DOORWAY (in art). The form of the door way is determined by the architectural style of the building in which it is played. It quickly took an important place in architectural history. In Egypt it was based on the principle of the lin tel, surmounted by a strongly projecting, cornice and highly developed decoration. Some Egyptian doors are of monumental proportions, like that of the Temple of Edfu. 74 feet high. with a lintel and cornice 23 feet thick. The portals between the great pylons are usually very impressive. They vary comparatively little from the beginning to the end of the style, being always of stone and decorated with colored sculptures. In Babylonia and Assyria, the arched doorway prevailed of brick, often decorated with falenee and flanked with protecting colossi: those of the city and palace gates must have been as impressive and more brilliantly colored than the Egyptian. The Persians largely imitated the Egyptians in their scheme of doorways, as is shown in the palaces of Persepolis and Susa. The primitive Greeks Pelasgians, Achwans, ete.—used mainly the lin teled doorway of huge, often unwrought, stone (e.g. Lion Cate, Mycenas). but they knew also the
form of the true and false arch. The historic Greeks confined themselves to the lintel, and evolved a type even more closely followed than the Egyptian. of which the famous doorway of the Erechtheum is the most perfect example, and next, to it those at I'riene and Eleusis. The lin tel projected beyond the jambs. its moldings forming a sort of shoulder. The Roman door ways usually preserved the lintel, and while lack ing in delicate perception of proportion, often had a superb effect from size and magnificence. as at Baalbek and Palmyra. Sometimes the arched form was used. with curving entablature. These Roman doorways reached their perfection during the second centu•y. The triumphal and memorial arches also furnished a type of arched portal that was copied in large civil monuments. In the Early Christian and Byzantine styles door ways were of comparatively small artistic impor nose. in; to tl e decadence in ornamental stulpture and detail.