1S42.J 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



•15 





ON EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. 



Is commencing ihis subject it is requisite to premise, that we intend 

 to limit the inquiry — except as far as collateral illustration may be 

 requisite to throw a light on the subject — to the temples and palaces 

 of Egypt. A glance at its domestic architecture, as far as our imper- 

 fect knowledge in that particular extends, may be permitted. But 

 the sacred cave and the pyramid belong to an anterior period of civi- 

 lization ; that which immediately followed its first stage — the period 

 of cairns and of rough stones, set up for memorials of events. The first 

 cannot be comprised in the term architecture, the latter can. But dis- 

 sertation on the pyramids and on the pyramidography of Egypt, would 

 burdt-n or complicate the subject, or cause it to deviate from the 

 right track to its appropriate point of view. It would, it is true, fur- 

 nish materials for a long and elaborate essay. Such an essay might 

 not be uninteresting to the readers of the "Civil Engineer," nor out 

 of place in its pages; especially after the curious and romantic discove- 

 ries of Caviglia, the ardent inquiries conducted on the spot by Colonel 

 Howard Vise, and the recent and elaborate publication of Mr. Perrin, 

 the civil engineer, giving such minute details of the great pyramid's 

 structure, both exterior and interior, that the most untravelled reader, 

 in bis arm-chair, may form as correct an idea of the whole astounding 

 fabric, as the most adventurous traveller who has dived, by the aid of 

 a frail cord, amidst Arab ejaculations, to the bottom of the well, or 

 disturbed the long repose of the bats in the mirky and squalid recesses 

 of the closet over the central room. But for the reason we have as- 

 signed, and with a view equally to commodious brevity and lucid 

 order, we shall, as we premised, confine ourselves to the palacial and 

 ecclesiastical architecture of Egypt. 



The character of the Grecian temple was grave and dignified 

 beauty, while that of the Ionian wa* voluptuous elegance. The 

 Roman expressed the ambitious magnificence of the founders. The 

 essential type of the Egyptian temple was sublimity. The sacred 

 edifices of ancient Egypt were impressed with the sublime charac- 

 teristics of the universal deity to whom they were devoted. Great- 

 ness of dimension was so contrived as to imitate infinity by vmiformity 

 of succession. On the same principles of succession and uniformitv, 

 the grand appearance of all the ancient Doric temples of Greece and 

 Magna GrsEcia, which may be generally designated as oblong forms 

 with a range of uniform pillars on every side, will be easily accounted 

 for. From the same cause, also, may be derived the grand effect of 

 the aisles in many of our old cathedrals. The long avenues of 

 sphynxes which preceded the approach to the Egyptian temples were 

 constructed on the same theory ; long ranges of unhewn stones occupy 

 the same position in forming the approach to the circular temples of 

 tlie Druids. Denon, Belzoni, and ChampoUion describe, in vivid 

 and forcible language, the effect produced upon them by the sublime 

 character of the Egyptian temples. Denon says that when the French 

 army came in front of the temple of Tentyra, they were seized with 

 a simultaneous feeling of admiration, and halting on the plain in front 

 of the portico, demonstrated their wonder and delight by a general 

 acclamation and clapping of the hands. Whence did this consummate 

 perfection arise ? The architect, in the social scale, was ranked next 

 to the Prince. The art and the artist were studied and valued as 

 they ought to be, in Egypt. An architect was, according to the true 

 definition of the term, superintendent of the works and workmen. He 

 was the creative mind (mus) presiding over the mechanical producers 

 of the greatest labours that human ingenuity and labour are capable 

 of creating on the earth. 



Certainly the old architects connected all the deepest mysteries and 

 profoundest secrets of theology and science with the forms of archi- 

 tecture, and with the lines, angles, and curves of masonry. Hence 

 arose freem.asonry. The Dyonyslacs who were privileged to build 

 the sacred edifices of Asia Minor, and the theatres of initiation which 

 were attached to the most celebrated, as they were at Memphis and 

 Elcusis, were freemasons. Their first great lodge was possibly the 

 great pyramid ; their dramatic mysteries, the origin of the modern 



drama, were founded on the judgment of the dead ; their secret signs 

 were confessedly derived from the geometrical theology and philo- 

 sophy of the Egyptian masons, and were handed down to the pro- 

 fessors and masters of the monastic architecture of the middle ages, 

 An architect of this class was of necessity imbued with all the theo- 

 logical and scientific knowledge of the sacred colleges. His works 

 may be said to represent the various eras of civilization, and the suc- 

 cessive steps of man's social and scientific progress. 



The eye of disciplined taste can readily discern what the common 

 observer cannot — four distinct periods in Egyptian architecture: first, 

 the period of pyramids, cairns, rock-built forts, granaries, treasuries, 

 and sculptured tablets or steles ; second, the period of sculptured temples, 

 which succeeded the former, whether troglodyte — i.e. sculptured from 

 the face of the rock — or detached and isolated ; third, the period of the 

 rise, progress, and maturity of architectural forms, which may be 

 traced from Osirtesen to SesDstris; fourth, their decline and 

 fall, which may be traced to that period till their tot.al corruption 

 under the Greeks and the Romans. With respect to the first period, 

 as connected with Egyptian architecture, very little can be said. It 

 is to the temples and palaces exhibiting architectural design that we 

 shall confine ourselves. The period, however, exhibits a remarkable 

 analogy, and seems to indicate a particular fact in the history of the 

 first colonization of nations. The architectural and sculptured forms 

 of the first period resemble the sculptured forms preserved on the 

 old temples and palaces of New Spain, ascribed by writers to the 

 Tultecans, who preceded the Mexicans GUO years, or by the native 

 Indians to the Giants, or wandering Masons, a well known designation 

 of the expelled Cyclopean or Shepherd family. It is still more sin- 

 gular, that the monuments on which these sculptures appear, or con- 

 nected with them, resemble the unvarying characteristics of those 

 which are called Cyclopean, and many may doubtless be ascribed to 

 them without exaggeration. Some of the pyramids erected by them 

 are larger in base than those of Egypt, and composed of equally per- 

 manent materials ; their rock-hewn Treasuries resemble in every 

 respect the Cyclopean fabric called the tomb of Atreus. Their 

 fortifications resemble similar Cyclojean structures at Tyrios, and else- 

 where ; and their subterranean sepulchres are approached by similar 

 descending galleries, and distributed into similar sepulchral rooms. 

 Their palaces are characterised by galleries constructed with the well 

 known Cyclopean arch, consisting of receding courses of stone in a 

 triangular form ; in one of these monuments, viz, the flower temple of 

 Oaxata, appear individuals precisely like those called the Pomasata, 

 conquered bylSesostris, both in physiognomy, head-dress, and costume. 

 Now were these the same people? were the Pomasata a branch of 

 the Shepherd race ? was there any affinity between them and the 

 aboriginal American Indians ? We do not atHrm it, because the mode 

 of reaching America, either aboriginally or cotemporaneously wit'i 

 Sesostris, would still be unaccounted for. But another remarkali!-- 

 fact should be added, which gives additional reasons for the inference, 

 though it does not prove it. These men are red and beardless, ever 

 the well-known characteristics of the American Indians. Were they 

 then East Indians, as ChampoUion supposes, and was America origi- 

 nally peopled, as many learned men have argued, from the East In- 

 dies, and from the adjacent Indian isles ? If, then, the Tultecans, or 

 whatever nation built the monuments ascribed to them, came from the 

 south of Asia, it is quite certain that the Asteks, or Mexicans, came 

 from the north of Asia, and, conquering them, occupied their place; 

 the passage across Behring's Straits is no great geographical difficulty. 

 With regard to the period, extending from Osirtesen to Se- 

 sostris, it is indicated by a gradual rise from primitive simplicity to 

 magnificent and gigantic form ; but there is scarcely any difference in 

 the archetypal model of their temples and palaces, or in their sculp- 

 tured ornaments, except that the first were more primitive, more 

 limited and simple, while the last became successively ostenUtious, 

 complicated and magnificent. The second period was equally charac- 

 terised by troglodvlc, as detached temples and palaces. The 

 last period, in which the architecture of Egypt w.is corrupted by 

 Roman and Greek innovation, requires lets comment, as it must be 



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