ancient Egyptian architecture, Architecture produced during the dynastic periods of the first three millennia bce in the Nile valley regions of Egypt and Nubia.
Ancient Egyptian architecture aimed to preserve forms that reflect the perfection of the world at the moment of creation and to embody the correct relationship between humankind, the king, and the gods. Thus, Egyptian architecture remained fairly unchanged for thousands of years. Its history is weighted in favour of funerary and religious buildings, partly because they were built on ground unaffected by the Nile flood. Whereas most ancient towns were lost, temples and tombs survived.
The two principal building materials were unbaked mud brick and stone. From the Old Kingdom (c. 2575–2130 bce) onward, stone was used for tombs and for temples. Mud brick remained the domestic material, used even for royal palaces; it was also used for fortresses, the walls of temple precincts and towns, and for subsidiary buildings in temple complexes.
Mortuary architecture in Egypt was highly developed and often grandiose. Most tombs comprised two principal parts, the burial chamber and the chapel, in which offerings for the deceased were made. In royal burials the chapel rapidly developed into a mortuary temple, which, beginning in the New Kingdom (c. 1539–1075 bce), was usually built separately and at some distance from the tomb. Mastabas were the standard type of tomb in the earliest dynasties. These flat-roofed rectangular superstructures had sides constructed from mud brick and later of stone. They were built over storage chambers stocked with food and equipment for the deceased, who lay in a rectangular burial chamber belowground.
The tomb for Djoser, second king of the 3rd dynasty, began as a mastaba and was gradually expanded to become a step pyramid with six superposed stages of diminishing size. The high royal official Imhotep was credited with the design. The subterranean complexes include reliefs of the king and elaborate wall panels in glazed tiles.
For the Old Kingdom the characteristic form of tomb was the true pyramid, the finest examples of which are the pyramids at Giza, notably the Great Pyramid of King Khufu of the 4th dynasty. The measurements of the Great Pyramid indicate its scale, monumentality, and precision: its sides are each approximately 755 feet (230 metres); its orientation on the cardinal points is almost exact; and its height upon completion was 481.4 feet (146.7 metres). The core is formed of huge limestone blocks, once covered by a casing of dressed limestone. Its interior features a corbeled gallery that leads to the King’s Chamber—built entirely of granite—with five relieving compartments above for reducing pressure.
The monumentality of the pyramid made it not only a potent symbol of royal power but also an obvious target for tomb robbers. During the New Kingdom the wish to halt the desecration of royal tombs led to their being sited together in the Valley of the Kings, a remote valley at Thebes. Tombs were carved deep into the limestone with no outward structure. These rock-cut tombs had been constructed for private citizens as early as the 4th dynasty. Most were fairly simple single chambers serving all the functions of the multiplicity of rooms in a mastaba. Some, however, had considerable architectural pretensions, including porticoes and inscriptions. At Beni Hasan the local nobles during the Middle Kingdom (c. 1938–1630 bce) cut architectural features such as columns, barrel roofs, and porticoes, all of which provided settings for painted murals. The earliest royal tombs in the Valley of Kings were entirely hidden from view. They had no identical plan, but most consisted of a series of corridors opening out at intervals to form rooms and ending in a large burial chamber deep in the mountain. Religious and funerary hieroglyphic texts and pictures covered the walls of the tomb from end to end. After the abandonment of the valley at the end of the 20th dynasty, kings of the subsequent two dynasties were buried in simple tombs within the temple enclosure of the delta city of Tanis.
Temples can be distinguished into two principal kinds—cult temples and funerary or mortuary temples. The former accommodated the images of deities, the recipients of the daily cult, and the latter were the shrines for the funerary cults of dead kings. The cult temple achieved its most highly developed form in the sanctuaries erected over many centuries during the New Kingdom at Thebes, namely the Luxor Temple. It was started by Amenhotep III of the 18th dynasty and dedicated to Amon, king of the gods, his consort Mut, and their son Khons.
The necessary elements of an Egyptian temple, most of which can be seen at Luxor, are the following: an avenue of sphinxes leading to the double-towered pylon entrance; before the pylon a pair of obelisks and colossal statues of the king; within the pylon a court leading to a hypostyle hall, beyond which might come a smaller hall where offerings could be prepared; and, at the heart of the temple, the shrine for the cult image. Outside the main temple building was a well or lake for the water needed in the rituals; in later times there might also be a birth house to celebrate the king’s divine birth. The whole, with service buildings, was contained by a massive mud brick wall. Successive kings would often add to temples so that some complexes became enormous.
The other type of temple, the funerary temple, belongs to the mortuary and valley temples included in the pyramid complex of the Old and Middle kingdoms. The so-called valley temple stood at the lower end of the causeway that led up to the pyramid. It had a columnar hall and storerooms; basins and drainage channels have occasionally been found in the floors. Its exact function is uncertain. It may have been for the purification of the dead king’s body by ritualistic washing and even for the embalming ceremony. The mortuary temple adjoined the pyramid and had, usually, a central open court surrounded by pillars or columns, a varying number of storerooms, five elongated chambers or shrines, and a chapel containing a false door and an offering table. In this chapel the priests performed the daily funerary rites and presented offerings to the dead king’s soul.
Although no longer buried in pyramids, the New Kingdom sovereigns still had funerary temples built in the vicinity of their rock-cut tombs. The most original was the female king Hatshepsut’s temple, built by her steward Senenmut at Dayr al-Baḥrī. Three terraces lead up to the recess in the cliffs where the shrine was cut into the rock. Each terrace is fronted by colonnades of square pillars protecting reliefs of unusual subjects, including one of the divine birth of Hatshepsut. Ramps lead from terrace to terrace, and the uppermost level opens into a large court with colonnades. Chapels of Hathor and Anubis occupy the south and north ends of the colonnade of the second terrace.
In terms of domestic architecture, the best-preserved houses are those of the workers’ village of Dayr al-Madīnah. Exceptional in that they were built of stone, they typically had three or four rooms, comprising a master bedroom, a reception room, a cellar for storage, and a kitchen open to the sky; accommodation on the roof, reached by a stair, completed the plan. Villas for important officials in Tell el-Amarna were large and decorated with painted murals. Such houses had bathrooms and lavatories. The ceilings of large rooms were supported by painted wooden pillars, and there may have been further rooms above. Palaces were vast, with broad halls, harem suites, kitchen areas, and wide courts. At Tell el-Amarna some have porticoes, colonnades, statuary, murals, and floor decorations.
After the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, the independent rule of pharaohs came to an end. Under the Ptolemies, whose rule followed Alexander’s, profound changes took place in art and architecture. Most interesting of funerary architecture is the tomb of Petosiris, high priest of Thoth in Hermopolis Magna in the late 4th century bce. It is in the form of a small temple with a pillared portico, elaborate column capitals, and a large forecourt. In its mural decorations a strong Greek influence merges with the traditional Egyptian modes of expression. At cities such as Dandarah, Esna, and Philae the cult temple, though erected by the Macedonian rulers, employs purely Egyptian architectural conventions but includes flourishes that appear only in the Ptolemaic period, such as pillars in the shape of colossal sistra, a percussion instrument; composite capitals with elaborate floral forms; monumental screen walls; and subterranean crypts.