Temples.— The fundamental scheme of the Egyptian temple was early developed and re mained unchanged in essentials for over 3,000 years. It appears to have been an expansion of the ancient Oriental house-plan, with its en closing wall, gate, fore-court, reception-hall and living rooms. These became respectively the enclosing wall (sometimes of crude brick), the pylon-gate with its twin truncated pyramid towers or pylons, the fore-court flanked or surrounded with colonnades, the hypostyle or columnar hall for the princes and magnates, and the sekos or sanctuary, with its shrine or "holy of holies" and its surrounding rooms for the priests. These various parts might be dupli cated or variously elaborated, but they are to be found in all the temples, large or small.
Historic Monuments.—From the Ancient or Memphite Empire there have been preserved to us innumerable tombs and a few temple ruins. Of the greateit importance are the pyra mid-tombs, of which there are nearly a hundred in six groups. They are all royal tombs, but vary in size and shape, some having stepped sides, some being built with two slopes — the lower part steeper than the upper; the re mainder are built with a single slope from the square base to the apex. Three of these, at Ghizeh, are far larger than the rest; they be long to the 4th dynasty. The largest is that of Cheops or Khufu, with a base 764 feet square and an original height of 482 feet. The second, of Chephren or Khafra, is slightly smaller; the third, of Mycerinus or Menkhaura, risel 218 feet from a base 254 feet square. The stepped pyramid of Sakkara is older, dating possibly from the First dynasty; it is about 350 by 400 feet at the base and not quite 200 feet high. All of these, and most of the others, were built of limestone with a facing of gran ite which, however, has in most cases disap peared; they all contain corridors and chambers of elaborate construction. There are also many mastabas and many excavated tombs cut in the rock of the cliffs; the ka-paintings of some of these (e.g., the tomb of Ti) are extraordinarily detailed and interesting. The temples of this period are all connected with or adjacent to the tombs, to which they served as chapels. The best preserved is that of Chephren, known as the Sphinx Temple, having square piers in stead of columns.
The Middle F.mpire has .left us only scanty monuments, of which the most interesting are tombs cut in the cliffs of Beni-Hassan, with columnar porches whose columns somewhat re semble the Greek Doric, hence called uproto Doric." There have been found scanty remains of temples of this period at Bubastis and at Karnak.
The New Empire was the great age of Egyptian architecture as well as of political greatness under a succession of mighty rulers the Thutmoses, Amenhoteps, Setis, Rameses and others of the 18th dynasty, of whom Rameses II was the greatest builder. The tombs of this period are all, or nearly all, deep tunnels cut in the rock, with many chambers and corridors; the temples are the largest 'in Egypt, especially that of Karnak, over 1,200 feet long and 340 wide, whose hypostyle hall with 16 rows of colossal columns, is the grandest ruin in Egypt. Not far away is the great temple of Luxor, next to which in size and splendor is the Ramesseum. Others of almost equal extent and splendor are at Abydos and at Medinet Abu; while at Deir-el-Bahari are the remains of the stupendous hemispeos of Queen Hatshepsut, a sepulchral temple partly excavated and partly structural. At Ipsambul (Abu Simbel) are two colossal temples of Rameses II and III, entirely hewn into the rocky cliff. Many smaller tem ples, as of Khonsu at Karnak, are in good preservation.
The Ptolemaic-Roman age created the two temples of Hathor and Isis at Denderah, built by Cleopatra; the temple of Edfu and the superb group at Phil; and the Roman-built temples of Esneh,and Koom Ombos, with others in Nubia. All these late temples have screen-walls between the front columns of the hypostyle hall, crested with carved serpents — a 'new feature; and the capitals of columns are very complex and elaborate.
Coptic Architecture.— This is unimportant except in its relations to later Arabo-Egyptian art and to the architecture of Christian Europe and Asia of the same period (4th-7th century). The Copts are the Christian descendants of the ancient Egyptians, and erected, during the above period, many churches and monasteries, mostly of small size. These are interesting chiefly for their use of the arch, of the dome over the sanctuary, and of minutely-detailed surface carving and elaborate wooden screens. It was the Copts who built the earliest Arab mosques in Cairo, and the Arabo-Egyptian style owes much of its character to their work. See ARCHITECTURE; OBELISK; PYRAMID; SPHINX.
Bibliographir.— Consult for history in gen eral, Breasted, . H., 'A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times' (London 1906). For the architecture, any of the general histories of architecture; also Maspero, G. C., 'Egyptian (Paris 1910) ; Perrot and Chipiez : 'History of Art in Ancient Egypt,) and the works of Flinders Petrie, Manette, Prisse d'Avennies, Rossellini and Wilkinson.
A. D. F. HAraux, Professor of Architecture, Columbia University.