Ancient Egypt Capitals

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The five chief types of capital were: a, the campaniform or inverted bell (central aisles at Karnak, Luxor, the Ramesseum); b, the clustered lotus-bud (Beni-Hassan, Karnak, Luxor, Gournah, etc.); c, the plain lotus-bud as at Karnak (Great Hall); d, the palm-capital, frequent in the later temples; and e, the Hathor-headed, in which heads of Hathor adorn the four faces of a cubical mass surmounted by a model of a shrine (Sedinga, Edfou, Denderah, Esneh). These types were richly embellished and varied by the Ptolemaic architects, who gave a clustered or quatrefoil plan to the bell-capital, or adorned its surface with palm leaves. A few other forms are met with as exceptions.

Every part of the column was richly decorated in color. Lotusleaves or petals swathed the swelling lower part of the shaft, which was elsewhere covered with successive bands of carved pictures and of hieroglyphics. The capital was similarly covered with carved and painted ornament, usually of lotus-flowers or leaves, or alternate stalks of lotus and papyrus.

The lintels were plain and square in section, and often of prodigious size. Where they appeared externally they were crowned with a simple cavetto cornice, its curved surface covered with colored flutings alternating with cartouches of hieroglyphics. Sometimes, especially on the screen walls of the Ptolemaic age, this was surmounted by a cresting of adders or uraei in closely serried rank. No other form of cornice or cresting is met with. Mouldings as a means of architectural effect were singularly lacking in Egyptian architecture. The only moulding known is the clustered torus (torus=a convex moulding of semicircular profile), which resembles a bundle of reeds tied together with cords or ribbons. It forms an astragal under the cavetto cornice and runs down the angles of the pylons and walls.

MONUMENTS

The principal necropolis regions of Egypt are centred about Ghizeh and ancient Memphis for the Old Empire (pyramids and mastabas), Thebes for the Middle Empire (Silsileh, Beni-Hassan), and Thebes (Vale of the Kings, Vale of the Queens) and Abydos for the New Empire.

The Old Empire has also left us the Sphinx, Sphinx temple, and the temple at Meidoum.

The most important temples of the New Empire were those of Karnak (the great temple, the southern or temple of Khonsu, by Rameses III.), of Luxor ( Rameses II.), Medinet Abou (great temple of Rameses III., lesser temples of Thothmes II. and III. with peripteral sekos: also Pavilion of Rameses III.); of Abydos ( Seti I. and Rameses II.); of Gournah; of Eilithyia ( Amenophis III.); of Soleb and Sesebi in Nubia; of Elephantine (peripteral, by Amenophis III.); the tomb temple of Queen Hatasu at Deir-el-Bahari, the Ramesseum ( Rameses II.); the Amenopheum ( Amenophis III.); hemispeos at Gherf Hossein; two grotto temples at Ipsamboul ( Rameses II.).

At Meroë are pyramids of the Ethiopic kings of the Decadence.

Temples of the Ptolemaic period; Philae, Denderah, Edfou.

Temples of the Roman period; Koum Ombos; Kalabshé, Kardassy and Dandour in Nubia; Esneh.

POLYCHROMY AND ORNAMENT

Color was absolutely essential to the decorative scheme. In the vast and dim interiors, as well as in the blinding glare of the sun, mere sculpture or relief would have been wasted. The application of brilliant color to pictorial forms cut in low relief, or outlined by deep incision with the edges of the figures delicately rounded (intaglio rilievo), was the most appropriate treatment possible. The walls and columns were covered with pictures treated in this way, and the ceilings and lintels were embellished with symbolic forms in the same manner. All the ornaments, as distinguished from the paintings, were symbolical, at least in their origin. Over the gateway was the solar disk or globe with wide-spread wings, the symbol of the sun winging its way to the conquest of night; upon the ceiling were sacred vultures, zodiacs, or stars spangled on a blue ground. Externally the temples presented only masses of unbroken wall; but these, as well as the pylons, were covered with huge pictures of a historical character. Only in the tombs do we find painted ornament of a purely conventional sort. Rosettes, diaper patterns, spirals, and checkers are to be met with in them; but many of these can be traced to symbolic origins.

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE

The only remains of palaces are the pavilion of Rameses III. at Medinet Abou, and another at Semneh. The Royal Labyrinth has so completely perished that even its site is uncertain. The Egyptians lived so much out of doors that the house was a less important edifice than in colder climates. Egyptian dwellings were probably in most cases built of wood or crude brick, and their disappearance is thus easily explained. Relief pictures on the monuments indicate the use of wooden framing for the walls, which were probably filled in with crude brick or panels of wood. The larger houses had extensive plans with outer and inner courts surrounded by porticoes and by the various halls and chambers for the family, guests and dependents. The larger halls probably had wooden ceilings supported by wooden posts, which, like the walls of framed wood or of unbaked brick, have long since perished. The architecture was probably simple. Gateways like those of the temples on a smaller scale, the cavetto cornice on the walls, and occasionally carved columns of wood or stone, were the only details pretending to architectural splendor. The ground-plans of many houses in ruined cities, as at Tel-elAmarna and a nameless city of Amenophis IV., are discernible in the ruins; but the superstructures are wholly wanting.