EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE Although structures discovered in Chaldaea, at Tello and Nippur, seem to date back to the fifth millennium B.C., the best examples of architecture prior to Greece exist in the monu mental works of the Egyptians. The culture of the period was confined to a small ruling class, made up of priests and nobles. The desert relentlessly opposed man's struggle for existence, and the common people had to rely on their rulers for sustenance and protection, and on life after death to abolish cruelty and fear. During the seasons when the flooded Nile valley made agriculture impossible, the energy of the large slave population was directed to building vast tombs, temples and palaces for a reigning family of fixed position, unchanging religion and supreme power. Although stones had to be brought from distant quarries, the Egyptians achieved the most lasting architectural forms yet attempted by any civilization.
The three best-known pyramids are situated about seven miles south-west of Cairo, and were built by the second, third and fourth kings of the fourth dynasty—Khufu (c. 3969-3908 B.c.), Khafra (c. 39o8-3845 B.c.), and Menkaura (c. who are better known as Cheops, Cephren and Mycerinus; their major interest to present-day civilization is more historic than architectural (see PYRAMID) . Many temples were also constructed, as that of the Sphinx, attributed to Cephren, and tombs, such as the Serapeum at Sakkara, in which the sacred bulls were embalmed and buried, and those of the kings and queens of Thebes.
We have already referred to the probable origin of the peculiar batter or raking side given to the walls of the pylons and temples, with the Torus moulding surrounding the same and crowned with the cavetto cornjce. What is more remarkable is the fact that once accepted as an important and characteristic feature it should never have been departed from, and that down to and during the Roman occupation the same batter is found in all temples. Par ticularly notable is the strong influence of early methods of con struction in wood and clay on the form and outline of the more permanent stone construction, in which no such thickness of wall or such extreme batter was necessary constructively. But their mass gives these structures a magnificent repose and an air of lasting through eternity.
A dominant will to do in each new work what had been done before seems to have been exerted in all Egyptian architecture. Variations were slight and in the direction of more extensive size and more impressive scale. One would suppose that the spirit moving Egyptian architects was always so to impress the people with the overpowering, almost supernatural, dominance of their rulers and deities that they might never think for themselves or entertain the possibility of changing their social status, a condi tion still existing among many of the peoples of the Far East. It is difficult for modern men and women, living in an ever-chang ing civilization, to realize that for so many thousands of years an entire civilization remained static, as the architecture of Egypt proves it must have done. An examination of the plan scheme of these temples shows a monotonous repetition of form, arrangement and general conception, varying only in extent. Although the high degree of conventionalization of ornament and sculpture has some value to the modern designer in his efforts to break away from purely naturalistic forms, the position that Egyptian architecture occupies as an influence on modern archi tecture is more historic and archaeological than otherwise, because its extreme stylistic quality is out of• place in any of the later civilizations.
Only the one structural idea of the post and lintel was used; consequently all enclosed spaces of any size became a forest of columns. Flat roofs of massive stone slabs spanning outer walls and closely spaced internal columns were the most logical form of coverings. Central aisles of columns were of greater height than those elsewhere, giving a clerestory with a perforated stone screen through which a subdued light filtered. The wall surfaces were extensively decorated with carvings, paintings and hieroglyphics.
Each temple was planned on a long axis with regard for extreme and perfect symmetry, not only within its walls but outside them too, where the axis was extended forward in an avenue of great length flanked by sphinxes. They seem to have been designed for imperial pageants and other ceremonials, staged further to impress the masses with the power of their rulers, who were often their deities also. Probably no architectural period more visibly demonstrates how true an expression of life architecture is. Definite religious beliefs, consistent and lasting cultural habits, and limited and unchanging social relationships, must result in just such uniformity as Egypt showed. (See also EGYPTIAN