EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. The most ancient monuments of the world's archi tecture in stone are those of the Nile Valley. The Mins of some ancient Chaldean buildings are probably of earlier date, but they are almost formless piles of sun-dried brick, while the tombs and pyramids of the early Egyptian dynasties are many of them in excellent preser vation. The people who built them were prob ably of Asiatic origin but long-settled along the Nile, 'and were a highly civilized race thou sands of years B.c. It is customary to divide the history of ancient Egyptian art into five periods: (1) the Ancient (or Memphitic) Em pire, cir. 3400-2160 e.c., comprising ten dynas ties of kings; (2) the Middle Empire, with Thebes as capital, 2160-1788 e.c., two dynasties; (3) the Second Thebaic or New Empire (1588 1130 e.c.), comprising the dynasties xvii-xx, and separated from the Middle Empire by the artistic interregnum of the Hyksos or Shepherd kings (Arabs); (4) the Decadence or Saitic penod of six dynasties, 1150-324 e.c., which in cludes the Persian conquest in 525 e.c., and (5) the Ptolemaic and Roman period (324 e.c.-300 A.D.). Then followed a period of over three centuries during which the only architectural works were Coptic churches and monasteries. The Arabs conquered Egypt in 642 A.D., since which date the architecture has been of the Arabo-Moslem or °Saracenic° style, an archi tecture of mosques, tombs, palaces, baths, foun tains and city gates. As this last period, with its infiltrations of Turkish influence since 1517, is treated of under MOSLEM Aar (q.v.), the present article will be confined mainly to the ancient art of the five periods, with brief ref erence to the Coptic development.
Materiala and There is evi dence that the primitive architecture of the Egyptians was of mud (*crude° or sun-dried bnck) and wood, but the monuments that have survived to our time are of stone, except for scanty remains of brick. The stones employed were granite of various kinds and limestone; the coarser stone being often fumished with a thin layer of stucco to receive painted decora tion. The architecture was almost entirely of tombs and temples, although remains of palaces of the New Empire have been excavated, and there are vestiges of fortifications at Semneh and Gournah. The civilization of Egypt was distinctively monarchical and religious and this is clearly shown in the architecture. There is little change of style until the time of the Ptolemies; what variations there were came about by imperceptibly slow degrees, and an air of changeless duration marks every work of ancient Egypt. Yet earthquakes and the de
structive invasions of Persians and Arabs have wreciced partly or completely nearly every one of these massive structures.
All the Egyjnian monuments of antiquity were built on the post-and-lintel or wall-and lintel principle, the arch being used only in minor constructions of brick. But one form of cornice is fotmd— the acavetto-cornice° —in all the wide range of the ancient monuments through more than 3,000 years. There were no °orders° employed; the columns show a wide variety of capitals, generally reducible to two chief types, the °bud° and the °floral° or cam pani form type; and the shafts are with a few exceptions either round or clustered, the former predominating. The Thud° and *floral' types of capital are either simple or compound, the latter predominating in the later periods. All the walls, ceilings and columns of the temples were covered with symbolic or historical deco rations, incised and painted in brilliant colors, and sculptured figures of the deified king or of the god Osiris, fronted the entrances and the courty-ard piers of the temples.
Tombs.— The religion of Egypt, with its insistence on a future life, assigned an enor mous importance to the arts of sepulture, and the tombs are far more numerous than the temples. They are of two chief kinds: the hypogeum or excavated tomb, cut in the rock of the western bank of the Nile, with many ,passages, chambers and shafts; and the struc tural or built-up tomb. Of this class there were two chief types, the pyramid (see PYRAMID) and the mastaba or "bench." This latter type, rectangular in plan, had usually sloping walls and a flat top, and contained a variety of chambers and passages, with one or more serdabs or secret chambers, and wells or shafts leading to deep chambers, in one of which the sarcophagus was deposited. Statues of the de ceased Oka-statues') were secreted in the serdabs in order to assist in preserving the life and identity of the "Imo or spirit while in the tomb, while the walls were covered with pic tures of his daily life and sports in order that the aka" might by their help enjoy the same pleasures until admitted by Osiris and his as sessors to the final home in the underworld. Two fine tombs of this type have been taken down and re-erected in the Metropolitan Mu seum at New York.