Engineering problems will be the most interesting in a large part of the student’s reading about Egyptian architecture. Supplementing the 4,000 or 5,000 words on this subject under Architecture, accompanied by seven illustrations, there is much information in the articles Egypt (Vol. 9, p. 21); Abydos (Vol. 1, p. 81) and Karnak (Vol. 15, p. 680); and in the articles Pyramid (Vol. 22, p. 683), (by W. M. Flinders Petrie) and Sphinx (Vol. 25, p. 662) by Francis Llewellyn Griffith, another well-known Egyptologist. In the former article the author points out that the outside and inside work on all the pyramids was excellent and that the casings were not a mere veneer but were “of massive blocks, usually greater in thickness than in height, and in some cases (as at South Dahshur) reminding the observer of horizontal leaves with sloping edges.” The massive character of the roofing of the sepulchral chambers is indicated by Prof. Petrie’s estimate that “in Pepi’s pyramid it is of three layers of stone beams, each deeper than their breadth, resting one on another, the thirty stones weighing more than 30 tons each.” But neither Stonehenge nor the pyramid was really an engineering problem. Here, and as in all his studies of early architecture, artist or engineer will find religion and worship the aim and the reason of the building even more, if that is possible, than in the great European cathedrals of comparatively recent times.
In the article Babylonia and Assyria there is a brief section (Vol. 3, p. 108) on Art, supplementing the treatment under Architecture. It is interesting to note that even in Assyria architecture was trammelled, reactionary, governed by Babylonian styles and using brick and clay because Babylon did, although there was stone in Assyria, and none in Babylonia; and keeping the heavy brick platform foundation which the Babylonian architects had adopted because of the marshy character of their country, although there was no need of such construction in Assyria. Here too the function of architecture was largely as an aid to religion: as shown in the article Nippur (Vol. 19, p. 707), with its description of the “ziggurat” or artificial mountain in the shrine, built probably 40 or 45 centuries B. C. One temple was 272 ft. square, with seven storeys, each smaller than the one below and thus surrounded by a terrace, each dedicated to a planet, each coloured a separate tint, the first probably 45 ft. high, and the total height 160 ft.
In Assyria great palaces of the 9th, 8th and 7th centuries B. C. have been found, and these are probably the earliest large buildings of any architectural importance not religious in their purpose; but this distinction must not be carried too far, for the king was sacrosanct, half priest and half god, and his palace was a shrine.
Greece and Rome
Although the main treatment of Greek and Roman architecture is in the article Architecture, the student should read the articles Greek Art (Vol. 12, p. 470; equivalent to 70 pages in this Guide; written by Percy Gardner, author of Grammar of Greek Art) and Roman Art (Vol. 23, p. 474; equivalent to 40 pages of this Guide; written by H. Stuart Jones, director of the British School at Rome). The article on Greek Art contains 82 illustrations, many of them halftones. It makes clear the dependence of the other fine arts in Greece on architecture—and on religion—in showing that the greatest sculptures were adjuncts to temples, and (p. 471–472) in a discussion of the architecture of Greek temples calls attention to four basal principles of Greek architecture:
(1) Each member of the building has one function and only one, and this function controls even the decoration of that member. Pillars support architraves; their perpendicular flutings emphasize this. Moulding at a column’s base suggests the support of a great weight.
(2) Simple and natural relations prevailed between various members of a construction.
(3) Rigidity of simple lines is avoided; scarcely any outline is actually straight. Columns are not equidistant.
(4) Elaborate decoration is reserved for those parts of the temple which have, or seem to have, no strain laid upon them.
The article Temple (Vol. 26, p. 603) gives plans and general information about Greek and Roman sacred architecture, as well as Hebrew, Egyptian and Assyrian temples; and the reader should study the article Parthenon (Vol. 20, p. 869) and the diagram in that article, and the article Pergamum (Vol. 21, p. 142) and the two plates which accompany it.