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Egyptian Architecture and Art History

Cities along the Nile flourished as traders brought valuable goods like gold, silver, ivory and spices from across Africa and the ancient East. After the first pharaoh took the throne, Egyptian builders rapidly advanced from using sun-dried bricks to mastering stone construction. Within 200 years they had built the towering pyramids at Giza, among the greatest tombs in history. For thousands of years Egyptian architects constructed imposing stone monuments up and down the Nile Valley and artisans created a graceful, distinctive style of art that would later inspire the Greeks.

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73 views1 page

Egyptian Architecture and Art History

Cities along the Nile flourished as traders brought valuable goods like gold, silver, ivory and spices from across Africa and the ancient East. After the first pharaoh took the throne, Egyptian builders rapidly advanced from using sun-dried bricks to mastering stone construction. Within 200 years they had built the towering pyramids at Giza, among the greatest tombs in history. For thousands of years Egyptian architects constructed imposing stone monuments up and down the Nile Valley and artisans created a graceful, distinctive style of art that would later inspire the Greeks.

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Attis Dolens
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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native products were venturing regularly into the

Red Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. Overland


traders penetrated deep into Ntibia's hinterland to
the south. Cities flourished beside the Nile, en-
riched by the treasures of Africa and the ancient
East—copper, bronze, gold and silver, ivory and
rare woods, lapis lazuli and turquoise, myrrh and
spices, exotic animal skins and ostrich plumage.
W i t h spectacular sixddenness, an architecture
sprang up that was suitable for kings and gods.
W i t h i n a century after the first pharaoh of the
Old Kingdom mounted his throne, Egyptian build-
ers had graduated f r o m sun-baked bricks to high-
ly sophisticated construction in stone, and their ar-
tisans were among the earliest to master this diffi-
cult technique. The same omnipotent authority that
drafted mass labour for irrigation was able to recruit
unlimited sinew to quarry and dress enormous
blocks, and to transport them to sites beside the
Nile. W i t h i n a brief span of 200 years or so, Egypt's
builders had so mastered the n e w material that they
had finished the pyramids at Gizeh, wonders of
the ancient world and the mightiest royal sepul-
chres of all time. In succeeding centuries, Egyptian
architects flanked the river f r o m the Delta, near the
Mediterranean, to lower Nubia, about 800 miles
south, with stone monuments that rank with the
most impressive of any age.
Art kept pace with architecture. From prehistoric
days, craftsmen of the Nile had displayed a sense
of beauty and symmetry that touched even the
most utilitarian objects—flint knives, stone or pot-
tery household vessels, pins and combs of bone
or shell. W i t h the advent of the pharaohs, this
aesthetic quality flowered into a mature art, distinc-
SOAKING TWIN PILLARS tower over Karnak's ruins. One is decorated tively Egyptian in concept and character. For the
with the lotus plant of Upper Egypt ( l e f t ) and the other with Lower
next 3,000 years, Egypt produced a graceful and
Egypt's papyrus. Together they symbolize the union of the two lands.
spirited art (that served, among other things, to
inspire the great Greek sculptors and artists who
followed them centuries later).
13

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