A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Georges Perrot; Charles Chipiez

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 Elephantiné, but that is quite an exception (Fig. [141]). The doorways of the temples were generally planned as in Fig. 142, and in the passage 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 classes.

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 mass, and instead of forming a façade 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]

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.

Fig. 141.—Plan of doorway, Temple of Elephantiné.

Fig. 142.—Plan of doorway, Temple of Khons.

We have illustrated 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 mass 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 analogous 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 pass through them.

Fig. 143.—Plan of doorway in the pylon, Temple of Khons. Description, iii. 54.

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 mass 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.

Fig. 146.—Gateway to the court-yard of the small Temple at Medinet-Abou. Description, ii. 4.

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.

The second type of propylon differs from the first in having a very much smaller doorway in comparison with its total mass. 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.

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.

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]).

Fig. 150.—Doorway of the Temple of Khons. Description, iii. 54.

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.).

Fig. 152.—Doorway of the Temple of Seti, at Abydos.