A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Georges Perrot; Charles Chipiez

Fig. 254.—Rameses II. returning in triumph from Syria.
On the external face of the northern wall of the Great Temple at Karnak.
(From Champollion, pl. 292.)

"The temples show no trace of dwelling-places for the priests, nor of places for initiation, nor of any contrivance for divination or the giving of oracles. There is nothing to lead us to suppose that, except the king and the priests, any of the public were admitted into the building," at least beyond the hypostyle hall. Certain privileged individuals or classes were admitted into the latter on the occasion of a festival; others, less fortunate, were compelled to wait in the courtyards. It was their right to be the first to see the god as he emerged from the sanctuary on the shoulders of the priests. But in spite of their vast dimensions, these halls would have been ill fitted for the uses to which the spacious naves of a church or mosque are put. The huge and closely spaced columns would embarras the movements and intercept the view of those who crowded about their bases. It was only in the central aisle that sufficient space was left for the easy passage of a procession. The hypostyle hall was lofty and wide in order that it might be a vestibule worthy of the god who dwelt in the sanctuary beyond it, and in order that it might bear witness by its magnificence to the piety, wealth, and power of the king who constructed it. It offered no place in which the faithful could assemble to listen to religious discourses, to unite in the expression of their faith and hope, to sing and pray in common.

In virtue of the sanctuary which was its nucleus, the temple was the dwelling of the god, the terrestrial resting-place to which the king, his son and the nursling of the goddesses, came to offer him thanks and to do homage in return for the protection and support which he received. The temple was also, in virtue of those numerous chambers which surrounded the sanctuary, a place for the preparation, consecration, and preservation of holy objects; a huge sacristy to which access was forbidden to all but those who were specially attached to the service of the god and charged with the custody of the sacred furniture.

Such being the origin and purpose of the temple, we need feel no surprise at the triple fortification behind which it was entrenched. This fortification consisted, in the first place, of the brick wall which formed the outermost inclosure; secondly, of the wall of masonry which embraced the temple proper, leaving a narrow passage only wide enough for the walk of a sentry; thirdly, of the wall which divided the really secret parts of the building from the pronaos. Now that the line of the external wall is only indicated by a gentle swell of the ground, now that the best preserved of the inner walls are broken down in many places, and now that all the roofs and ceilings have fallen and encumbered the floors, it is difficult enough to form a true idea of the former appearance of the Egyptian temples. Could we see them as they left their architects' hands, we should be struck by the jealous severity of their isolation, by the austere monotony of the screen of stone which was interposed between the eyes of the people and the internal splendours of the building. In this we should find the chief point of distinction between the temples of Egypt and those great religious edifices of our own times with which we half involuntarily compare all other works of the kind.

But the Greek temple was no more a church than its Egyptian rival. It was not a place of assembly for public praise or religious teaching. Its cella was an inclosed chamber, illuminated only by the door and by a few openings contrived in the roof, and reserved for the god who inhabited it. The two architects in fact, Egyptian and Greek, had the same points of departure; the problems which they had to solve strongly resembled each other, and yet they created types which differed very greatly. The Greek temple was not isolated and hidden behind a stone curtain; it could be seen from all sides in its commanding position; its encircling bands of porticos seemed to invite all comers to the shelter of their galleries, while they charmed all eyes with the play of light and shadow afforded by their alternate voids and solids. The colonnades reserved by the Egyptian for the decoration of courts and halls were placed by the Greek upon the external faces of his temples, and although the task of both architects was to fulfil almost identical requirements, this transposition of the elements employed was sufficient to cause a profound difference in the outward expression, in the physiognomy, of their several works.

Fig. 255.—The goddess Anouké suckling Rameses II.,
Beit-Wali; from Horeau.

Another and perhaps still more characteristic difference is to be found in the fact that the Greek temple is not susceptible, like that of Egypt, of almost infinite extension. Greece never produced anything like Karnak or Luxor; even in the centuries when the taste for the colossal eclipsed the love for the great, she never dreamed or imagined anything of the kind. The Greek temple had the unity of a living organism. Given the main dimensions, the elements of which it was to be composed could only vary within very narrow limits. In accordance with the degree of luxury desired, the cella would be either surrounded by a simple wall or would be encircled by a portico, but this portico would only be a kind of adornment, a vesture which would be more or less rich and ample according to circumstances. Behind the long files of columns on either side, behind the double or triple rows which veiled the two façades, the body of the temple could always be discerned, just as the modelling of the human form may be distinguished under the drapery of a statue, in spite of the folds which cover it. The cella was proportioned to the sacred figure which was to be its inhabitant, which, again, afforded a standard by which the proportions and subjects of the groups which filled the pediments, and of the bas-reliefs of the frieze, as well as the height of the columns and the projection of the entablature, were determined. Between all these parts there was an intimate and clearly defined connection.

When a plant is seen bursting from the seed, we are able, if we know the species to which it belongs, to say beforehand what its leaves, its flower, and its fruit will be like, and to foretell the limits of its height. It is the same, to a great extent, with the Greek temple. The trench dug to receive the footing stones of the cella walls is the hole into which the seed is thrown from which the whole temple is to spring. These walls rise above the level of the ground, the building progresses to completion, but from the day upon which the seed was sown, from the day upon which the foundation was laid, the temple had been virtually complete. Like an organic body, the Greek temple inclosed within itself the principle of its own growth, the law which governed its development, and forbade it in advance to exceed certain definite limits.