Egyptian Architecture

• 3200 B.C. to 1 A.D.) - Centralized omnipotent authority of the pharaoh (king), seen as a god dwelling on earth, sole master of its country and people.

  Egyptian Architecture
• Religion - Cult of many gods representing nature Deep concern for immortality amounted to near obsession.

  Egyptian Architecture
• First requirement of immortality - Mummification Egyptians wished for fine burial embalmment and funeral rites, a permanent tomb or “eternal dwelling.”

  Egyptian Architecture
• Climate - Spring and summer; brilliant sunshine (simplicity in design)

  Egyptian Architecture
• Travel and trade route It consists of a narrow strip of fertile

  Nile River
• Architectural Character - Monumental, immortal, permanent

  Egyptian Architecture
• Rectangular superstructure of ancient Egyptian tombs, built of mud brick or, later, stone, with sloping walls and a flat roof.

  The Mastaba
• The Mastaba

  
• a burial chamber that is cut into an existing, naturally occurring rock formation, so a type of rock-cut architecture.

  The Rock-hewn Tombs
• The Rock-hewn Tombs

  
• It is a type of temple created as shrines to dead kings.

  Mortuary Temples
• It is a type of temple that houses of worship to a god or goddess

  Cult Temples
• Egyptian chancellor to the Pharaoh Djoser/Zoser

  Imhotep
• Worked for Queen Hatshepsut & Egyptian architect and government official

  Semnut
• CONSTRUCTION SYSTEM

  • Columnar
  • trabeated

  Egyptian Architecture
• bell-shaped form

  Bud-and-bell column
• The form is elongated, and the decorative elements are flatter, less rounded, and worked with a chisel rather than drilled.

  Foliated capital column
• Having a 4-faced capital carved with heads of the goddess Hathor.

  Hathor-headed column
• Standing statue of a ruler in the shape of a mummy

  Osiris pillars
• Osiris pillars

  
• Hathor-headed column

  
• ORIENTATION - Towards the cardinal points

  Egytian Architecture
• A rectangular brick or stone structure

  with sloping flat or recessed sides, erected over a subterranean tomb chamber that was connected with the outside by a vertical shaft.

  Mastabas
• Arabic for “bench”

  • Length is between 20 – 50 meters.
  • Width is 15 – 37 meters.

  Mastabas
• A sepulchral monument in the form of huge stone structures with a square base and four sloping sides meeting at an apex Types: step, slope, and bend.

  Pyramids
• Built along hill side the nobility, not royalty.

  Rock-cut or Rock Hewn
• • Tall tapering shaft of stone, usually granite, monolithic, square in plan with an electrum-capped pyramidion on top symbolizing the sun-God Heliopolis
  • Came in pairs fronting temple entrances
  • Height of nine or ten times the diameter at the base with four sides featuring hieroglyphics.

  Obelisks
• In honor of pharaohs

  Mortuary Temples
• In honor of God

  Cult Temples
• Designed by the royal architect.

  Temple of Hatshepsut
• • The gigantic temple at Abu Simbel in Nubia, lower Egypt, was built on the orders of Ramses II
  • pharaoh of Egypt from 1279 to 1212 B.C.

  Great Temple of Abu Simbel
• Obelisk

  
• Great Temple of Abu Simbel

  
• Temple of Hatshepsut