Egypt is positioning on both sides of the Nile River, which was the life-giving source, on North having the Mediterranean Sea, on the east was bounded by the Arabian Desert and the Red Sea, and on the west by the Libyan Desert. This positioning decided many aspects of the materials used in construction and for furnishings. The first material used to build shelters was papyrus. Then people learned how to make bricks from clay and straws, using the mud of the Nile, since it was economical and easily accessible. The river has also allowed transporting imported wood that was using into constructions, like cedar, pine, cypress, ash, ebony, elm, linden, and other. In smaller amounts were used local wood, such as acacia, palm, and sycamore. The local vegetation was seen as a source of life and preserved in arid territory under heat and sun. Monumental architecture, such as temples and palaces, was made of stone, abundant on Egypt lands. The quantity and variety of natural rocks defined the preference: granite, sandstone, limestone, and alabaster were preferred over quartzite and basalt.
Observing the internal architecture and decorations of the houses, we can tell a lot about the people that were living in a certain period and in that specific area. Egyptian exterior and interior architecture were influenced by a climate in which there was minimal rainfall, intense sunlight, and little variation. It led to such features as flat rooftops, arcades, narrow and tall windows placed high in the wall, roof ventilators, and open interior courts.
At the end of V-IV millennium BC Egypt has transitioned into an authoritarian centralized state, where all the power held the aristocracy (high executive officials, mayors, provincial governors, administrators) and priests. The figure of the Pharaoh was deified and centered-placed to protect and sustain the interests of these two social classes.
The primary role in the formation of the art and architectural monuments (as tombs and temples), since its first dynasty, was the religious belief. The religious dogma in Egypt has defined all the aspects of its inhabitants' private and cultural lives. As a consequence developed two distinctive architectural classes:
- The monumental architecture of Temples made in stone (the dwellings of the Gods) and Tombs (the house for the eternal afterlife); and
- The domestic architecture of townhouses and country villas made for ordinary people.
For the creation of monumental architecture, in the ANCIENT EGYPT were using stones, limestones and sandstones, fewer granites, while for the external coating were using alabaster. Stones were placed on top of the other without any binder solution; they were sometimes using V-shaped wooden staples to fix them together. These walls had small irregularities but finished work was covered with a thin layer of mud, smoothened out, and finally painted. It was the first significant distinction between buildings of Ancient Egypt and medieval ones.
In this Epoque were introduced the fundamental principles in constructions that will be followed in the next centuries to come, like the distribution of internal spaces. It all started with the creation of temples and tombs, places of cult, the center of life, where interior spaces were distributed based on the social hierarchy. The most relevant construction was the tomb in Khafre Pyramid composed of two parts: the part at its base accessed by anyone, the memorial, and the most hidden and long distancing part – the Sphynx, accessible only to the highest rang priests. The process of commemorating the deceased Pharaoh was starting from the entrance, passing through a long hall uniting the two parts of the construction, and directing to the Sphynx. Space was divided into rectangular rooms, with simple and clear walls. Visitors received a big emotional impact, not as much from the decorations and architecture, laconic and geometrical, but mostly arriving from the contrast of light and dark, emphasized while moving away from the entrance towards the Sphynx. The change in the intensity of light and the size of the rooms creates a lot of emotion.
Similar techniques based on human physiology, as our pupils' ability to contract and dilate while changing the intensity of light, were used on most constructions during Ancient Egypt.
In the MIDDLE REIGN, some of the most representative monuments were the rock tombs of the nobility Beni-Hassan. They built on the same principles used to construct Pharaoh temples: the main entrance leads to narrow and inclined long corridors, which are taken to the private rooms with squared and rounded pillars. New architectonic elements were: the insertion at the very entrance of some arcade-columns, the creation of a cylindrical ceiling in stone, and the walls painted with scenes representing Egyptians’ life (workers in the fields, hunting and fishing scenes, etc.).
In this period increased the influence hold by priests in the political life of the country. Consequently, temples expanded and now started to prevail in axial arrangements. One of the significant constructions was building the Temple of Mentuhotep II al Deir-el-Bahari (ed of III millennium B.C.). This temple identifies a form of transition from a complex classical pyramid of Ancient Egypt into a concept of the funerary temple, also named as “the Temple of the Million Years,” holding an underground tomb. This style will be implemented further in the New Reign.
With the arrival of the NEW REIGN, the most frequent construction became the Terrestrial Temple. The structure was divided into four major parts: 1/ the alley of the Sphynx or Aries, 2/ surrounded by walls and arcades to arrive at the peristyle courtyard 3/ following to the hypostyle hall with numerous columns 4/ leading at the end to the sanctuary. Many elaborate temples were holding other structures inside, so the temple could ultimately be enlarged to incorporate new buildings.
The social hierarchy leading the Egyptian society allowed different social classes to access different areas of the temple. In the sanctuary could access only the priests of the highest rang! While some populations could access the hypostyle hall (with columns), and the lowest classes could only enter the peristyle courtyard. These restrictions were voluntarily created to emphasize the received emotional perception: the closer one could get to the sanctuary, the more significant impression of time and space could have been. This type of architectural division was used in Egypt in the II-I millennium B.C.. It will be repeated later in the Gothic architecture, but also in the Baroque and other styles.
Unlike pyramids, where the external volume and internal small narrow passages were disproportionate, in the temples from the New Reign, interior spaces will always prevail upon external forms. These temples had only one main entrance intended for the visitors, and this façade decorated with majestic columns-pillars, giant Pharaohs, and obelisks. All the other sides were part of internal walls (painted white), surrounded by plants and flowers, domestic services, theological schools, houses of the priests, and were not requesting architectural beauty.
As many religions around the World, the Egyptian religion was interpreting the temple as a micro-cosmos, envisioning the existence of an afterlife. The architecture of Ancient Egypt was symbolic and graphic. The columns shaped to recall plants and flowers, like Lotus flower, papyrus, palm trees, and it was not only regarding the capital but the entire column (trunks including). The ceiling signified the sky, so it was painted blue with golden stars and flying birds. Almost all the internal walls were covered with stucco to smooth the surface and hide stones joints and on top decorated with vivid colors (red, green, and blue). The entrance columns, walls, and pillars covered in reliefs, most of the time colored. These reliefs had a particular effect in Egypt since the majority of ceremonies were at night. Under the firelight, these were creating a subtle dance of shadows, increasing the mystic influence of the place.
The Egyptian culture was profoundly bounded to the mystical belief of syncretism (indivisibility), clearly visible in temples dedicated to the Gods of the Sun. In centuries XVI-XII BC, the most important temple of all times was the Temple Amon-Ra at Karnak. Egyptian culture had a particular tradition for the day of the winter solstice - they were celebrating the most important religious festivity of the year – the birth of the Sun God. The Temple at Karnak built in such a way that on this day (22 December in dynasty XVIII), the temple's ax coincided with the sunrise's center. The sun is rising from behind the eastern cliff, first illuminating the top points of the obelisk with the image of Amon-Ra, symbolizing that the sun meets with its image. Afterward, it was passing through the aperture at east, then penetrated inside the Sanctuary (in the darkest and most hidden part of the temple), illuminating the golden fetish resting on the altar. The golden tower on which, according to legend, the Sun divinity runs its way by day across the sky. When the sun hits its figure on the altar, it represents the culmination moment in the religious ceremony.
INTERNAL SPACES IN RESIDENTIAL PLACES AND PALACES
RESIDENTIAL HOUSES were of Mediterranean type, construction of sequence rooms, opening towards an inner court, or having a joint lodge-hall opening to the inner court. This inner court was the only source of natural light since no windows were present, or these were reduced to minimal sizes. Residential houses were made of bricks. Palmwood using pillars, beams, and door jambs. Stone was used for the columns, door jambs, flooring, and building internal pools.
Luxurious houses could have many internal courts and dozens of rooms, while the total surface could arrive, measuring up to 2400 sqm. However, most homes were built with 6-7 rooms, while the rest of the population was living in poverty.
In big cities with a high-density population, like Fiva and Memphis, houses were built closer and developed vertically, arriving up to having three floors. The property of a rich urban could have been immersed in a garden and surrounded by walls. Inside its property, there could be three types of constructions: residential interns, festive rooms, domestic services like deposits, storage rooms, workshops, animal factories, and rooms for servants.
PALACES were a complex construction, realized by uniting several buildings, with internal gardens, pergolas, flower beds, and swimming pools, surrounded by high external walls. At the main entrances were placing pillars and arcades, very similar by shape and architecture, to the ones used for building temples.
The luxury finishing in these palaces (houses of the richest) was on the internals. A trend of that period was covering all the internal walls with plaster and paint using vivid colors (the same used to paint in temples) – red, light blue, yellow, green, brown, and white, but also engraving images. Colors were of waxed minerals: malachite, lazurite, yellow and red ochre. Each color had a meaning: yellow or gold were imitating the sun and the deserts, blue symbolized the river, white – purity, green - life, while black symbolized buried life.
Besides paintings, and especially in the New Reigning, were using terracotta inlay, made directly in the fresh plaster, and afterward painted in multi-chromed colors. Significant value in internal decoration had fabrics, particularly to carpets, decorative materials, and curtains to frame the door entrances, made of linen, and with simple decorative ornaments. The most exclusive and prestigious fabric was considered a thin white canvas.
THE FURNISHINGS OF ANCIENT EGYPT
Most furniture pieces preserved until today are arriving from the period of the New Reign. These made in wood imported from neighboring countries, such as olive wood, black wood, sycamore, cedar, yew tree, and acacia on the Nile. The roughness on the surface refined with the use of natural stones and oils.
Sittings fixed using crossed staves in wood or leather. Sometimes, to join corners of the sittings were using curved wood pieces that were created by curving a live plant for several months or even years in a specific positioning. To hide imperfections on furniture pieces, particularly on cabinet furniture, these were covered with a layer of mastic and afterward painted white, which also served as a base for future decorative applications and decorations. Artisans were making simple veneered with inlays in majolica, mother of pearl, semi-precious stones, ivory, while for prestige pieces implying decors made of silver and gold. It is considering that the chair with a backrest was created in Antique Egypt.
Entrance decorative objects were made with particular meticulosity, creating feet shaped as animal paws, recreating in similar ways front legs and back legs. Sitting backrests, inclined or straight, were decorated with wire, while other times could be upholstered with precious metals or colored with enamels.
A sitting that was very diffused in Egypt - the stool – was made fixed or folding.
Beds were made from rigid wood frames, sometimes with a headboard, on which were strained leather belts.
Cabinet furniture, particularly caskets and chests, were decorated with colorful enamels, geometrical ornaments, and inlays.
Besides furniture, Egyptians were using different decorative objects made of wicker: baskets, boxes, mats, and screens.
It was a common practice to use mirror metals, particularly round-shaped polished bronze.
Best regards,
Nadiya
MetropolitanMe Blogger