tunnels under the terraces, made necessary by the heavy rainfall. What these structures lacked in durability and height was made up in decorative magnificence. The interior walls were wainscoted to a height of eight or nine feet with alabaster slabs covered with those low-relief pictures of hunting scenes, battles, and G.o.ds, which now enrich the museums of London, Paris, and other modern cities. Elsewhere painted plaster or more durable enamelled tile in brilliant colors embellished the walls, and, doubtless, rugs and tapestries added their richness to this architectural splendor.

[Footnote 5: See Fergusson, _Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis_, for an ingenious but unsubstantiated argument for the use of columns in a.s.syrian palaces.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 18.--PALACE OF SARGON AT KHORSABAD.]