5.3 Egyptian Architecture

mastaba

a standard type of tomb with a rectangle brick or stone structure with slopping sides erected over an underground burial chamber. A shaft connected this chamber with the outside, providing the Ka access to the burial.

concern of Egyptian tombs

was to ensure safety and happiness in the next life.

mastaba purpose

the mastaba was a single house tomb, used for multiple burials, and became complex. attached outside the chapel housing a statue of the deceased (Serdab-chamber)

• essentially it was meant to provide the Ka with a house in the afterlife.

chappell wall decorations

were decorated with reliefs and paintings of daily life, which provided entertainment for the deceased.

pyramids

burial places of the rulers, and were located on the western side of the Nile River.

• associating the transition of the afterlife with the sunset.

first pyramid and mastaba influence

Old Kingdom, King Zoser commissioned Imhotep to construct a funerary complex at Saq-qara. The architecture was a large step pyramid, a solid structure that suggests the superimposition of progressively smaller mastabas.

great sphinx and symbolism

was a lion with a human head. Symbolizes that the pharaoh has human intelligence with the strength and authority of a beast (lion). It dominated the valley of Khafre and was connected to Khafre’s pyramid.

Hatshepsut

the first female king of Egypt. She resigned as Pharaoh in her young step son’s place. Her mortuary Temple was a great tribute to a women’s achievements in history of art. After her reign, her stepson, Thutmose III, removed and de-faced almost all of her 200 statues because she resigned while he was supposed to.

Hatshepsut’s reign as pharaoh

Egypt prospered. Unlike other rulers in her dynasty, she was more interested in ensuring economic prosperity and building and resorting monuments throughout Egypt that's in conquering new lands.

what Hatshepsut is most known for

was the longest-reigning female pharaoh in Egypt, ruling for 20 years in the 15th century BCE. She is considered one of Egypt’s most successful pharaohs.

temple

awesome structures with massive stonewalls and rows of columns carved with hieroglyphs and religious images. It was the home of a god. Ordinary people could only enter the outer court. In dark rooms at the temple’s heart, priests performed sacred rituals.

bilateral symmetry

froms identical on both sides of central axis.

• King passes through an open road flanked by sphinxes, then moved into sacred pylon.

Pylon

entrance to an Egyptian gate to an Egyptian Temple complex with sloping towers and flagpoles flank central doorway.

Colnnade

King proceeds into a continuous row of columns supporting an entablature; courtyards open to the sky and framed by rows of columns.

hypostyle

next the king entered a large room filled with continuous columns.

clerestory

only light filtered down from a raised area with verticle openings.

post and lintel

technique used for Egyptian colonnaded courtyards and hypostyle halls.

• used tensile strength from support (longitudinal strength sufficient to support itself without breaking)

entablature

on top on lintel, or horizontal member

capital

on top of columns, decorative

tensile strength

longitudinal strength sufficient to support itself without breaking.