EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE

Ancient Egypt (before BC3000- BC30)

Influences:
I Geographical
 A country in northeastern Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
 A vast array of diverse structures and great architectural monuments were developed along the Nile
River.
 Flooding of the Nile River and the ravages of time destroyed most of the ancient homes that were
made with blocks of stone of sun-baked mud.

II Geological
 Wood was not widely available in the arid Egyptian landscape. Due to the scarcity of wood, the two
predominant building materials used in ancient Egypt were sun-baked mud-brick and stone, mainly
limestone, but also sandstone and granite in considerable quantities.
III Climatic
 The dry, hot climate of Egypt preserved some mud brick structures.
 Houses were built to a simple, square design, with a flat roof, sometimes topped by a terrace where
the inhabitants could sit and enjoy the cool, fresh, evening air.
IV Religious
 Polytheism
 The pharaoh, or king of Egypt, was viewed as both human and divine, and thus acted as intermediary
between Egypt's people and the gods.
 The king was also associated with several specific deities. While alive, a pharaoh was identified with
Horus, and given the title "Son of Ra."
 The goddesses Isis, Hathor, and Mut were all seen as the mother of the pharaoh. A deceased king
was viewed as fully divine, and identified with Osiris (the father of Horus) and with Ra. A common
depiction of the king is his holding a group of enemies of Egypt by the hair and raising his club to
smite them.
 Re, the Sun, and Amun, the first and greatest of the Egyptian gods.

V Social
 pharaonic religion and state
 the presence of slave labor
 farming

VII Historical
 Ancient Egypt was divided into the following periods: Predynastic, Archaic, Old Kingdom, First
Intermediate, Middle Kingdom, Second Intermediate, New Kingdom. The New Kingdom ended with
the rule of the Ptolemies.
 The Ptolemaic Dynasty was a Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during
the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC.
 Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. In
antiquity this title began to be used for the ruler who was the religious and political leader of united
ancient Egypt. This was true only during the New Kingdom, specifically during the middle of the
eighteenth dynasty
Egyptian Architecture – The architecture of the ancient civilization that flourished along the Nile River
in northwest Africa from before 3000 B.C. to its annexation by Rome in 30 B.C., characterized
especially by the axial planning of massive masonry tombs and temples, the use of trabeated
construction with precise stonework, and the decoration of battered walls with pictographic
carvings in relief. A preoccupation with eternity and the afterlife dominated the building of
these funerary monuments and temples, which reproduced the features of domestic architecture
but on a massive scale using stone for permanence.

Architectural Characteristics:
A. Architectural Character: massiveness, monumentality, and simplicity

B. Principal Materials: sun-baked mud brick and stone (mainly limestone, but also sandstone and granite
in considerable quantities)

C. Principal Buildings: tombs (esp. pyramids) and temples

D. System of Construction: columnar and trabeated or post-and-lintel

Entering Temple of Ramses III courtyard.

E. Roofs:
 Generally flat and made of timber beams covered with matting plastered with clay.
 Thatched roofs were used sometimes and walls buttressed to support the roof timbers.

F. Columns:
 Columns were placed close together to support the heavy stone entablature above;
 shafts and capitals were typically formed out of stacked stone drums or half drums;
 there are two different types of capitals: bud shaped and bell shaped, or campaniform;
 they often mimicked palms, papyrus plants, lotus flowers and other plant forms;
 they were brightly painted and elaborately carved; and
 over the centuries, at least thirty distinct column styles evolved.
Columns with bud-shaped capitals.

 Entablature and abacus decorated with hieroglyphics. Papyrus capital

 Capital: bundled papyrus stalks, painted red lotus flowers
and volutes.
Palm capital with hieroglyphics on shaft. Column with bell-shaped open capital.
  Broken) Cavetto cornice with incised hieroglyphics. Osiris pillars depicting the deified Ramses II.
 Frieze with hieroglyphics.
 Left: Palmette capital
 Right: Capital: Bundled papyrus stalks, lotus flowers and volutes

G. Walls:
 Temple walls were immensely thick, of limestone, sandstone, or more rarely of granite.
 The wall faces slope inwards or batter externally towards the top, giving a massive appearance.
 Egyptian buildings normally have a massive blank wall crowned with the characteristic "gorge" cornice of
roll and hollow moulding.
 Walls, even when of granite, were generally carved in low relief, sometimes coated with a thin skin of
stucco, about the thickness of a sheet of paper, to receive the colour.

Left: Battered wall Luxor Temple, from the east bank of the Nile.
Right: A row of sphinxes in front of columns with
bud-shaped capitals

gorge cornice/cavetto cornice/Egyptian gorge/gorge-and-roll cornice

H. Openings:
 Colonnades and doorways, in a style which was essentially trabeated, were usually square-headed and
spanned with massive lintels
 Windows are seldom found in temples , as light was admitted through clearstory screens, especially in
hypostyle halls.
 Pierced stone window-panels of various patterns have been found and small slit-openings were also used
in roofs and walls to light rooms and staircases.
 There are examples of triangular-headed windows in mud houses.

Colonnaded Courtyard of the Horus Temple at Edfu

Egyptian mud house windows

Part of the grill clerestory of the Karnak Temple. Top square opening is part of the clerestory.

I. Mouldings : “gorge cornice” with roll and hollow moldings

Torus Cavetto cornice

Cavetto cornice with torus beneath (gorge cornice)

J. Ornaments:
 Colossal statues (colossus), usually of gods and goddesses represented by animals.
 Bas-relief (on walls, columns and obelisks).
 Hieroglyphics in bas relief
 Painting. The Egyptians, masters in the use of colour, carried out their schemes of decoration chiefly in
blue, red, and yellow.
 Chief Ornamental Motifs: (vegetation) lotus, palm and papyrus

Cartouche Cartouches and Two Feathers Crowns Column with bas-relief sculpture with hieroglyphic
inscription.
(left)Papyrus plant ... (right)Lotus plant Statue of Ramses II
 Wears white crown of Upper Egypt (Hedjet) and Nemes.
 Holds crook and flail.

Ten-foot tall granite colossus of Horus Hathor is commonly depicted as a cow goddess with head horns
in which is set a sun disk with Uraeus.

Sphinx: Body of lion and head of ram. Sphinx Pharaoh Ptolemy XII in victory pose.
The ram head is a symbol of Amun-Ra.
Palm/palmette Lotus Papyrus plant

EGYPTIAN GODS AND GODDESSES:

Amen-Re or Amen-Ra or Amun-Re or Amun-Ra or Amon-Re or Amon-Ra – the supreme god in Egyptian mythology.
He was originally a local god of Thebes but was elevated during the eighteenth dynasty.
Ra – the Egyptian Sun god, creator and controller of the universe, represented as having a human body and a hawk’s
head.
Horus – Egyptian Sun god: In Egyptian mythology, the god of the sun, the sky, and goodness, usually depicted as
having a falcon’s head. Horus was the son of Isis and Osiris.
Osiris – Egyptian god of underworld and the dead husband of Isis and father of Horus.
Isis - Egyptian mother goddess: the goddess of fertility, generally depicted wearing a cow’s horns bearing a golden
disk representing the sun. She was the wife of her brother Osiris and the mother of Horus.
Hathor – commonly depicted as cow goddess with head horns in which is set a sun disk with Uraeus. She is at times
the mother, daughter and wife or Ra and, like Isis, is at times described as the mother of Horus. She is also
depicted as “Mistress of the West”, welcoming the dead into the next life.
Anubis – a god represented with the head of a jackal, who leads the dead to judgment.
Thoth – Egyptian moon god: the god of the moon, associated with writing and wisdom. He is usually depicted as a
man with the head of an ibis, or as a baboon.

ANIMAL REPRESENTATIONS OF GODS, GODDESSES & CREATURES OF THE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY:

Cat-headed - Bastel
Cow-headed - Hathor
Cow-headed - Isis
Cobra - Wadjet
Falcon-headed - Horus
Falcon-headed - Ra
Ibis-headed -Thoth
Jackel-headed - Anubis
Lion-bodied – Sphinx (with the head of a man, ram, or bird)
Lion-headed - Sekhmet
Vulture's wings - Nephthys
bull – symbol of power and regeneration
cow – symbol of mother
ram – symbol of sexual power and fecundity

EGYPTIAN SYMBOLS:

Papyrus – symbolizing fertility.

Uraeus – the sacred serpent found on the headdresses of Egyptian rulers and divinities, representing sovereignty.
 Ankh –also known as ansate cross and crux ansata ("handle-shaped cross"). It is an
ancientEgyptian hieroglyph, a cross shaped like a T with a loop at the top. It is a symbol of eternal life.

Griffin - Head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.

Beard - From the Old Kingdom onward, the king often wears a long, square-ended artificial (or false) beard, fastened
by a strap along the jawbone. Gods wear curved beards and kings wear straight beards.

Crook and flail – Scepters. Most commonly represented together, held across the chest of the kings.

Eye of Horus / Wedjat / Wadjet / Eye of Ra / Eye of the Moon / Udjat - An ancient Egyptian symbol of protection
and royal power from deities, in this case from Horus or Ra. The symbol is seen on images of Horus' mother, Isis, and
on other deities associated with her. In the Egyptian language, the word for this symbol was "Wedjat," a solar deity
and this symbol began as her eye, an all seeing eye. The Wedjat "was intended to protect the king in the afterlife"
and to ward off evil.

Scarab – A representation of a sacred beetle used on amulets and signets by the ancient
Egyptians.

Winged solar disk as a symbol of protection.

Architectural Examples:

A. TEMPLES

2 MAIN CLASSES OF TEMPLES:

1. Cult Temple – for the popular worship of the ancient and mysterious gods.
2. Mortuary Temple – for the worship of the dead and deified pharaohs.

Parts of an Egyptian Temple:

1. Avenue of sphinxes
2. Obelisks
3. Pylon (Egyptian gateway to temples.)
4. Court hypostyle hall
5. Sanctuary
6. Various chapels

Examples:
Temple of Khons, Karnak
 Originally constructed by Rameses III.
 The hypostyle hall was erected by Nectanebo I.

Entrance to the Temple of Khonsu (Gateway of Ptolemy III)

Temple of Mentuhetep, Der el-Bahari

 Built during the Middle Kingdom.
 A mortuary temple.

Temple of Hatshepsut, Der el-Bahari, Thebes

 Built by Queen Hatshepsut.
 Architect was Senenmut or Senmut.
The Great Temple of Amun (Ammon), Karnak, Thebes
 The grandest of all Egyptian temples.
 Built during the New Kingdom.
 The work of many kings, built from the 12th Dynasty to the Ptolemaic Period.
 The first to build temple on the site was the pharaoh Senusert (Sostris). The temple was
eventually, destroyed by Amenhotep I who built a new one in its place. But that temple was
also destroyed by Tutmoses III and he set up his own building to the east of the area of the old
temple.
 The first considerable enlargement or addition was made by Thutmose I (Thotmes I).
 With 6 pairs of pylons added by successive rulers.
 The large ceremonial hall by Thutmose III.
 The hypostyle hall by Seti I and Rameses II (known as the royal architect and superintendent of
pyramids).

Temple at Luxor
 Also known as the Amon-Mut-Khonsu Temple of Luxor.
 Built largely by King Amenhotep III (Amenophis III). The architect was probably his son, Hotep
(also known as Hapu).
 It was completed by Tutankhamun and Horemheb and added to by Ramses II.
 The great forecourt pylons were added by Rameses II
 It is dedicated to the Theban triad, Amun, Mut and Khons. Also known as Amun-Mut-Khonsu
Temple of Luxor.

Temple of Serapeum, Alexandria

 Built by Ptolemy II.
 The architect was Parmeniskos.

Temple of Seti I, Abydos

 It is a mortuary temple, although Seti himself was buried in the Valley of the Kings.
 It was completed by his son and successor Ramesses II.
 The Ramesseum, Thebes
 A mortuary temple.
 By Rameses II.

Temple of Rameses II, Abydos

 Also known as the Cenotaph Temple of Rameses II at Abydos.
 Built by Ramesses II, the temple was dedicated mainly to Osiris.

Temple of Rameses III at Medinet-Habu

 By Rameses III.
 It closely resembles the Ramesseum.

The Great Temple, Abu-Simbel

 By Rameses II.
 The most stupendous and impressive rock-hewn temple.
 With four rock-cut seated colossal statues of Rameses in front.
 The hall has 8 Osiris pillars.

The Small Temple, Abu-Simbel

 By Rameses II.
 Dedicated to his wife deified Queen Nefertari and the goddess Hathor.

The Rock-cut Temple at Gerf Hosein

 By Rameses II.

(Ptolemaic and Roman Periods)

Temple of Isis on the Island of Philae
 Begun by Ptolemy II and completed by the Roman emperors.

Temple of Horus, Edfu

 The temple proper by Ptolemy III.

Mammisi Temple, Edfu

 Standing in the outer enclosure of the Temple of Horus.

B. TOMBS

3 TYPES OF TOMBS:
1. Mastaba - An ancient Egyptian tomb with a rectangular base, sloping sides, and a flat roof.

2. Pyramid – The principal form of royal tomb.

 To build pyramids, lever was the principal tool used for raising and turning stone blocks. To
transport the stone blocks over land, wooden sledges were used, with or without the aid of
rollers, dropped in front of a sledge and picked up again behind.

3 Types of Pyramid:
a. Step Pyramid

The Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara

b. Bent Pyramid

The Pyramid of Snefru at Dahshur

c. True Pyramid

The Pyramid of Cheops at Gizeh

Parts of the Pyramid Complex:

1. pyramid
2. offering chapel, with a stele. mortuary temple
3. a raised and enclosed causeway
4. Valley Building – where embalmment was carried out and interment rites performed.
5. a canal that connects the Valley Building with the Nile
3. Rock-Hewn Tomb - served for the nobility rather than the royalty; rare before the Middle
Kingdom.

Tomb at Beni Hassan

Examples:

1. MASTABA

Mastaba K.1 at Beit Khallaf – a massive stairway tomb of crude brick. The most impressive of the
huge tombs in Beit Khallaf, which Garstang originally attributed to Djoser Netjerikhet.
 Mastabas at Gizeh – mostly of the 4th and 5th Dynasties; adjoin the famous pyramids.

Mastaba of Ti (Ty or Thi), Sakkara – of the 5th Dynasty. It is one of the most famous of the Old
Kingdom.

2. PYRAMIDS

Pyramid of Djoser (Zoser) at Saqqara

 A step pyramid.
 Built by Imhotep in the 27th century BC for the burial of King Djoser.
 The world’s first large scale monument in stone.

Pyramid at Meydum
 Attributed to Huni. (Last king of the 3rd Dynasty.
 A seven-stepped structure that was eventually completed as a true pyramid.

The Bent or South Pyramid of Seneferu at Dahshur

 Built by Sneferu.

The North Pyramid of Seneferu at Dahshur

 Made after the abandonment of the Bent Pyramid.
 Also known as the Red Pyramid.
 The actual place of burial of Seneferu.
 The earliest known true pyramid.

The Great Pyramids at Giza

a. Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu), near Cairo
 It has an area more than twice that of St. Peter, Rome.
b. Pyramid of Chephren (Khafre)
 A little less large than the pyramid of Cheops.
c. Pyramid of Mykerinos (Menkaura)
 Much smaller than its two predecessors.
Pyramid of Sahura, Abusin
 It used granite.

3. ROCK-HEWN TOMBS

The Tombs at Beni-Hassan

 Numbering 39.
 Of the 11th and 12th Dynasties.
 Belonged to a provincial great family.
 The Valley of the Kings at Thebes
 Also known as the Tombs of the Kings.
 This is the principal burial site for the rulers of Egypt’s New Kingdom. They witness a
complete abandonment of the royal pyramid tomb during the New Kingdom in favor of a
corridor-type.
 There are 62 numbered royal and private tombs, ranging from a simple pit (KV 54) to a tomb
with over 121 chambers and corridors (KV 5).
 The tombs served only for the sarcophagus and funerary deposits.

Sketch Map of the East Valley

C. OBELISKS

 Comes from the Greek word obeliskos, which means “pointed pillar”.
 It is also from the word obeliskus which means, “in the shape of a spear”.
 These are huge monoliths, square in plan and tapering to an electrum-capped pyramidion at the
summit.
 Height is 9 or 10 times the diameter at the base.
 Four sides with hieroglyphics.
 It originated in the sacred symbol of the sun god of Heliopolis.
 The first obelisk ever built stood among the ruins of the solar temple of Abu Ghurab, built by the
pharaoh Neuserre in honor of Ra. The solidly built obelisk measured, 36 meters high. Twin obelisks
were often erected - a common practice in the New Kingdom (1539-1075 BC). Thutmosis III (1479-
1425 BC) is said to have built at least seven, one is recorded to stand 57 meters high.

Examples:

The Obelisk in the Piazza of S. Giovanni in Laterano

 From the Temple of Amun, Karnak, Thebes.
 Originally erected by Thutmose III (Thotmes III or Thutmosis III) and completed by his grandson
Thutmose IV.
 The Obelisk in St. Peter’s Square
 It is a large pink or red granite obelisk hewn from a single block.
 It comes from Heliopolis and was built by the Pharaoh Mencares in 1835 BC in honor of the
sun.
 It was brought Rome in 37 BC by the Emperor Caligula and erected in the circus (Nero’s circus)
he built.
 It was moved to St. Peter’s under the direction of Domenico Fontana with the help of his
brother Giovanni.

Cleopatra’s Needle in London

 It was built for the third jubilee of Thutmosis III in Heliopolis, and then moved to Alexandria.
 It bears inscription of Thutmosis III and Rameses II.
 It now stands in the city of Westminster on the Victorian embankment near the Golden Jubilee
Bridges.

Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park, New York

 It is the twin of London’s obelisk from Heliopolis, but it is slightly taller.

Cleopatra’s Needle in Place de la Concorde, Paris

 It comes from the temple of Luxor where its twin remains.
 It was a magnificent gift presented to King Louis-Philippe by the Viceroy of Egypt, Mahomet-
Ali.

Examples of Obelisks which remain in Egypt:

Obelisk in Heliopolis
 Built by Sesostris I in the city of Ra.
 The oldest obelisk remaining in Egypt.
Obelisk in Luxor
 It is partner to the obelisk in Paris.
Obelisks in Karnak
 Two obelisks, one from the reign of Hatshepsut and one from Thutmosis III.
Obelisk in Aswan
 An unfinished obelisk.
 Stands 42 meters tall and weighs around 1,000 tons.

D. OTHERS

 Sphinx – a mythical creature with, as a minimum, the body of a lion and a human head.

Types of Sphinxes:
1. Criosphinx – having the head of a ram.

2. Hieracosphinx – having the head of a hawk.

3. Anrosphinx – having the head of a man.

 Examples:

a. The Great Sphinx, Giza – Also known as the Great Sphinx of Chephren. Restored by
Thotmes IV of the 18th Dyansty.

b. Sphinx of Queen Hetepheres II – perhaps the first sphinx; from the 4th Dynasty; now in
Cairo Museum.

 Colossi of Memnon, Thebes

 Are two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III.
 The original function was to stand guard at the entrance to Amenhotep’s mortuary temple.

 Pharos or Lighthouse
 Built by Ptolemy II.

 Mammisi or Mammisi Temple

 A birth house.
 The first king to be a major builder of birth houses was Nectanebo I.
 A mammisi was dedicated to the local goddess and her child.
Terminologies:
abacus - a slab forming the crowning member of a capital. It consists of a square block, or one enriched
with molding.
bas-relief – flat-sculpture: a sculpture in which the design projects slightly from a flat background, but
without any part being totally detached from the background. (Also called basso-relievo and low
relief.)
buttress – a support for wall: a solid structure usually made of brick or stone, that is built against a wall to
support it.
capital – the upper part of an architectural pillar or column, on top of the shaft and supporting the
entablature.
cartouche – an oblong, or oval, magical rope which was drawn to contain the ancient Egyptian
hieroglyphics that spelled out the name of a King or Queen.
cavetto – a hollow moulding: a concave architectural molding with a curve that is roughly a quarter circle.
cenotaph – a monument erected as a memorial to a dead person or dead people buried elsewhere.
clerestory or clearstory - An upper story row of windows; part of an interior wall rising above the adjacent
roof with windows admitting light.
colonnade - a row of evenly spaced columns, usually supporting a roof or a set of arches.
column – a round pillar.
cornice – a projecting horizontal molding along the top of a wall or building.
- the topmost part of the entablature.
Crook and flail – Scepters. Most commonly represented together, held across the chest of the kings.
crypto-porticus – a colonnade or portico either concealed or partly enclosed.
entablature – part of building above columns: the section of a structure that lies between the columns and
the roof.
frieze - In Egyptian architecture, it is a horizontal band forming part of the entablature, situated between
the gorge cornice and the abacuses or abaci of columns.
high relief – strongly projecting carving: a version of relief sculpture in which the carving projects from the
background to more than half its natural depth.
hypostyle hall - Large room with a flat roof carried on massive columns close-set in rows, the middle rows
often having taller columns to accommodate a clearstory.
- A pillared hall in which the roof rests on columns.
hieroglyphics – picture writing system: a writing system that uses symbols or pictures to denote objects,
concepts, or sounds, originally and especially in the writing of ancient Egypt.
Nemes – the striped headcloth.
pillar – a column used for support or decoration.
relief- sculpture consisting of shapes carved on a surface so as to stand out from the surrounding
background.
serdab – the inner secret chamber in the mastaba containing the statues of the deceased members of the
family.
shaft – the main body of a column, between capital and base.
soffit – the underside of an architectural element, as an arch, beam, cornice or staircase.
stele – the upright stone slab containing the name of the dead found on the mastaba.
torus – a large convex molding.
volute – decorative scroll: a carved spiral decoration.
References:

Fletcher’s History of Architecture

ARCStudio Review Center Review Materials
Egyptian Obelisk; Janette Peel (2008); http://www.voices.yahoo.com
http://www.egyptartsite.com
http://www.touregypt.net
http://www.planetware.com
http://www.egyptsites.wordpress.com
http://www.scribed.com
http://www.thebanmappingproject.com
http://www.egiptologia.com
http://www.myhomepage.ferris.edu
http://www.biblearchaeology.org

Prepared by: Archt. CHARLOTTE B. MONTAÑO

ARCStudio Review Lecturer