Upon extensive brick terraces, raised high above the flat banks of the Nile, the Egyptian temple stood, a strictly secluded building. Strong walls, rising in pyramidal form, crowned with an overhanging fluted cornice, gave the mural enclosure a mysterious and stern character. No opening for windows, no colonnade interrupted the monotonous flatness, which is covered, as by one long tapestry, with hieroglyphs, and representations of gods and Pharaohs. The entrance to these buildings, like that of the temple of Edfou, was placed between two tower-like structures called propylæa, the walls of which were decorated with sculptured figures—in three or more rows. Then followed a court, surrounded by pillars, placed at a distance from the walls on both sides, roofed over with stone, and forming a gallery. Thence we reach the pronaos or portico, after which we enter the cell, divided into the naos and adytum. The naos was generally a kind of hypostyle hall, with a flat roof raised in the middle. The pillars and columns had a variety of capitals, but these were generally of one pattern throughout the temple. The quadrilateral Isis-headed capital, as at Denderah, was often used. The monuments of the ‘hundred-gated’ Thebes are the best school for the study of genuine Egyptian art. The temples on the eastern side of the river are symbolical of the dawn of life; on the western side we find tombs, catacombs, and Memnoniums. At Karnac we have one of the grandest constructions of the world in the ruins of the hypostyle hall, with its gigantic stone ceiling supported by 134 columns, of which the twelve middle ones, about 65 feet high and 11 feet in diameter, are larger and taller than the others, supporting a loftier central nave. The width of this hall is 338 feet, the depth 170½ feet, and the area 57,629 feet, or about five times as large as the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. Columns and walls are completely covered with sculptured forms of deities; Osiris predominates. Pylons, propylæa, obelisks, colossal statues of red, grey, and black granite cover the courts; chapel-like apartments, connected and unconnected, are strangely intermingled.
Next to the temples we must mention one of the most gorgeous buildings, the Labyrinth, containing between three and four thousand chambers in rows, facing inwards the winding alleys, which ascended in a spiral line to the middle, and descended from it in the same way. It has been minutely described by Herodotus, Pomponius Mela, Pliny, and Ezekiel. The building was to be a strict architectural imitation of the planetary system. The inner 1,500 chambers were divided into twelve courtyards, corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac, six of which were towards the north, and six towards the south.
The Memnons were monolith statues of imposing size, symbolic of the rising sun—of Horus or Osiris. Homer mentions Memnon, for his remarkable beauty, as the son of the east. Diodorus speaks of him as Tithonus, a general, sent out to aid Priamus of Troy against the besieging Greeks.
The walls of temples, palaces, tombs, and catacombs were partly decorated with reliefs en creux, and partly with tapestry-like patterns, using geometrical figures, sometimes, though rarely, intermixed with plants, or plants treated with conventional stiffness. The walls with the Egyptians had a different purpose than merely to encircle or to enclose; they served as huge blackboards of stone, on which the priests wrote their mystic records. The superfluous thickness of the walls suggests that they were once made of brick, like those of Nineveh or Babylon, and, further, the overlaying of these immense granite blocks with stucco, serves to bear out this supposition. The walls of the enclosures of temples and the sarcophagi were covered with hieroglyphs or scenes from life, both on the inside and outside; tombs and catacombs were decorated on the inside only. These scenes are framed in with borders, reminding us of the broad seams in woven stuffs. In temples the scenes refer to burial rituals, or the judgment of the dead; in palaces to hunts and conquests of the kings. We see the Asian and African conquests of Ramses II. represented on the walls of Ipsambul (Aboosimbal in Nubia) in bright-coloured pictures. The king brandishes a pole-axe over the heads of Negroes, Hebrews, and Aryans, that is, over one mixed and two pure groups of mankind. Above his head runs the hieroglyphic scroll: ‘The beneficent living God, guardian of glory, smites the South; puts to flight the East; rules by victory, and drags to his country all the earth, and all foreign lands.’ High officials and private persons ornamented the walls of their houses and tombs with scenes of every-day occurrences. We may study in these their whole domestic and public life, their customs and manners, their amusements and toils. The ceilings of the chambers are not covered with symbolic pictures, but generally with patterns of conventional wall-decorations. In temples they are sometimes decorated with zodiacs, as at Denderah—the best-preserved Egyptian temple, of which, however, the date is doubtful.
C. The hieratic style of the Pharaohs substituted a greater amount of very tasteful symbolic ornamentation.
The Hathor-masks, the names of kings in cartouches, the viper as a symbol of divine or royal power; serpents, scarabæi, winged globes, either symbolic of the sun, the moon, or the earth, formed the principal elements of the innumerable variety of severe ornamentation. In addition to these the following were used:—
1. The papyrus, as the symbol of bodily and intellectual food.
2. The lotus, as a symbol of the creative mysteries of the universe.
3. The palm-tree, with its graceful and simple form, served as the prototype of their columns, the capitals of which were either open or closed lotus-buds or flowers.
4. Lastly, the feather ornament, as the emblem of sovereignty.