Architectural elements: arches, false doors, foundations, friezes, obelisks, pillars, pylons, stairs, stelae, stylobates, trabeation, vaults
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Architectural elements |
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Arches and vaults
Mud brick vaults at the Ramesseum
ArchitravesArchitraves (from Latin trabs, beam) are the main beams resting across the tops of the columns. In ancient Egypt no attempts were made to cover pillared halls with arches. |
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CorbelsCorbels were widely used in stone buildings; and corbelled arches continued to be constructed a long time after the true arch had been invented. They can be found in pyramids and occasionally in temples. The use of corbelled instead of true arches limited the width that could be spanned, but required less dressing of stones. |
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 False door, tomb of Mereruka, Sakkara; Source: Jon Bodsworth |
False Doors
In tombs and temples for the dead there were niches for offerings, the back walls of which were given the form of
doors. They served as a pathway between the living and the dead by which the Ka and the other spiritual parts of the deceased could communicate with the world of the living. The nourishment that was offered to the dead, could be real food placed on an offering slab or symbolic food carved into a stela. The earlier three dimensional execution of these doors gave way to a simpler painted form during the New Kingdom.
FlagpolesFlagpoles at Akhetaten |
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FoundationsStone buildings were often erected on rock surfaces. When foundations had to be laid, the building pit was first filled with water and the resulting horizontal lines were marked on the walls. The water was then removed and the pit filled with sand up to the marks. This was covered with several layers of broken rock on which the rock slabs forming walls and pillars were placed.The pavement in the Osiris temple at Tell Tebilla was laid on a 20 cm thick layer of sand [2]. At Karnak wall foundations never go deeper than two to three metres. At Luxor close to the river, walls were built on three layers of stone blocks each about 80 cm high and the brick foundations of the colonnades at the Ramesseum were less than two metres thick. The relative weakness of these foundations, rising water-tables and other causes led to the collapse of most ancient buildings: The alkaline groundwater at Karnak had dissolved the sandstone base of eleven huge pillars which crumbled on the 3rd October 1899. That they had endured for so long was thanks to the virtual absence of rain, the composition of the soil and the sun which bakes the Egyptian earth above the high-water line of the Nile almost to the hardness of rock. |
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Friezes and cornices
 
Friezes, sculpted or painted horizontal decorative bands rather than the Greek and Roman entablature between architrave and cornice, were occasionally used to mark the upper limit of a wall. Animals like cobras were depicted (middle picture) as were kheker signs (on the right), abstractions of knots with which plant stalks were tied to wooden frames in order to create a wall.
Click on the picture excerpts for full size pictures.
Photos courtesy Jon Bodsworth |
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The obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut Source: Tulane University website 
Base plate of obelisk with groove Photo: V.Easy |
Obelisks
Monolithic square stone pillars ending in a point, obelisks were erected in honour of the sun god Re, the oldest on a natural hill north of Heliopolis. During the 5th Dynasty the obelisk became the centre of the sun temple, later they are to be found standing in pairs by temple entrances. Their tips had the form of pyramidions and seem to have been covered by gilded copper sheets or the like.
She made (it) as her monument for her father Amon, lord of Thebes, erecting for him two great obelisks at the august gate (named): "Amon-is-Great-in-Terror," wrought with very much electrum; which illuminate the Two Lands like the sun......Obelisks were generally erected in pairs on either side of a passage. But Thutmose IV, after finishing an obelisk begun by his grandfather Thutmose III, raised it as a ...... single obelisk in the forecourt of the temple over against Karnak, as the first beginning of erecting a single obelisk in Thebes ..... The Heliopolis obelisks measured about 20.75 metres, those at Luxor somewhat more than 23 metres. Hatshepsut's Karnak obelisk was 33 metres tall. They weighed often more than 250 tons. The biggest obelisk ever attempted was abandoned at the quarry when it cracked. Made of granite, a rock harder than the metal tools available, obelisks had to be shaped and carved with the help of dolerite hammer stones.
Various theories of how they were erected have been proposed. They generally include an earthen ramp up which the obelisk would have been dragged base first, lowered slowly onto the foundation plate and then pulled upright.
Empty the space that has been filled with sand beneath the monument of thy Lord, so that the monument may be established in its place.However it was done, it was a major achievement. Hatshepsut boasted of having her obelisks cut, transported and erected in seven months. Insufficient foundations, earthquakes and conquerors have caused the downfall of all but two obelisks. Since Imperial Roman times they have been collector's items and many have been shipped all over the world. |
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Pavements
Unlike floors in private homes which were never paved in Pharaonic times, temple courtyards and floors were often covered with flagstones [3].
Courtyard floor at the Ramesseum
Ibe who restored Nitocris' palace wrote about what he had done in the pure house of her father, Amon, which her father, Re, made for her
Source: V.Easy ..... Its ... was of stone, its pavement was of stone .....Roads were, apart from a few cases which belonged to temple complexes or where heavy loads were routinely moved along them, made of compacted earth, dried almost as hard as stone by the sun. |
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Pillars
From simple, barely adorned granite columns, pillars evolved into stone plants: trunks of palm trees and bundles of lotus plants,
reeds or papyrus, often used side by side. Under Ramses II monumental forests of pillars were erected. The 5000 m² Hypostyle
Hall contained 134 sandstone pillars, the tallest of which were 23 metres tall and had a diameter of 3.5 m.
Because of their size, they had to be put together from half cylinders instead of the usual full cylinders. The columns were seemingly given their final shape in situ.
Pillars were either free-standing or engaged, sometimes they were purely ornamental, never more so than in the case of pillar reliefs carved into walls.
Pillars had also a symbolic role denoting stability and duration.
Djed pillars, perhaps originating in posts to which ears of corn were tied, symbolized fertility. They became
Osiris pillars which were the backbone of the god, supporting the sky and appeared first in Djoser's pyramid complex.
Later they took the form of Osiris himself. Often the Djed pillars were just decorative without any structural
importance.
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Pylons
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PyramidionsThe pyramidion (benbenet - bnbn.t) was the capstone placed on top of pyramids. It had the form of the pyramid which capped and was covered with electrum. It stood for the benben, the primeval mound which emerged from the waters of chaos, the first firm object on which the rays of the sun fell. |
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Djoser's pyramid Excerpt. Source: Jon Bodsworth |
Stairs
Unlike many modern stairs which are often lightly built of either wood or steel, ancient Egyptian stairs were generally massive affairs made of bricks [4] or, in temples, of rock. As most towns were built in the plain, there was rarely need for wide public stairs of the kind found at Kahun.
Town houses sometimes had second or third floors, which could be reached by flights of stairs built of mud bricks or wood and the flat roofs of most houses were accessible and often used for sleeping and cooking. Temples contained at times stairs I filled his (Amon's) temple with august vases, in order to offer libations /////// I built their temples, wrought their stairways, restored their gates ...Stairs lent themselves to impressive appearances I put on thy crown with my own two hands, when thou appearest upon the great double staircaseAn extreme, symbolic form of stairs may be Djoser's step pyramid, built perhaps to facilitate the deceased king's ascent to heaven. (Only, if that was their purpose one may well wonder why this form of pyramid was abandoned) By their very nature, tombs frequently contained staircases. Kheti II described his tomb I had a lofty tomb with a wide stair before the chamber |
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Stelae
These are often freestanding upright slabs of stone bearing inscriptions and at times reliefs. They may be commemorative, sometimes they were erected to indicate borders or boundaries. For instance, at least fourteen stelae marked the confines of Akhetaten. Stelae were placed at the southern border of Egypt with Nubia, and Thutmose is said to have left a border stela, which has never been found, in Syria.
Stela in Horemheb's tomb at Saqqara
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StylobatesBetter known from ancient Greek temples, these raised platforms supporting rows of columns are also found in Egypt. They re-enforced the not very solid foundations the Egyptians were wont to build on. The court of Akhenaten's gm-pA-jtn temple at Karnak had a five metre wide stylobate to support colossal statues [5]. | ||
TrabeationEgyptian monumental architecture was - with a few exceptions - based on trabeation, the post and lintel principle. This limited the covered spaces inside buildings to the width that could be bridged with the building materials used, in dwellings about three to four metres, the maximal plank length that could be cut from local wood. Ceilings exceeding this width had to be supported by posts. In temple hypostyle halls this resulted in forests of sculptured stone pillars (see above) supporting decorated architraves symbolizing the sky. | ||
Window of AppearancesOccasionally kings had to show themselves to their subjects, perform public ceremonies like the dispensing of the Gold of Honour, but generally preferred to keep their distance. A solution was the use of the window of appearance let into the façade of the palace. Source: BMFA 1964, No.328
In the above Amarnan relief the window is topped by a frieze of uraei, and above it, as sometimes happened in Egyptian depictions where objects of which one was hidden behind the other were pictured as one being above the other, is shown the columned hall which could be glimpsed by the populace through the window.[1] The Lexikon der Ägyptologie translates aS as fir, lat. Abies Cilica, rather than cedar as did Breasted: I inspected the great monuments which he made ////// great pylons on its either side of fine limestone of Ayan; august flagstaves were erected at the double façade of the temple of new cedar of the best of the Terraces (i.e. Mountain of Lebanon); their tops were of electrum.[3] Precious metal was seemingly also used in some parts of the temples: This great god appeared upon the pavement of silver in the house of Amon at the morning hour.[4] An early Ptolemaic account recording the supply of 15,840 bricks, more than would have been needed to build a workman's house. Cf brickmaking For the stairway ---- (bricks) [Epeiph].[5] Katheryn A. Bard, Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Routledge 1999, p.392 |
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Bibliography for this and related pages |
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 | Building: Planning, materials, tools | |
| Walls and ramparts | |
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| Index of Topics | |
| Main Index and Search Page | |
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| Offsite links | (Opening in a new window) | |
| These are just suggestions for further reading. I do not assume any responsibility for the content of these sites | ||
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 | [2] Archaeological Excavations in Egypt - SEPE: Survey and Excavation Projects in Egypt: Tell Tebilla Project - Part V | |
| Egyptian Obelisk Website | |
| The columns of ancient Egypt (Tour Egypt site) | |
| Raising the obelisk (PBS site: NOVA online adventure) | |
| Raising the obelisk - Mark Lehner answers questions (PBS site: NOVA online adventure). | |
| Karnak Temple: Great Hypostyle Hall (PBS site: NOVA online adventure) | |
| Under "Bauwerke": A number of temples with related material (in German) | |
| The Step Pyramid Complex of Djoser | |
| The lithographs of David Roberts | |
| Columns & pillars: the Visual Story by Sjef Willockx | |
| Feedback: Please report broken links, mistakes - factual or otherwise, etc. to me.Thanks. | ||
Known at least since the 3rd dynasty, true arches were rarely used in early Ancient Egypt. Only when the building material was mud bricks and building corbelled vaults was impractical, were true arches erected.
Introduced during the New Kingdom, pylons were towerlike structures flanking temple entrances reminiscent of the mountains on the horizon between which the sun rose every morning. Their importance was mostly symbolic and possibly aesthetic: Linked to Isis and Nephthys they were bastions against evil, protecting the god resting in the sanctuary. They were often decorated with reliefs depicting the destruction of enemies.
