Egyptian Art

• Factors influencing building in Egypt

  • Materials available
  • The Nile River
  • The Climate
• Materials available to Egyptian builders

  • Stone
  • Mud
  • Pliable materials (reeds, palm fronds, papyrus stalks, small branches)
  • Wood
• Stone was only used by the Egyptians for religious monuments associated with death
• Earliest types of houses had curved roofs, made of bent reeds or branches
• As soon as tools were invented that were capable of cutting large, rigid timbers the roofs became flat
• Mud was easily obtainable and therefore used extensively by the early Egyptian builders
• Pliable materials were first used to make woven mats and reed latticework, later used in the walls of houses
• Wood was scarce in the Nile Valley, but played an important role in the beginnings of Egyptian architectural forms
• The Nile River teems with a variety of life, human and animal, and helped fertilize crops along its banks
• The Egyptians wrote hymns in praise of the Nile as it provided water, food and transport
• The flat roofs of Egyptian houses were used as terraces, and cooking took place in an open courtyard or on the roof
• Windows were developed for ventilation
• Religion of many gods


  Egyptians saw their gods as beings with physical needs and desires like themselves, and believed everything that happened to them was due to the gods
• Phases of Egyptian history


  • Old Kingdom: Pharaoh was the king-god, highest deity
  • Middle Kingdom: Pharaoh began to be worshipped as one of the many gods
• Egyptians built great temples in a grand style to worship their gods, and only priests and the pharaoh were allowed in the inner sanctuary
• Main Egyptian gods


  • Ra (sun god)
  • Ammon (god of Thebes)
  • Anubis (god of death)
  • Isis (goddess who protected children)
  • Osiris (god of the Nile, vegetation, and Earth)
  • Horus (god of the rising sun)
• Ancient Egyptian burial process

  1. Washing the body

  2. Removing organs and placing in canopic jars

  3. Filling the cavity with linen or straw soaked in spices and resins

  4. Soaking the body in a bath of resins, salts and spices
• During the Old Kingdom, only pharaohs were entitled to an afterlife, but during the New Kingdom all Egyptians could look forward to life after death
• The "Opening of the Mouth" ceremony was performed to allow the dead person to eat, drink and speak again in the afterlife
• Embalming a pharaoh or nobleman took about 70 days, while a few days were used for a poor man
• The embalmers' goal was to preserve the dead pharaoh's body for eternity
• The brain was removed through the nose and placed in a canopic jar, as the body would rot if the organs were left inside
• Earliest types of houses

  The very first dwellings built by humans, typically constructed during the Stone Age.
• Curved roofs

  Roofs designed to curve upwards, which helped to shed rain and snow.
• Bent reeds or branches

  Natural materials used to construct curved roofs, bent and shaped to form a curved structure.
• Mud

  Not a suitable material for roofing because it is too heavy and cannot support its own weight, especially in a curved shape.