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

by Georges Perrot; Charles Chipiez

GENERAL TYPES OF SUPPORTS.

In the following pages all the principal varieties of Egyptian pier and column are passed in review. We believe that no type of any importance has been omitted. The illustrations 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 Phré, 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.

Fig. 66.—Quadrangular pier; from Prisse.

Fig. 67.—Tapering quadrangular pier; from Gailhabaud.

Fig. 68.—Pier with capital; from Prisse.

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 illustration 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 mass above, they are merely affixed to the pier which actually performs that office.

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 god 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 massive architraves confided to their strength.

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]

Fig. 71.—Ornamented pier; Karnak.

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]

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-Hassan 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 spaces 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.

Fig. 72.—Octagonal pillar; Beni-Hassan.

Fig. 73.—Sixteen-sided pillar; fluted.

The conical form of the pillars at Beni-Hassan, 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 Pæstum had its origin in the tombs of Beni-Hassan; 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-Hassan. 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 archæologists. 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 Hecatæus. 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-Hassan, but something ornate and complex, like the order of the small temple of Nectanebo at Philæ.

These few words had to be given, in passing, to an hypothesis which has found much favour since the days of Champollion, but we hasten to resume our methodical analysis of the Egyptian orders, and to class them by the varieties of their proportions and by the ever-increasing complication of their ornaments.

Fig. 74.—Polygonal column with a flat vertical band.

Fig. 75.—Polygonal pier with mask of Hathor; from Lepsius.

At Beni-Hassan and elsewhere we find pillars with two or four flat vertical bands dividing their flutes into as many groups. These bands are covered with incised inscriptions. Sometimes, as at Kalabché (Fig. [74]), there are four flat bands inclosing five flutes between each pair. Such an arrangement accentuates the difference between these so-called proto-doric pillars and the Greek doric column. They take away from the proper character of the pillar, the inscribed tablet becomes the most important member of the composition, and the shaft to which it is attached seems to have been made for its display. In the Greek order, on the other hand, we always find the structural requirements brought into absolute harmony with those of the æsthetic sentiment; every line of every detail is necessary both to builder and artist.

A later variety of this type is found in a pillar in which the vertical band is interrupted to make room for a mask of Hathor, which is placed immediately below the abacus (Fig. [75]). We find it in a temple situated eastwards of El-Kab, dating, according to Lepsius, from the eighteenth dynasty.

After the eleventh dynasty we find monolithic rock-cut supports at Beni-Hassan, which, although side by side with true polygonal piers, are columns in the strictest sense of the word; that is to say, their vertical section offers curvilinear forms, and they are provided with capitals. Singularly enough, they are so far from being a development from the pier that they do not even distantly resemble it. They may fairly be compared, however, with a type of column which we have already noticed in speaking of the ephemeral wooden or metal architecture whose forms have been preserved for us in the bas-reliefs of the Ancient Empire (see Fig. [54]).[97]

Fig. 76.—Column from Beni-Hassan; from Lepsius.

The shaft is formed of four bold vertical ribs, cruciform in plan, and bound together at the top by narrow fillets. The re-entering angles between the ribs are deep. The horizontal section of the capital is similar to that of the shaft, from which it seems to burst; it then gradually tapers to the top, where it meets the usual quadrangular abacus (Fig. [76]).

If four stems of lotus, each ending in an unopened bud, be tied together immediately beneath the point where the stem joins the bud, something bearing a rude resemblance to this column will be formed, and to the imitation of such a faggot its origin has often been attributed. The fillets which surround the shaft at its summit represent the cord wound several times round the stalks, the reeds which fill up the upper parts of the hollows between the ribs are meant for the ends of the knots.

Not far from the remains of the labyrinth some columns formed upon a similar principle have been discovered. Their shafts are composed of eight vertical ribs, which are triangular on plan like stalks of papyrus. The lower part of the shaft has a bold swell. It springs from a corona of leaves and tapers as it rises. The stalks are tied at the top with from three to five bands, the ends hanging down between the ribs. The buds which form the capital are also surrounded with leaves at their base.

The number of its parts and their complicated arrangement, the leaves painted upon it and its general proportions, show that this column was the product of an art much more advanced than that of Beni-Hassan. Between the first and second Theban empires the form of the column underwent a development similar to that which we have already described in the case of the pier. Its surface became less incoherently irregular; its horizontal section betrayed a constantly increasing tendency towards a circular form. Moreover, like the edifices of which it formed a part, as it increased in size it turned its back upon its monolithic origin and became a carefully constructed succession of horizontal courses.

Thus we arrive, under the New Empire, at a column of which we find several varieties in the buildings at Thebes. Its proportions are various, and so are the methods in which it is capped and decorated. The variant which preserves most resemblance to the column from Beni-Hassan is found at Luxor (Fig. [77])[98]. It is faggot-shaped like its prototype, but the natural origin of its forms is much less clearly marked. The capital recalls a bunch of lotus-buds in a very slight degree, the stems are not frankly detached one from another and the ligatures are repeated in unmeaning fashion. We feel that with the passage of time the original combination has lost its early significance.

The change becomes still more striking when we turn to another column from the New Empire, from Medinet-Abou (Fig. [78]). The lotiform type may still be recognised, but the shaft is no longer faggot-shaped, except in a rudimentary fashion and over a very small part of its surface. There is a ligature just below the capital, but the latter is encircled by a smooth band and is decorated with the uræus; the bottom of the slightly tapering shaft springs from an encircling band of painted leaves.

Fig. 77.—Column at Luxor; Description, vol. iii., pl. 8.

Fig. 78.—Column at Medinet-Abou:; Description, vol. ii., pl. 4.

Side by side with the type which we have just described we find another to which the hollow outward curve of the capital has given the name of campaniform. Nothing like it is to be found at Beni-Hassan, and no example, in stone, is extant from an earlier time than that of the Second Theban Empire.[99] The base is small. The flutes or separate stems have disappeared. The shaft is either smooth or decorated with bas-reliefs and inscriptions. The ligatures under the capital are still introduced. The springing of the capital is decorated with leaves and flowers painted in brilliant colours. A cubic abacus or die of stone stands upon the circular surface of the capital and transmits the resisting power of the column to the architrave.

The proportions and general appearance of the shaft vary greatly. In the first court at Medinet-Abou it is short and stumpy, and the capital alone has received a few ornaments in relief.

In the Great Hall at Karnak, on the other hand, it is taller, more graceful in form and richer in decoration than in any other Egyptian building (Fig. [80]). To give an idea of the colossal dimensions of these columns we need only repeat the often-made assertion that a hundred men can sit upon the upper surface of their capitals, which measure no less than 70 feet in circumference.

Fig. 79.—Column at Medinet-Abou; Description, vol. ii., pl. 6.

The shafts of both these columns diminish gradually from base to summit. The diminution is so slight that it is hardly perceptible by the eye. In the hypostyle hall of the Ramesseum (Fig. [81]), on the other hand, it tapers rapidly. The columns in the central aisle come, by their proportions, midway between the thick-set type of Medinet-Abou and the lofty shafts of Karnak. Their lower parts have the bulbous form which we have already noticed in speaking of the lotiform type of column. The painted and sculptured ornament, although not so rich as that of Karnak, covers about one half of the whole surface.

We may cite, as showing interesting variations upon the campaniform type, the column of Soleb, dating from the eighteenth dynasty (Fig. [82]), and that of Thothmes, from Karnak (Fig. [83]). The capital of the former seems to have been suggested by a bunch of palm leaves arranged about a central post. In curving outwards the extremity of each leaf forms a lobe, which is shown in the plan (Fig. [82]). The architect here made free use of the forms occurring in nature, but in the Ptolemaic temples we find the palm tree copied in a far more literal fashion. There are capitals at Esneh composed of palm branches grouped in stages about the central shaft and copied leaf for leaf. Sometimes, as at Philæ, we even find date clusters mingled with the leaves.

Fig. 80.—Column from the Great Hall at Karnak; Description, iii. 30.

Fig. 81.—Column from the Hypostyle Hall of the Ramesseum; from Horeau.

The other capital to which we have alluded as occurring in the work of Thothmes at Karnak, is shaped like a suspended bell. The upper part of the shaft swells slightly so as to coincide with the outer rim of the bell; it is encircled with fillets below which is cut a vertical band of hieroglyphs. The capital is decorated with leaves growing downwards and on the whole it may be taken as showing the companiform type reversed.

Fig. 82.—Column of Soleb; from Lepsius, part i., pl. 117.

Fig. 83.—Column of Thothmes at Karnak; from Lepsius, part i., pl. 81.

In this comparison between the different forms which were successively given to the Egyptian column, we might, if we had chosen, have included other varieties; and yet we do not think we have omitted any that are of importance. We have figured them to one scale so that their relative proportions can be at once grasped, and we have now to analyse the methods in which they were allied with their supports and superstructures. For that purpose we shall have to reproduce several of the piers and columns already mentioned and figured, on a larger scale and in perspective instead of elevation. We count upon these reproductions to show the individual characteristics of the Egyptian orders and the origin of their peculiar physiognomy.

When the architects of the New Empire made use of the square pier without giving it either capital or base, they covered it with bas-reliefs and inscriptions. Thus adorned it could be used without incongruity in rich and elaborate compositions. The truth of this statement may be seen from the adjoining reproduction of an angle from the peristyle of the Elephantiné temple (Fig. [84]).[100]

The firm and simple lines of the pier contrast well with the modest projection of the stylobate and the bolder profile of the cornice, and help, with the double base, to give dignity and solidity to the encircling portico.

When the pier is honoured with a capital, that capital does not in the least resemble those of the column proper. Being, in its essence, a vertical section of wall, it is treated as such, and given for crown a capital composed exactly in the same fashion as the cornice which crowns every Egyptian wall. Between this quasi-capital and the architrave a low abacus is introduced (Fig. [85]).

The figure on page [109], represents one of the seven osiride piers in the first court of the temple at Medinet-Abou. The pier at the back of the statue is slightly wider than the base upon which the latter stands. At each side of the Pharaoh one of his children stands sculptured in very high relief, almost in the round. Without in any way compromising the dignity of the colossus the sculptor has bent his head slightly backwards so as to obtain a natural support for his lofty and complicated head-dress. Thanks to this artifice the head-dress in question is securely allied to the massive pier behind it without the intervention of any unsightly thicknesses of stone, and the expression of the whole glypto-architectural group is rendered more forcible and more suggestive of that strength in repose which is the characteristic of Egyptian architecture.[101]

The next illustration (Fig. [87]) shows the upper part of a polygonal column with a hathoric capital of the oldest and most simple form. In later ages, during the Sait dynasties, the mask of the goddess was repeated upon the four sides of the column, and sometimes superimposed upon a bell-shaped capital. In this instance, where there is but one mask, the vertical band of hieroglyphs below it serves to show that the face where it occurs is the principal one.

Fig. 84.—Corner pier from the temple at Elephantiné; from the elevation in the Description, i. 36.

This capital is one of the most singular achievements of Egyptian art. Why, out of all the multitude of Egyptian gods and goddesses, was Hathor alone selected for such a distinction? What is the meaning of the small naos or shrine upon her head? The explanation is still uncertain. Perhaps it is to be found in the simple fact that the word Hathor means the dwelling of Horus. This capital is found in the tombs as well as in the temples. We reproduce (Fig. [88]) a hathoric pier from the tomb of a certain Nefer-Hotep who lived under the eighteenth dynasty; it is now in the museum at Boulak. The anterior face displays the mask of Hathor over the symbol tet, which has been interpreted to mean steadfastness or stability.[102] A rich collar hangs down upon her breast.

Fig. 85.—Pier with capital, Karnak; from the elevation of Prisse.

On a column in the speos of Kalabché we find the band of hieroglyphs repeated upon four faces (Fig. [89]). The flutes of this column are unusually numerous and closely spaced, and it therefore approaches the true cylindrical form. The abacus, however, which overhangs the shaft at every point, still serves to recall the monolithic pier and the tablet which was reserved at its summit when its angles were first struck off in order to give freer passage to the light.

The faggot-shaped column (Fig. [90]) is not to be explained by any theory of development from the pier. We have reproduced its upper and lower extremities, together with the entablature and flat roof which it supports. The extreme nakedness of the base given by the Egyptians to their columns is a curious feature. Shaft and capital may be carved into various shapes and adorned with the most brilliant colours, but the base is always perfectly bare and simple. Between one column and another there is no difference in this respect except in size. The only attempt at ornamentation ever found is a narrow band of hieroglyphs engraved, as at the Ramesseum, round its circumference (Fig. [91]). On the other hand, the lower part of the shaft is always richly decorated. The principal element in this decoration is the circlet of leaves which are found both in the faggot-shaped columns and in those whose shafts are smooth. In the latter, however, the ornament is carried farther than in the former. Slender shoots are introduced between the larger leaves, which mount up the shaft and burst into leaf at the top. Above these, again, come the royal ovals, surmounted by the solar disk between two uræus serpents.

In the upper part of the column of Thothmes (Fig. [90]), the pendants which fill the re-entering angles and the four rings at the top of the shaft, the pointed leaves and other ornaments of the capital, are rendered conspicuous by being painted in colours, yellow and blue, which will be found reproduced in Prisse's plate. We should have liked to give one of these columns with all its coloured decorations, but we hesitated to do so because we were not satisfied with the accuracy as to tone and tint of those coloured plates which had been introduced into previous works. And we wished to give no coloured reproductions except those made expressly from the monuments themselves, as in the case of the tomb from the Ancient Empire whose painted decorations are produced in plates xiii. and xiv.

It will be observed that in this case the abacus does not extend beyond the architrave, as it does in the Doric order of the Greeks.

We have given a column from the central aisle of the Great Hall at Karnak, as affording a good type of the bell-shaped capital (Fig. [80]). We also give an example, with slight variations, from the Ramesseum (Fig. [92]). It comes from the principal order in the hypostyle hall, and shows Egyptian architecture perhaps at its best. The profile of the capital combines grace with firmness of outline in the most happy manner. By dint of closely examining and comparing many reproductions we have succeeded, as we believe, in giving a more exact rendering of its curves than any of our predecessors. Leaves and flowers are most happily arranged, and are painted also with an exquisite finish not to be found elsewhere. The decoration as a whole is of extraordinary richness. The royal ovals, with the disk of the sun and the uræus, encircle the shaft; vultures with outspread wings cover the ceiling, and the architrave is carved on its visible sides, with long rows of hieroglyphs.[103]

Fig. 86.—Osiride pier; Medinet-Abou

Fig. 87.—Hathoric pier from Eilithya. Lepsius, part i., pl. 100.

Fig. 88.—Hathoric pier from a tomb. Boulak.

Of the derived and secondary forms of the campaniform capital there are but two upon which we need here insist. The first is that which is exemplified by the columns of a temple built by Seti I. at Sesebi, in Nubia (Fig. [93]). It is very like the one at Soleb already figured (Fig. [82]). The motive is the same, but the Sesebi example shows it in a more advanced stage of development. Its forms are fuller and more expressive, and the palm branches from which the idea is derived are more frankly incorporated in the design. It is not an exact copy from nature, as at Esneh, but a good use has been made of the fundamental vegetable forms.

Fig. 89.—Column at Kalabché; from the elevation of Prisse.

The other variation upon the same theme is a much later one; it is to be found in the temple built by Nectanebo on the island of Philæ (Fig. [94]). The simplicity of the Sesebi and Soleb capitals has vanished; the whole composition is imbued with the love for complex form which distinguished the Sait epoch. The swelling base of the column seems to spring from a bouquet of triangular leaves. The anterior face of the column is ornamented with a band of hieroglyphs; its upper part is encircled by five smooth rings, above which, again, it is fluted. According to Prisse, who alone gives particulars as to this little building, some of the capitals have no ornament beyond their finely-chiselled palm-leaves; others have half-opened lotus-flowers between each pair of leaves. Finally, the square die or abacus which supports the architrave is much higher and more important than in the columns hitherto described, and it bears a mask of Hathor surmounted by a naos upon each of its four sides. This unusual height of abacus, the superposition of the hathoric capital upon the bell-shaped one, and the repetition of the mask of Hathor upon all four sides, are the premonitory signs of the Ptolemaic style.

Fig. 90.—Column of Thothmes III.; from the Ambulatory of Thothmes, at Karnak. From Prisse's elevation.

Fig. 91.—Base of a column; from the great hall of the Ramesseum, central avenue.

The capital from the Ambulatory of Thothmes, at Thebes, presents a type both rare and original (Fig. [95]). Between our illustration and that of Lepsius there is a difference which is not without importance.[104] According to the German savants, the abacus is inscribed within the upper circumference of the bell; but if we may believe a sketch made by an architect upon the spot, the truth is that the upper circumference of the capital is contained within the four sides of the abacus, which it touches at their centres. The four angles of the abacus, therefore, stand out well beyond the upper part of the capital, uniting it properly to the architrave, and giving a satisfactory appearance of solidity to the whole.

This peculiar form of capital has generally been referred to the individual caprice of some architect, anxious, above all things, to invent something new.[105] But the same form is to be found in the architectural shapes preserved by the paintings of the ancient empire (Fig. [59]) which seems fatal to this explanation. It is probable that if we possessed all the work of the Egyptian architects we should find that the type was by no means confined to Karnak. It was, however, far less beautiful in its lines than the ordinary shape, and though ancient enough, never became popular.

The Egyptians were not always content with the paint-brush and chisel for the decoration of their capitals, they occasionally made use of metal also. This has been proved by a discovery made at Luxor in the presence of M. Brugsch, who describes it in these terms: "The work of clearing the temple began with the part constructed by Amenophis III. and gave some very unexpected results. The capitals of the columns were overlaid with copper plates, to which the contour of the stone beneath had been given by the hammer. They had afterwards been painted. Large pieces of these plates were found still hanging to the capitals, while other pieces lay among the surrounding débris. Thus a new fact in the history of Egyptian art has been established, namely, that stonework was sometimes covered with metal."[106]

This process was not generally, nor even frequently, employed, as we may judge by the vast number of capitals painted in the most brilliant colours, which remain. If the surface of the stone was to be covered up such care would not have been taken to beautify it. The fact that the process was used at all is, however, curious; it seems to be a survival from the ancient wooden architecture in which metal was commonly used.

Fig. 92.—Bell-shaped capital, from the hypostyle hall of the Ramesseum. From the chief order.

Fig. 93.—Capital at Sesebi. From the elevation of Lepsius, Denkmæler, part i., pl. 119.

Fig. 94.—Capital from the temple of Nectanebo, at Philæ. From the elevation of Prisse.

The architrave which was employed with all these varieties of capital was sometimes of a kind which deserves to be noticed (Fig. [102]). Whenever the dimensions of the column were sufficiently great the stone beams which met upon the die or abacus had oblique joints. The motive of the architect in making use of such a junction is obvious enough; it was calculated to afford greater solidity, and it was the most convenient way in which lateral architraves could be united with those disposed longitudinally. Any other arrangement would have involved a sacrifice of space and would have left a certain part of the abacus doing nothing.

We have now brought our analysis of the principal types of pier and column used by the Egyptians to an end. They suggest, however, certain general reflections to which we must next endeavour to give expression. In spite of the great apparent diversity of their forms, we are enabled to perceive that the Egyptian orders obeyed an unchanging law of development, and that certain characteristic features persistently reappear through all their transformations. We must attempt to define these laws and characteristics, as, otherwise, we shall fail to make the originality of Egyptian art appreciated, we shall be unable to classify its successes, or to mark with accuracy the limits which it failed to pass.

Fig. 95.—Capital from the work of Thothmes at Karnak.

Fig. 96.—Arrangement of architraves upon a capital. From the plans and elevations of Lepsius.

Between the square pier with neither base nor capital of the early Empire and the graceful columns of the Ramesseum there is a difference which marks ages of progress. The general form of the support became gradually more complex and more refined. As occurred elsewhere, it was divided into parts, each of which had its proper duty and its proper name. The base was distinguished from the shaft, and the shaft from the capital. Each of these parts was shaped by the sculptor and clothed in colour by the painter. For long centuries the architect never relaxed his efforts to perfect his art. The simple and sturdy prismatic column gave way to the elaborate forms which exist in the great temples of the Ramessids; the latter in turn lost their power to satisfy and new motives were sought for in the combination of all those which had gone before. In the series of Egyptian types the capital of Nectanebo would therefore occupy a place corresponding to that of the composite capital in the series of Græco-Roman orders.

The general movement of art in Egypt may therefore be compared to that of art in Greece and Italy; and yet there is a difference. From the rise of Greek architecture until its decay, the proportions of its vertical members underwent a continual, but consistent, modification of their proportions. Century after century the figure in which their height was expressed proportionately with their bulk, became greater. In the height of the Doric columns of the old temple at Corinth there are fewer diameters than in those of the Parthenon, and in those of the Parthenon there are fewer than in the doric shafts of Rome. This tendency explains the neglect which befel this order about the fourth century before our era. In the sumptuous buildings of Asia Minor and Syria and of the "Lower Period" in Egypt, it was replaced by the graceful and slender outlines of the Ionic order. A similar explanation may be given of the favour in which the Corinthian order was held throughout the Roman world.

Such a development is not to be found in Egypt. The forms of Egyptian architecture did not become less substantial with the passage of the centuries. It is possible that familiarity with light structures of wood and metal had early created a taste for slender supports. The polygonal and faggot-shaped columns of Beni-Hassan are no thicker than those of far later times. A comparison of the columns at Thebes points to the same conclusion. The shortest and most thick-set in its proportions of them all (Fig. [78]) is at Medinet-Abou, and is about two centuries later than those of the same order which decorate the second court at Luxor (Fig. [77]). Its heaviness is even more apparent when we compare it with the great columns of a different order, at Karnak (Fig. [80]), and the Ramesseum (Fig. [81]), which precede it by at least a century.

The progress of Egyptian art was, then, less continuous and less regular than that of classic art. It had moments of rest, of exhaustion, even of retrogression. It was not governed by internal logical principles so severe as those of the Greeks.

The manner in which the capital is allied to the shaft below, and the architrave above shows changes of the same kind.

The first duty of the capital is to oppose a firm and individual contour to the monotony of the shaft. The constructor has to determine a point in the length of the latter where it shall cease to be, where its gradual diminution in section, a diminution which could not be prolonged to the architrave without compromising the safety of the building, shall be arrested. The natural office of the capital would seem to be to call attention to this point. The architect, therefore, gives it a diameter greater than that of the shaft at the point where they meet. This salience restores to the column the material which it has lost; it completes it, and determines its proportion, so that it is no longer capable of either increase or diminution.

Again, when the salience is but the preparation for a greater development above, it seems to add to the solidity of the edifice by receiving the architrave on a far larger surface than the shaft could offer. The support seems to enlarge itself, the better to embrace the entablature.

The two requirements which the capital has to fulfil may, then, be thus summarized: in the first place, it has to mark the point where the upward movement of the lines comes to an end; and, secondly, it has to make, or to seem to make, the column better fitted to play its part as a support. Its functions are dual in principle; it has to satisfy the æsthetic desires of the eye, and the constructive requirements of the material. The latter office may be more apparent than real, but, in architecture, what seems to be necessary is so.

The Greek capital, in all its forms, thoroughly fulfils these double conditions, while that of Egypt satisfies them in a very imperfect manner. Let us take the ancient polygonal column as an example. The feeble tablet which crowns its shaft neither opposes itself frankly to the upright lines below it, nor, in the absence of an echinus, is it happily allied with the shaft. It gives, however, a greater appearance of constructive repose to the architrave than the latter would have without it.

In the column which terminates in a lotus-bud the capital is of more importance, but the contrast between it and the shaft is often very slightly marked. At Luxor and Karnak the smooth capital seems to be nothing more than an accident, a gentle swelling in the upper part of the cone; besides which it really plays no part in the construction, as the surface of the abacus above it is no greater than a horizontal section through the highest and most slender part of the shaft.

Fig. 97.—The Nymphæa Nelumbo; from the Description de l'Égypte; Hist. Naturelle, pl. 61.

Of all the Egyptian capitals, that which seems the happiest in conception is the campaniform. This capital, far from being folded back upon itself, throws out a fine and bold curve beyond the shaft. But we are surprised and even distressed to find that the surface thus obtained is not employed for the support of the architrave, which is carried by a comparatively small cubic abacus, which rests upon the centre of the capital. At Karnak and Medinet-Abou this abacus is not so absurdly high as it afterwards became in the Ptolemaic period,[107] but yet its effect is singular rather than pleasant. We feel inclined to wonder why this fine calyx of stone should have been constructed if its borders were to remain idle. It is like a phrase commenced but never finished. Without this fault the composition, of which it forms a part, would be worthy, both in proportion and in decoration, of being placed side by side with the most perfect of the Greek columns.

The last or, it may be, the first question, which is asked in connection with the form of column employed by any particular race, has to do with its origin. We have preferred to make it the last question, because we thought that the analysis of form which we have attempted to set forth would help us to an answer. There are many difficulties in the matter, but after the facts to which we have called attention, it will not be denied that the forms of wooden construction, which were the first to be developed in Egypt, had a great effect upon work in stone.

Ever since men began to interest themselves in Egyptian art, this has found an important place in their speculations. In the two forms which alternate with one another at Thebes, many have seen faithful transcriptions of two plants which filled a large space in Egyptian civilization by their decorative qualities and the practical services which they rendered; we mean, of course, the lotus and the papyrus.

There were in Egypt many species belonging to the family of the Nymphæaceæ, a family which is represented in our northern climates by the yellow and white nenuphars or water-lilies. Besides these Egypt possessed, and still possesses, the white lotus (Nymphæa lotus of Linnæus), and the blue lotus (Nymphæa cærulea of Savigny); but the true Egyptian lotus, the red lotus (the Nymphæa nelumbo of Linnæus, the Nelumbium speciosum of Wild) exists no longer in a wild state, either in Egypt or any other known part of Africa (Fig. [97]). The accurate descriptions given by the ancient writers have enabled botanists, however, to recognize it among the flora of India. It is at least one third larger than our common water-lily, from which it differs also in the behaviour of its leaves and of the stems which bear the flowers. These do not float on the surface of the water but rise above it to a height of from twelve to fifteen inches.[108] The flower, which stands higher than the leaves, is borne upon a stalk which instead of being soft and pliant like that of the water-lily has the firmness and consistency of wood. It has an agreeable smell like that of anise. In the bas-reliefs the ancient Egyptians are often seen holding it to their nostrils. The fruit, which is shaped like the rose of a watering-pot, contains seeds as large as the stone of an olive.

These seeds, which were eaten either green or dried,[109] were called Egyptian beans by the Greek and Latin writers because they were consumed in such vast quantities in the Nile valley.[110] The seeds of the other kinds of nymphæaceæ, which were smaller (Herodotus compares them with those of a poppy), gave, when pounded in a mortar, a flour of which a kind of bread was made. Even the root was not wasted; according to the old historians, it had a sweet and agreeable taste.[111]

The papyrus belongs to the family of Cyperaceæ, which is still represented in Egypt by several species, but the famous plant which received the early writings of mankind, the Papyrus antiquorum of the botanist, has also practically disappeared from Egypt, where it is only to be found in a few private gardens. The ancients made it an object of special care. It was cultivated in the Sebennitic nome, its roots being grown in shallow water. Strabo gave a sufficiently accurate idea of its appearance when he described it as a "peeled wand surmounted by a plume of feathers."[112] This green plume or bouquet is by no means without elegance (Fig. [98]). According to Theophrastus the plant attained to a height of ten cubits, or about sixteen feet.[113] This may, however, be an exaggeration. The finest plants that I could find in the gardens of Alexandria did not reach ten feet. Their stems were as thick as a stout broom-handle and sharply triangular in section.

The reed-brakes which occur so frequently in the paintings consist of different varieties of the papyrus (Fig. [8], Vol. I.). The uses to which the plant could be put were very numerous. The root was used for fuel and other purposes. The lower part of the stalk furnished a sweet and aromatic food substance, which was chewed either raw or boiled, for the sake of the juice.[114] Veils, mats, sandals, &c., were made from the bark; candle and torch wicks from the bark; baskets and even boats from the stalk.[115] As for the processes by which the precious fabric which the Greeks called βίβλος was obtained they will be found fully described in the paper of Dureau de-la-Malle Sur le Papyrus et la Fabrication du Papier.[116] Our word paper is derived from papyrus, and forms a slight but everlasting monument to the great services rendered to civilization by the inventive genius of the Egyptians. The importation of the papyrus, which followed the establishment of direct relations between Greece and Egypt in the time of the Sait princes,[117] exercised the greatest influence upon the development of Greek thought. It created prose composition, and with it history, philosophy, and science.

The two plants which we have mentioned were so specially reverenced by the Egyptians that they constituted them severally into the signs by which the two great divisions of the country were indicated in their writings. The papyrus was the emblem of the Delta, in whose lazy waters it luxuriated, and the lotus that of the Thebaïd.[118]

Besides this testimony to their importance, the careful descriptions left by the ancient travellers in Egypt, Herodotus and Strabo, also show the estimation in which these two plants were held by the Egyptians; the palm alone could contest their well-earned supremacy. It is easy, then, to understand how the artist and ornamentist were led to make use of their graceful forms. We have already pointed out many instances of such employment, and we are far from underrating its importance, but we have yet to explain the method followed, and the kind and degree of imitation which the Egyptian artist allowed himself.

The lotus especially has been found everywhere by writers upon Egypt.[119] The pointed leaves painted upon the lower parts of columns have been recognized as imitations of "those scaly leaves which surround the point where the stem of the lotus, the papyrus, and many other aquatic plants, merges in the root." According to this theory the ligneous stem which rises from a depth beneath the water of, perhaps, six feet, and carries the large open flower at its top, was the prototype of the Egyptian column. The bulbous form with which so many shafts are endowed at the base, would be another feature taken directly from nature. The leaves, properly speaking, which spread around the flower, are found about and below the capital, while the capital itself is nothing else, we are told, than the flower, sometimes fully opened, sometimes while yet in the bud. When the shaft is smooth it represents a single stem, when it is grooved, it means a faggot of stems tied together by a cord.

Fig. 98.—Papyrus plant, drawn in the gardens of the Luxembourg, Paris, by M. Saint-Elme Gautier.

Others make similar claims for the papyrus. They refuse to admit that the whole of the Egyptian orders were founded upon the lotus. Mariette allowed that the capitals which we have called lotiform were copied from that plant, but he contended that the bell-shaped capital was freely copied from the plume of its rival. He proposed that this latter capital should be called papyriform, and to my objections, which were founded upon the composition of a head of papyrus, he answered that the Egyptians neglected what may be called internal details, and were contented with rendering the outward contours. In support of his idea, he called attention to the fact that some of the faggot-shaped columns present triangular sections, like that of the papyrus stem.

In spite of this latter fact, Mariette did not convert me to his opinion. The columns in which this triangular section is found are not crowned by an open flower. The profiles of their capitals resemble that of a truncated bud, a form which cannot possibly be obtained from the papyrus, and they seem, therefore, to combine characteristics taken from two different plants. His explanation of the campaniform capital seems still less admissable. It is impossible to allow that in the tuft of slender filaments gracefully yielding to the wind, which is figured on page [127], we have the prototype of those inverted bells of stone, whose uninterrupted contours express so much strength and amplitude. No less difficult is it to discover the first idea of those sturdy shafts which seem so well proportioned to the mighty architraves which they have to support, in the slender stalk of the famous water plant. The hypostyle halls may be compared to palm groves, to forests of pine, of oak, or of beech. In such a comparison there would be nothing surprising, but the papyrus, with its attenuated proportions and yielding frame, would seem to be, of all vegetables, the least likely to have inspired the architects of Karnak and Luxor.

The lotus seems to us to have no more right than the papyrus to be considered the unique origin of the forms which we are considering. All those resemblances, of which so much has been made, sink to very little when they are closely examined. It requires more than good will to recognize the formless folioles which cluster round the base of the stalk in those large and well-shaped triangular leaves with parallel ribs, which decorate the bases of Egyptian columns. Moreover, these leaves reappear in other places, such as capitals, in which, if this explanation of their origin is to be accepted, they could have no place. They frequently occur, also, at the foot of a wall. As for the true circular leaf of the lotus, it is not to be found, except, perhaps in a few Ptolemaic capitals. Its stem, concealed almost entirely by the muddy water, is very slender, and is hardly more suggestive than that of the papyrus of a massive stone column. The bulbous form of the lower part of the shaft would be a constant form if it were an imitation of nature, whereas it is, in fact, exceptional. With the capitals, however, it is different. Those which are to be found at Thebes are referred, by common consent, to the lotus-bud. And yet, perhaps, they resemble any other bud as much as that of the lotus. It is, however, when they are fully open, that one flower is easily distinguishable from another by the shape and number of their petals, as well as by the variety of their colours. Like babies in their cradles, unopened buds are strangely alike. But seeing the place occupied by the lotus in the minds of the Egyptians, in their wooden architecture and painted decorations, it is natural enough to believe that it gave them their first hint for the capital in question; we have, therefore, not hesitated to use the epithet lotiform which has been consecrated to it by custom.

As for the campaniform capital we find it difficult to allow that it represents the open flower of the lotus. From a certain distance it no doubt resembles the general lines of some flowers, but those belong to the family of the Campanulaceæ rather than to that of the nymphæaceæ. The profile of this inverted bell, however, does not seem to have been suggested by the wish to imitate any flower whatever, least of all that of the lotus. The capitals at Soleb and Sesebi (Figs. [82] and [93]) embody careful imitations of, at least, the general shapes and curves of date-tree branches. Here there is nothing of the kind. There is not the slightest indication of the elongated and crowded petals of the lotus. Both at Karnak and at the Ramesseum, the latter may be easily recognised among the stalks of papyrus and other freely imitated flowers, but upon the columns and not in their shapes. Both base and capital were ornamented with leaves and flowers. Their contours have been gently indicated with a pointed instrument and then filled in with brilliant colours, which help to relieve them from their ground. The whole decoration is superficial; it is not embodied in the column and has no effect upon its general form and character.

The following explanation of the resemblances which do undoubtedly exist between certain details of Egyptian architecture and the forms of some of the national plants, is the most probable. The stalks of the lotus and the papyrus are too weak and slender ever to have been used as supports by themselves, but it is quite possible that on fête days, they were used to decorate pillars and posts of more substantial construction, being bound round them like the outer sticks of a faggot. This fashion has its modern illustration in the Italian habit of draping the columns of a church with cloth or velvet on special occasions, and in the French custom of draping houses with garlands and white cloth for the procession of the Fête Dieu.

The river and the canals of Egypt offered all the elements for such a decoration. The lotus and papyrus stems would be attached to the column which they decorated, at the top and bottom. The leaves at the roots would lie about its base, those round the flower and the flower itself would droop gracefully beneath the architrave, would embrace and enlarge the capital when it existed, or supply its place when there was none. The eyes of a people with so keen a perception of beauty as the Egyptians could not be insensible to the charm of a column thus crowned with the verdure of green leaves, with the splendour of the open flower and with the graceful forms of the still undeveloped bud. It is probable enough that the architect, when he began to feel the necessity for embellishing the bare surface of his column, took this temporary and often-renewed decoration for his model.

The first attempt to imitate these natural forms would be made in wood and metal, substances which would lend themselves to the unpractised moulder more readily than stone, but in time the difficulties of the latter material would be overcome. The deep vertical grooves cut in the shaft would afford a rough imitation of the round stems of the lotus and the triangular ones of the papyrus. The circular belts at the top would suggest the cords by which they were tied to the shaft. The leaves and flowers painted upon the lowest part of the shaft and upon the capital, may be compared to permanent chromatic shadows of the bouquets of colour and verdure which had once hidden those members. Finally, the artist found in the swelling sides of the bud and the hollow curves of the corolla those flowing lines which he desired for the proper completion of his column.

This hypothesis seems to leave no point unexplained, and it receives additional probability from a detail which can hardly be satisfactorily accounted for by the advocates of the rival theory. We mean the cube of stone which is interposed as a kind of abacus between the capital and the architrave. If we refer the general lines to those of a plain column bound about with flowering stalks, there is no difficulty. The abacus then represents the rigid column behind the decoration, raising its summit above the drooping heads of lotus and papyrus, and visibly doing its duty as a support. Its effect may not be very happy, but its raison d'être is complete. On the other hand its existence is quite inexplicable, if we are to look upon the column as a reproduction in stone, a kind of petrifaction of a single stem. To what, in that case, does this heavy stone die correspond? To those who believe the capital to be the representation of a single flower with its circlet of graceful petals, its presence must seem nothing less than an outrage.

In their light structures only do we find the Egyptians frankly imitating flowers and half-opened buds (Figs. [57], [63], and [64]), but even there the imitation is far from literal. The petals in a single "bloom" are often of different colours, some blue, some yellow, others again red or pink, a mixture which is not to be found in nature. The Egyptian decorator thought only of decoration. He used his tints capriciously from the botanist's point of view, but he often reproduced the forms of Egyptian plants with considerable fidelity, especially those splendid lotus-flowers which occupied so large a part in his affections long before the poets of India sang their praise. In fashioning slender shafts which had little weight to support, the artist could give the reins to his fancy, he could mould his metal plates or his precious timber into the semblance of any natural form that pleased his eye, and the types thus created would, of course, be present in the minds of the first architects who attempted to decorate rock-cut tombs or temples and constructed buildings. We affirm again, however, that neither the stone column of the Egyptians, nor that of the Greeks, in its most complete and dignified form, resulted from the servile imitation, nor even from the intelligent interpretation of living nature.

The column was an abstract creation of plastic genius. Its forms were determined by the natural properties of the material employed, by structural necessities, and by a desire for beauty of proportion. Different peoples have had different ideas as to what constitutes this beauty; they have had their secret instincts and individual preferences. The artist, too, who wishes to ornament a column, is sure to borrow motives from any particular form of art or industry in which the race to which he belongs may have earned distinction. In some cases, therefore, his work may resemble carved wood, in others chased or beaten metal. He will also be influenced, to some extent, by the features and characteristic forms of the plants and animals peculiar to his country. But wherever a race is endowed with a true instinct for art, its architects will succeed in creating for stone architecture an appropriate style of its own. The exigencies of the material differ from those of metal or wood. Its unbending rigidity places a great gulf between it and the elasticity and perpetual mobility which characterize organic life. The Egyptian architects saw from the first that this difference, or rather contrast, would have to be reckoned with. They understood perfectly well that the shaft which was to support a massive roof of stone must not be a copy of those slender stems of lotus or papyrus which bend before the wind, or float upon the lazy waters of the canals. The phrase column-plant or plant-column, which has sometimes been used in connection with the columns of Luxor and Karnak, is a contradiction in terms.

But why should we dwell upon these questions of origin? In the history of art, as in that of language, they are nearly always insoluble, especially when we have to do with a race who created all their artistic forms and idioms for themselves. The case is different when we have to do with a nation who came under the influence of an earlier civilization than their own. Then, and then only, can such an inquiry lead to useful results. The word origin is then a synonym for affiliation, and an inquiry is directed towards establishing the method and the period in which the act of birth took place.

In our later volumes we shall have to go into such questions in detail, but in the case of Egypt we are spared that task. All that we mean by civilization had its origin in Egypt, so far, at least, as we can tell. It is the highest point in the stream to which we can mount. Any attempt to determine the genesis of each particular æsthetic motive in a past so distant that a glance into its depths takes away our breath, would be a mere waste of time and ingenuity.

§ 6. The Ordonnance of Egyptian Colonnades.

A French writer tells us that uniformity is sure to give birth to weariness sooner or later, and there are many people who would believe, if they thought about it, that his words exactly apply to the art of Egypt. The character which was given to it when its creations first became known to modern Europe clings to it still. Our museums are full of objects dating from the last centuries of the monarchy and even from the Greek and Roman period. A very slight study of Egyptian architecture is sufficient, however, to destroy such a prejudice, in spite of its convenience for those who are lazily disposed. The pier and column were extremely various in their types, as we have seen, and each type was divided into numerous species. The same variety is found in the arrangement, or ordonnance, of the columns, both in the interior and exterior of their buildings. We cannot prove this better than by placing a series of plans of hypostyle halls and porticos before the eye of the reader, accompanied by a few illustrations in perspective which will suffice to show the freedom enjoyed by the Egyptian architect and the number of different arrangements which he could introduce into a single building.

The fullest development of Egyptian columnar architecture is to be found in their interiors.

Fig. 99.—Small chamber at Karnak.

Fig. 100.—Apartment in the temple at Luxor.

Fig. 101.—Hall of the temple at Abydos; Description, vol. ii. p. 41.

The simplest arrangement is to be found in the small chambers where the roof is sustained by a single row of columns (Fig. [98]). When the apartment was slightly larger it contained two rows, the space between the rows being wider than that between the columns and the wall (Fig. [100]). Sometimes in still larger halls we find three rows of columns separated from one another by equal spaces in every direction (Fig. [101]). Finally in those great chambers which are known as hypostyle halls, the number of columns seems to be practically unlimited. At Karnak there are a hundred and thirty-four (Fig. [102]), at the Ramesseum forty-eight, at Medinet-Abou twenty-four.

Fig. 102.—Plan of part of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak.

The full effect of the hypostyle hall is to be seen at Karnak and at the Ramesseum. In those halls the central aisle is higher than the parts adjoining and is distinguished by a different type of column (Plate IV). It is more than probable that this happy arrangement was not confined to Thebes. We should no doubt have encountered it in more than one of the temples of Memphis and the Delta had they been preserved to our time. Its principle was reproduced in the propylæa of the acropolis at Athens, where the Ionic and Doric orders figured side by side.

Fig. 103.—Tomb at Sakkarah.

Fig. 104.—Hall in the inner portion of the Great Temple at Karnak.

In the ancient tombs at Sakkarah the quadrangular pier alone was used to support the roof (Fig. [103]). In the Theban temples it was combined with the column. In the chamber called the ambulatory of Thothmes (J in Fig. [215], Vol. I.), at Karnak, a row of square piers surrounds an avenue of circular columns which to bear the roof (Fig. [104]).

Fig. 105.—Portico of the first court at Medinet-Abou.

Fig. 106.—Portico of the first court at Luxor.

The external porticos are no less remarkable for variety of plan. At Medinet-Abou we find one consisting of only a single row of columns (Fig. [105]). At Luxor the columns are doubled upon all four sides of the first court (Fig. [106]), and upon two sides of the second; upon one side of the latter, the side nearest to the sanctuary, there are four rows of columns (Fig. [107]).

Fig. 107.—The portico of the pronaos, Luxor.

All these are within the external walls of the courts, but the peripteral portico, embracing the temple walls, like those of Greece, is also to be found in a few rare instances (Fig. [108]); as, for example, in the small temple at Elephantiné which we have already described.[120]

Fig. 108.—Part plan of the temple at Elephantiné.

Fig. 109.—Luxor, plan of the second court.

In the cases where the portico is within the courts, it is sometimes confined to two sides, as at Luxor (Fig. [109]); the columns shown at the top of our plan belong to the pronaos and not to the court. In the Temple of Khons it surrounds three sides (Fig. [110]), while the fine court added to the temple of Luxor by Rameses II. has a double colonnade all round it (Fig. [111]).

Both in the interior of the halls and in the external porticos we find an apparently capricious irregularity in spacing the columns. Sometimes intercolumniations vary at points where we should expect uniformity, as in the outer court of Luxor (Fig. [112]). On two of the faces the columns are farther apart than on the other two. The difference is not easily seen on the ordinary small plans, but it is conspicuous in the large one of the Description.[121]

It is easy to understand why the spacing should have been increased in front of a door, an arrangement which exists at Gournah (Fig. [113]), and at Luxor (Figs. [109] and [111]).

Fig. 110.—Portico in the Temple of Khons.

Fig. 111.—Luxor, portico of the first court.

In the hypostyle halls we find columns of different sizes and orders. Six of the great columns which form the central avenue at Karnak cover as much ground, measuring from the first to the sixth, as nine of the smaller pillars. Between supports so arranged and proportioned no constant relation could be established (Fig. [114]). The transverse lines passing through the centres of each pair of great columns correspond to the centres neither of the smaller shafts nor of the spaces which divide them. The central aisle and the two lateral groves of stone might have been the creations of separate architects, working without communication with one another and without any desire to make their proportions seem the result of one coherent idea.

In the inner hypostyle hall at Abydos the intercolumniations which lead respectively to the seven sanctuaries vary in width (Fig. [115]). This variation is not shown by Mariette, from whose work our plan of the temple as a whole was taken, but it is clearly seen in the plan given in the Description. These are not the only instances in which those early explorers of Egypt excelled their successors in minute accuracy.

Fig. 112.—Part of the portico of the first court, Luxor. From the Description, iii. 5.

Fig. 113.—Portico in front of the façade of the temple of Gournah. From the Description, ii. 41.

Here and there we find the spaces in a single row of columns increasing progressively from the two ends to the centre (Fig. [105]).

Fig. 114.—Part of the Hypostyle Hall in the Great Temple at Karnak.

The combination of quadrangular with Osiride piers and of the latter with columns proper was also productive of great variety. In the speos of Gherf-Hossein six Osiride piers are inclosed by six of quadrangular section (Fig. [116]). In the first court at Medinet-Abou a row of Osiride piers faces a row of columns (Fig. [117]), while in the second court there is a much more complicated arrangement. The lateral walls of the court are prefaced each by a row of columns. The wall next the entrance has a row of Osiride piers before it; while that through which the pronaos is gained has a portico supported by, first, a row of Osiride piers, and, behind them, by a row of columns (Fig. [118]).

Fig. 115.—Second Hypostyle Hall in the temple of Abydos. Description, iv. 36.

Fig. 116.—Hall in the speos of Gherf-Hossein (from Prisse).

Fig. 117.—Medinet-Abou; first court.

Fig. 118.—Medinet-Abou; second court.

In the temple of Khons the peristyle is continued past the doorway in the pylon (Fig. [119]), and the inclosure is reached through one of the intercolumniations.[122] At Luxor, on the other hand, the portico was brought to an abrupt termination against the salient jambs of the doorway (Fig. [120]).

Fig. 119.—Portico of the Temple of Khons, looking towards pronaos.

Fig. 120.—Portico of first court at Luxor.

The Egyptian architect, like his Greek successor, made frequent use of the anta, that is, he gave a salience to the extremities of his walls which strengthened his design and afforded structural members, akin to pilasters or quadrangular pillars, which were combined in various ways with columns and piers. Sometimes the anta is nothing but a slight prolongation of a wall beyond the point where it meets another (Fig. [121]); sometimes it is the commencement of a returning wall which appears to have been broken off to give place to a row of columns (Fig. [122]); a good instance of the latter arrangement is to be found on the façade of the temple at Gournah. Sometimes, as at Medinet-Abou, it is a reinforcement to the extremity of a wall, and serves to form a backing for colossal Osiride statues (Fig. [123]), sometimes it gives accent and strength to an angle, as in the Great Hall at Karnak (Fig. [124]). At the Temple of Khons the terminations of the two rows of columns which form the portico are marked by antæ on the inner face of the pylon (Fig. [126]), while the wall which incloses the pronaos is without any projection except the jambs of the door. This arrangement has an obvious raison d'être; if the columns were brought close up to the pylon their outlines would not combine happily with its inclined walls. At the other extremity of the court, the wall being perpendicular, there was no necessity for such an arrangement.[123] A glance at Fig. [126] will make this readily understood. At Medinet-Abou the portico is terminated laterally by two antæ, one corresponding to the row of columns, the other to the row of caryatid piers. In another court of the same temple the antæ on either side vary in depth, at one end of the portico there is a bold pilaster, at the other one which projects very slightly indeed (Fig. [128]). This is another instance of the curious want of symmetry and regularity which is one of the most constant characteristics of Egyptian architecture.

Fig. 121.—Anta, Luxor; second court. Description, iii. 5.

Fig. 122.—Anta, Gournah. From Gailhabaud.

Fig. 123.—Anta, Medinet-Abou.

Fig. 124.—Anta in the Great Hall of Karnak.

Fig. 125.—Antæ, Temple of Khons. Description, iii. 54.

Fig. 126.—Anta and base of pylon, Temple of Khons. Description, iii. 55.

The anta is often without a capital, as, for instance, in the temple of Khons (Fig. [126]). Elsewhere the architect seems to have wished to bring it into more complete harmony with the magnificence of its surroundings, and accordingly he gives it a capital, as at Medinet-Abou, but a capital totally unlike those proper to the column.[124] It was identical in form with that gorge or cornice which crowns nearly every Egyptian wall. Considering that the anta was really no more than a prolongation or momentary salience of the wall, such an arrangement was judicious in every way (Fig. [129]).

Fig. 127.—Antæ, Medinet-Abou.

Fig. 128.—Antæ, Medinet-Abou.

The width of the intercolumniations also varied between one court or hall and another, and, at least in the present state of the Egyptian remains, we are unable to discover any rule governing the matter, such as those by which Greek architects were guided. We may affirm generally that the Egyptian constructor, especially in the time of the New Empire and when using columns of large dimensions, preferred close spacing to wide. His tendency to crowd his columns is to be explained, partly by the great weight of the superstructure which they had to support, partly by the national taste for a massive and close architecture. The spaces between the great columns in the hypostyle hall of Karnak, measured between the points of junction between the bases and the shafts, is slightly less than two diameters. The spaces between the smaller columns on each side are hardly more than one diameter.

A better idea of the original character of these ordonnances may perhaps be gathered from the plate which faces the next page (Pl. VIII) than to any plan to which we could refer the reader. It represents that part of the colonnade, in the second court of the temple at Medinet-Abou, which veils the wall of the pronaos, and it shows how little space the Egyptian architects thought necessary for the purposes of circulation. The spaces between the columns and the wall on the one hand and the osiride piers on the other, are not quite equal to the diameter of the bases of those columns, which have, however, been expressly kept smaller than was usual in Egypt. If they had been as large as some that we could point out, there would have been no room to pass between them and the wall.

Did the Egyptians ever employ isolated columns, not as structural units, but for decorative purposes, for the support of a group or a statue? Are there any examples of pillars like those which the Phœnicians raised before their temples, or the triumphal columns of the Romans, or those reared for commemorative purposes in Paris and other cities of Modern Europe? It is impossible to give a confident answer to this question. The remains of the great colonnade which existed in the first court at Karnak, of which a single column with bell-shaped capital is still upright (Fig. [130]), suggest, perhaps, that such monumental pillars were not unknown to the Egyptians. These columns display the ovals of Tahraka, of Psemethek, and of Ptolemy Philopator. The width of the avenue between them, measuring from centre to centre, is so great, about fifty-five feet, that it is difficult to believe that it could ever have been covered with a roof. Even with wood it would have been no easy matter—for the Egyptians—to cover such a void. We have, moreover, good reason to believe that they never used wood and stone together in their temples. A velarium has been suggested, but there is nothing either in the Egyptian texts or in their wall paintings to hint at their use of such a covering.

It would have been quite possible to connect the summits of these columns together lengthwise. The architraves would have had less than twenty feet to bridge over. But not the slightest relic of such a structure has been found, and it is difficult to see what good purpose it could have served had it existed.

The authors of the Description came to the conclusion that there had been no roof of any kind to the avenue formed by the columns, that they merely formed a kind of monumental approach to the hypostyle hall.[125] Mariette also discards the idea of architraves, which would have to be unusually long, but he cannot accept the notion that the columns were merely colossal venetian masts bordering the approach to the sanctuary. He supposes the centre of the courtyard to have contained a small hypæthral temple built by Tahraka. This temple figures upon his plan, but neither he himself, by his own confession, nor any one else has ever found the slightest trace of it in reality.[126] In the excavations made by him in 1859, he did not find a vestige even of the two columns which he inserts upon each of the two short sides of the rectangle. These columns were necessary in order to complete a peripteral arrangement, similar to that which exists in the hypæthral temples at Philæ and in Nubia. The closest study of the site has brought to light nothing beyond the twelve columns shown in our plan (Fig. [214], E, Vol. I.).

Ch. Chipiez del Hibon sc.
THEBES
PORTICO IN THE TEMPLE OF MEDINET-ABOU (SECOND COURT)
Restored by Ch. Chipiez.
Imp. Ch. Chardon

Fig. 129.—Anta and column at Medinet-Abou.

Fig. 130.—Column in the court of the Bubastides, at Karnak.

The most probable explanation is that which we have hinted at above.[127] These great columns were erected to give majesty to the approach to the hypostyle hall, and to border the path followed by the great religious processions as they issued from the hall and made for the great doorway in the pylon. They must always have been isolated, and it is possible that formerly each carried upon the cubic die which still surmounts the capital, groups of bronze similar to those which, to all appearance, crowned those stele-like piers which we described in speaking of the work of Thothmes in the same temple (page [94]). This was also the opinion of Prisse d'Avennes, who studied the monuments of Egypt, both as an artist and as an archæologist, more closely, perhaps, than any one else.[128] It has been objected that the columns would hide each other, and that the symbolic animals perched upon their summits could not have been seen; but this would only be the case with those who looked at them from certain disadvantageous positions—from between the columns, or exactly on their alignment. From the middle of the avenue, or from one side of it, they would be clearly visible, and the vivid colours of their enamels would produce their full effect.

The question might be decided in a very simple fashion. The summit of the column which is still upright might be examined, or the abacus of one of those which have fallen might be discovered; in either case traces of the objects which they supported would be found, supposing our hypothesis to be correct. More than one doubtful question of this kind would long ago have been solved had the Egyptian monuments been studied on the spot by archæologists and artists instead of being left almost entirely to the narrower experience of engineers and egyptologists.

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we shall, then, look upon it as probable that the Egyptians sometimes raised columns, like other people, not for the support of roofs and architraves, but as gigantic pedestals, as self-contained decorative forms, with independent parts of their own to play. Such a proceeding was doubtless an innovation in Egyptian art—one of those fresh departures which date from the latter years of the Monarchy. Even in Egypt motives grew stale with repetition at last, and she cried out for something new.

§ 7. Monumental Details.

We have seen that the proportions, the entasis, the shape, and the decoration of the Egyptian column, were changed more than once and in many ways. The Egyptian artist, by his fertility of resource and continual striving after improvement, showed that he was by no means actuated by that blind respect for tradition which has been too often attributed to him. Besides, the remains which we possess are but a small part of Egyptian architecture. The buildings of Memphis and of the Delta have perished. Had they been preserved we should doubtless have found among them forms and details which do not exist in the ruins of Abydos, of Thebes, or in the Nubian hypogea; we should have been able to describe arrangements and motives which do not occur in the works of the three great Theban dynasties.

Fig. 131.—Stereobate, Luxor.

Fig. 132.—Stereobate with double plinth, Luxor.

On the other hand, the mouldings and other details of the same kind are monotonous in the extreme. Their want of variety is not to be explained, like that of Assyria, by the nature of the materials. Brick, granite, limestone, and sandstone constituted a series of materials in which a varied play of light and shade, such as that which characterized Greek architecture, should have been easy. The real cause of the poverty of Egyptian design in this particular is to be found in their habit of covering nearly every surface with a carved and painted decoration. More elaborate or bolder mouldings might have interfered with the succession of row upon row of pictures from the bottom to the top of a wall. The eye was satisfied with the rich polychromatic decoration, and did not require it to be supplemented by architectural ornament.

When the slope of a wall was ornamented with projections in the shape of mouldings it was because the wall was bare. At Luxor, for example, in the external face of the wall which incloses the back of the temple, the lowest course projects beyond the others, forming a step, and a few courses above it there is a hollow moulding similar in section to the cornice at the top; the lower part of the wall is thus formed into a stereobate (Fig. [131]). At another point in the circumference of this temple there is a stereobate of a more complicated description. It is terminated above by a cornice-shaped moulding like that just described, but it rests upon two steps instead of one (Fig. [132]). By this it appears that the Egyptian architects understood how to add to apparent solidity of their buildings by expanding them at their junction with the ground. This became a true continuous stylobate, carrying piers, in peripteral temples like that at Elephantiné (Fig. [230], Vol. I.). In the latter building its form is identical with that which we have just described.

We have now to describe an arrangement which, though rare in the Pharaonic period, was afterwards common enough. The portico which stretches across the back of the second court in the Ramesseum is closed to about a third of its height by a kind of pluteus (Fig. [133]).[129] This barrier formed a sort of tablet, surrounded by a fillet, and crowned by a cornice of the usual type, between each pair of Osiride piers. In the Ptolemaic temples the lower part of the portico was always closed in this fashion. It constitutes the only inclosure in front of the fine hypostyle hall at Denderah.

We have now studied buildings in sufficient number to become familiar with the Egyptian Gorge. As early as the Ancient Empire the architects of Egypt had invented this form of cornice, and used it happily upon their massive structures. It is composed of three elements, which are always arranged in the same order. In the first place there is the circular moulding or torus with a carved ribbon twisting about it. This moulding occurs at the edge where two faces meet in most Egyptian buildings. It serves to give firmness and accent to the angles and, when used at the top of the wall, to mark the point where the wall ends and the cornice begins. Above this there is a hollow curve with perpendicular grooves, which, again, is surmounted by a plain fillet which makes a sharp line against the sky. In all this there is a skilful opposition of hollows to flat surfaces, of deep shadow to brilliant and unbroken sunlight, which marks the upward determination of the great masses upon which it is used in the most effective manner.

Fig. 133.—Pluteus in the intercolumniations of the portico in the second court of the Ramesseum.

Although the Egyptian architect repeated this cornice continually, he contrived to give it variety of effect by modifying its proportions, and by introducing different kinds of ornaments. In the pylons, for instance, we often find that the cornice of the doorway was both deeper and of bolder projection than those upon the two masses of the pylon itself (Fig. [134]). It was generally ornamented with the winged globe, an emblem which was afterwards appropriated by the nations which became connected with Egypt.

Fig. 134.—Doorway, Luxor. Description, iii. 6.

This emblem in its full development was formed of the solar disk supported on each side by the uræus, the serpent which meant royalty. The sun was thus designated as the greatest of kings, the king who mounted up into space, enlightening and vivifying the upper and lower country at one and the same time. The disk and its supporters were flanked by the two wide stretching wings with rounded, fan-shaped extremities, which symbolized the untiring activity of the sun in making its daily journey from one extremity of the firmament to the other. Egyptologists tell us that the group as a whole signifies the triumph of right over wrong, the victory of Horus over Set. An inscription at Edfou tells us that, after the victory, Thoth ordered that this emblem should be carved over every doorway in Egypt, and, in fact, there are very few lintels without it.[130] It first appears at about the time of the twelfth dynasty, according to Mariette, but its form was at first more simple. There were no uræi, and the wings were shorter, and pendent instead of outstretched.[131] Towards the eighteenth dynasty it took the shape in which it is figured in our illustrations, and became thenceforward the Egyptian symbol par excellence.

Fig. 135.—Cornice of the Ramesseum. Description, ii. 30.

Fig. 136.—Cornice of a wooden pavilion; from Prisse.

In the more richly decorated buildings, such as the Ramesseum, we sometimes find cartouches introduced between the vertical grooves of the cornice (Fig. [135]). In the representations of architecture on the painted walls the upper member of the cornice as usually constituted, is often surmounted by an ornament composed of the uræus and the solar disk, the latter being upon the head of the former (Fig. [136]). This addition gives a richer and more ample cornice, which the Ptolemaic architects carried out in stone. It is not to be found thus perpetuated in any Pharaonic building, but the same motive occurs at Thebes, below the cornice, and its existence in the bas-reliefs shows that even in early times it was sometimes used. Perhaps it was confined to those light structures in which complicated forms were easily carried out.

This cornice seemed to the Egyptians to be so entirely the proper termination for their rising surfaces, that they placed it at the top of their stylobates (Figs. [131] and [132]) and their pedestals (Fig. [137]). They also used it within their buildings at the top of the walls behind their colonnades, as, for instance, in the peripteral temple at Elephantiné (Fig. [138]).

The number of buildings in which this cornice was not used is very small. The Royal Pavilion at Medinet-Abou is surrounded, at the top, by a line of round-headed battlements; in the Temple of Semneh, built by Thothmes I.,[132] and in the pronaos of the Temple of Amada, the usual form gives place to a square cornice which is quite primitive in its simplicity.

Fig. 137.—Pedestal of a Sphinx at Karnak. Description, iii. 29.

Fig. 138.—Cornice under the portico, Elephantiné.

Traces of other mouldings, such as those which we call the cyma, and the cyma reversa, may be found in Egyptian temples, but they occur so rarely that we need not dwell upon them here or figure them.[133]

Besides these mouldings, which were used but very rarely, we need only mention one more detail of the kind, namely, those vertical and horizontal grooves which occur upon the masonry walls and were derived from the structures in wood. They were chiefly used for the ornamentation of the great surfaces afforded by the brick walls (Fig. 261, Vol. I.), but they are also to be found upon stone buildings. We give, as an example, a fragment found at Alexandria, which is supposed to belong to the lower part of a sarcophagus. A curious variation of the same ornament exists in one of the royal tombs at Thebes (Fig. [140]), in which each panel is separated from its neighbours by the figures of headless men with their hands tied behind their backs. They represent, no doubt, prisoners of war who have been beheaded, and the decorator has wished, by the use of a somewhat barbarous though graceful motive, to suggest the exploits of him for whom the sepulchre was destined.

Fig. 139.—Fragment of a sarcophagus. Description, v. 47.

Not much variety was to be obtained from the use of these grooves, but yet they disguised the nudity of great wall spaces, they prevented monotony from becoming too monotonous, while they afforded linear combinations which had some power to please the eye. The Assyrians made use of hardly any other mode of breaking up the uniformity of their brick walls.

Fig. 140.—Fragment of decoration from a royal tomb at Thebes. Description, ii. 86.

It has been asserted that the first signs of that egg-moulding which played so great a part in Greek architecture are to be found in Egypt. Nestor L'Hôte thought that he recognised it in the entablature, under the architrave, of some pavilions figured in decorations at Tell-el-Amarna and at Abydos.[134] He was certainly mistaken. The outline of the ornament to which he referred has a distant resemblance to the moulding in question, but the place which it occupies gives it an entirely different character; it seems to be suspended in the air under the entablature. In other painted pavilions the same place is occupied by flowers, bunches of grapes, and fruits resembling dates or acorns, suspended in the same fashion.[135] If such forms must be explained otherwise than by the mere fancy of the ornamentist, we should be inclined to see in them metal weights hung round the edges of the awnings, which supplied the place of a roof in many wooden pavilions.

The same remarks may be applied to those objects, or rather appearances, to which the triglyphs of the Doric order have been referred. It is true that in the figured architecture of the bas-reliefs many of the architraves seem to show vertical incisions arranged in groups of three, each group being separated from the next by a square space which recalls the Greek metope (Figs. [62]-64). But sometimes these stripes follow each other at regular intervals, sometimes they are in pairs, and sometimes they are altogether absent, the architrave being either plain or decorated with figures and inscriptions. Where the stripes are present they represent sometimes applied ornaments, sometimes the ends of transverse joists appearing between the beams of the architrave. Similar ornaments surround the paintings in the tombs, and are to be found upon the articles of furniture, such as chairs, which form part of most Egyptian museums. Neither these so-called triglyphs and metopes, which do slightly resemble the details so named of the Doric order, nor the egg moulding, which is a pure delusion, ever received that established form and elemental character which alone gives such things importance. Architecture—stone architecture—made no use of them, and the analogies which some have endeavoured to establish are misleading. The apparent coincidence resulted from the nature of the material and from the limited number of combinations which it allowed.

§ 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.