A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed. / From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by James Fergusson

Rock-cut Tombs and Temples.

But in Egypt Proper and in Nubia the Egyptians were in the habit of excavating monuments from the living rock, but with this curious distinction, that, with scarcely an exception, all the excavations in Egypt Proper are tombs, and no important example of a rock-cut temple has yet been discovered. In Nubia, on the other hand, all the excavations are temples, and no tombs of importance are to be found anywhere. This distinction may hereafter lead to important historical deductions, inasmuch as on the western side of India there are an infinite number of rock-cut temples, but no tombs of any sort. Every circumstance seems to point to the fact that, if there was any connection between Africa and India, it was with the provinces in the upper part of the Valley of the Nile, and not with Egypt Proper. This, however, is a subject that can hardly be entered on here, though it may be useful to bear in mind the analogy alluded to.

30. Plan and Section of Rock-cut Temple at Abû Simbel. Scale for plan 100 ft. to 1 in.; section 50 ft. to 1 in.

Like all rock-cut examples all over the world, these Nubian temples are copies of structural buildings only more or less modified to suit the exigencies of their situation, which did not admit of any very great development inside, as light and air could only be introduced from the one opening of the doorway.

The two principal examples of this class of monument are the two at Abû Simbel, the larger of which is the finest of its class known to exist anywhere. Its total depth from the face of the rock is 150 ft., divided into 2 large halls and 3 cells, with passages connecting them.

Externally the façade is about 100 ft. in height, and adorned by 4 of the most magnificent colossi in Egypt, each 70 ft. in height, and representing the king, Rameses II., who caused the excavation to be made. It may be because they are more perfect than any others now found in that country, but certainly nothing can exceed their calm majesty and beauty, or be more entirely free from the vulgarity and exaggeration which is generally a characteristic of colossal works of this sort.

The smaller temple at the same place has six standing figures of deities countersunk in the rock, and is carved with exceeding richness. It is of the same age with the large temple, but will not admit of comparison with it owing to the inferiority of the design.

Besides these, there is a very beautiful though small example at Kalabsheh (known as the Bayt el Wellee, “the house of the saint”), likewise belonging to the age of Rameses II., and remarkable for the beauty of its sculptural bas-reliefs, as well as for the bold Proto-Doric columns which adorn its vestibule. There are also smaller ones at Dêrr and Balagne, at the upper end of the valley. At Wâdy Saboua and Gerf Hussên, the cells of the temple have been excavated from the rock, but their courts and propylons are structural buildings added in front—a combination only found once in Egypt, at Thebes (Dêr-el-Bahree), and very rare anywhere else, although meeting the difficulties of the case better than any other arrangement, inasmuch as the sanctuary has thus all the imperishability and mystery of a cave, and the temple at the same time has the space and external appearance of a building standing in the open air.

This last arrangement is found also as a characteristic of the temples of Gebel Barkal, in the kingdom of Meroë, showing how far the rock-cutting practice prevailed in the Upper Valley of the Nile.

The plan on which the Temple of Dêr-el-Bahree is constructed is curious, and differs entirely from that of any other in Egypt. It is built in stages up a slope at the foot of the mountain, flights of steps leading from one court to the other. The temple was built by Queen Hatshepsu or Amen-noo-het, the sister of Thothmes II. and Thothmes III., and consisted of three courts rising in terraces one above the other; at the back of these were two ranges of porticoes, the upper one set back behind the lower and built into the vertical face of the rock with which the sanctuary and antechambers were cut. As all the temples above mentioned are contemporary with the great structures in Egypt, it seems strange that the eternity of a rock-cut example did not recommend this form of temple to the attention of the Egyptians themselves. But with the exception of Dêr-el-Bahree and a small grotto, called the Speos Artemidos, near Beni-Hasan, and two small caves at Silsilis, near the Cataract, the Egyptians seem never to have attempted it, trusting apparently to the solidity of their masonic structures for that eternity of duration they aspired to.