Egyptian Art and Architecture

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Royal Tombs and Pyramids

The royal tombs and pyramids of ancient Egypt were elaborate structures with important religious purposes. They were located along the Nile River, the vital waterway that runs the length of the country. For about 2,000 years, until the end of the New Kingdom in 1070 bc, royal tombs were built on the Nile’s west bank. Because the sun set in the west, Egyptians believed that the western desert was the entrance to the underworld, or duat, where the dead dwelled and through which the sun passed at night.

The kings of the 1st Dynasty (2920 bc-2770 bc) were buried in the cemetery of their ancestors at Abydos in southern Egypt. Their burial sites were built of mud brick (bricks baked in the sun) and consisted of two parts: a tomb in the desert where the king was buried, and a rectangular funerary enclosure at the desert's edge, where rituals were performed. A pair of stone slabs called stelae marked the tombs and bore the name of the royal occupant. In the 2nd Dynasty (2770 bc-2649 bc), most royal burials were moved north to the cemetery of Şaqqārah, which served the capital city of Memphis, but the last two kings were buried at Abydos.

Within the tomb enclosure of the last king of the 2nd Dynasty, Khasekhemwy, archaeologists have excavated a square brick mound. This mound was probably the forerunner of the first pyramid, which is known as the Step Pyramid at Şaqqārah.

The Step Pyramid was built by King Djoser, who ruled from 2630 bc to 2611 bc, during the 3rd Dynasty (2649 bc-2575 bc). In its final form it consisted of six huge, square tiers of decreasing size, placed one on top of the other to a height of nearly 60 m (200 ft). Its diminishing tiers resemble steps. The Step Pyramid stood in the middle of a rectangular enclosure. Also within the enclosure were various other buildings, some of which could be entered, while others had no doors. These buildings functioned only for the spirit forms of the dead king and the gods, who were believed to be able to pass through the thick rock walls.

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Unlike the earlier mud-brick tombs, the entire complex at Şaqqārah was built of stone; however, similarities show that the complex evolved from the earlier tombs and funerary enclosures at Abydos. The Şaqqārah design combined the tomb and funerary enclosure so that the burial, placed under the pyramid, lay within the funerary enclosure.

King Sneferu built the first true pyramid with smooth sides at the beginning of the 4th Dynasty (2575 bc–2467 bc), and Egyptian kings continued to use pyramids for burial through the 12th Dynasty. The best-known pyramids were built on the Giza plateau for three 4th Dynasty kings: Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. Each pyramid is just one element in a line of structures that form a burial complex. The complex begins at the east, with a temple on a harbor at the edge of the cultivated land in the Nile Valley. From this valley temple, where the king’s body was first brought by boat, a long, covered causeway runs west into the desert to a pyramid temple. To the west of the temple is the pyramid itself, inside of which the king’s body was placed. Inside the temple, rituals performed for the king included the offering of food and drink to nourish his ka-spirit (life force).

The Egyptian pyramids served as more than a place to put the king’s dead body. They were places of transformation that enabled the king to pass into a new stage of life. The east-west orientation of each pyramid complex paralleled the daytime course of the sun as it rises and sets. The burial chamber represented the duat through which the sun traveled from west to east at night before rising in the eastern sky at dawn. While the king's body lay in its coffin, his ka-spirit was nourished by rituals that priests performed in the pyramid temple, and his ba-spirit (personality, or individual identity) joined the sun, triumphantly leaving the duat at sunrise to travel across the sky. At night it sank with the sun back into the duat to rejoin the king's body and ka-spirit, and here it was renewed before leaving the tomb again in the morning. In this way the dead king achieved eternal existence.

After the Middle Kingdom ended in 1640 bc, the Egyptians stopped building royal pyramids, and in the New Kingdom (1550 bc–1070 bc), kings were buried in tombs at Thebes in the Valley of the Kings, where the burial site of King Tutankhamun was found in 1922. The Valley of the Kings is a rocky desert area with high cliffs. The Egyptians cut the tombs into the cliffs. The tombs typically consisted of a series of corridors, steps, and rooms that ended in a burial chamber. The door to the tomb formed a point of transition from the world of the living to the world of the dead, so that the tomb represented the duat.

In the New Kingdom’s 18th Dynasty, tombs were mostly undecorated, except for the burial chamber. In the 19th Dynasty (1307 bc–1196 bc) and 20th Dynasty (1196 bc–1070 bc), decoration extended to the tomb entrance, where the sun’s passage was depicted through the duat at night until its rise, regenerated, in the morning. The dead king, who was identified with the sun god, achieved new life by taking part in the eternal cycle of the sun. Because the narrow Valley of the Kings lacked space for temples in which to honor the king, these were separated from the tomb and built where the desert's edge met the cultivated regions.

By the end of the New Kingdom, the Egyptians no longer built royal tombs in the desert, perhaps because of the difficulty of protecting these isolated spots from tomb robbers. Instead, tombs began to be built inside the most important temple complex in the king's capital or native city. Most New Kingdom royal tombs were smaller than those of earlier dynasties, and few of their associated buildings have survived. The Ptolemaic kings of the era following the Late Period, which ended in 332 bc, were buried in Alexandria, which was their capital city.

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Tombs of the Elite

The tombs for the elite members of Egyptian society were less elaborate than royal tombs, but they were nevertheless impressive. The preferred location for elite tombs was the west bank of the Nile, but many were built on the east bank as well.

In the 1st and 2nd dynasties the tombs of the elite at Şaqqārah consisted of an underground structure that contained the burial site and a flat, rectangular mud-brick structure built over it. Today these structures are called mastabas, from the Arabic word for 'bench.' The long sides of the mastabas had a north-south orientation.

In the 2nd Dynasty, tomb builders started creating a niche on the eastern side of the tomb. In it was placed a stone slab carved with an image of the deceased tomb owner seated before a variety of offerings. The slab marked the place for making offerings. During the next two dynasties, the niche was gradually cut deeper into the solid mastaba, so that the offering place lay within it. Decorated limestone slabs lined the walls of the niche.

In the 4th Dynasty, stone mastabas began to replace those of mud brick. In the 5th Dynasty (2465 bc–2323 bc) and 6th Dynasty (2323 bc–2152 bc), the large mastabas of the highest officials had a series of decorated rooms for the performance of funerary rituals. These rituals focused on a false door on the west wall of the offering chamber—a door that was intended to connect the worlds of the dead and the living. Although solid and impassable to the living, the door permitted the dead to pass through and receive offerings. This tomb chapel remained open to priests and family members after the tomb’s owner was buried, but the actual body was placed in a burial chamber at the bottom of a shaft cut deep into the ground below the chapel. After the burial, the shaft was filled in and made inaccessible.

Although freestanding tomb chapels were common in the Old Kingdom, some chapels were cut out of rock cliffs. During much of the Old Kingdom, most elite tombs were built near the capital city of Memphis, but by the 6th Dynasty, officials concerned with provincial administration were building their tombs in the provinces they governed. This tradition continued into the Middle Kingdom until the 12th Dynasty (1991 bc–1783 bc). The large decorated tomb chapels of the Middle Kingdom were cut into the cliffs that run along the edge of the Nile Valley.

The best-known elite cemetery of the New Kingdom lies on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes. The rock-cut tomb chapels there take the shape of a T. They are entered from an open court through a door that leads into the crossbar of the T, with the shaft of the T straight ahead. Like earlier tomb chapels, these provided a space for offerings by the living to the dead, but instead of a false door, the focal point was a statue of the deceased placed in a niche on the back wall of the chapel.

Elite burials of the New Kingdom also took place at Şaqqārah, some in rock-cut tombs, but most in freestanding tomb chapels. In the Late and Ptolemaic periods, elite burial sites had a variety of forms.

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Temples

The Egyptians believed that the gods occupied a different part of the universe than living human beings did. Temples were built as houses for the gods, where the gods could appear on earth. The focal point of any temple was a sanctuary area that contained a cult statue of the god. This statue, the sanctuary, and the temple were made as beautiful as possible so that the god would want to reside there, and the structures incorporated precious materials such as gold, silver, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and carnelian.

Most important deities had temples throughout Egypt, but some cities had a special association with a particular god. Among the most important gods and their cities were Ra at Heliopolis, Ptah at Memphis, Thoth at Hermopolis, Osiris at Abydos, Hathor at Dandara, Amon at Thebes, and Horus at Edfu.

Old and Middle Kingdom temples were typically built of perishable mud brick, and despite the fact that many of them were lined with decorated stone slabs, few have survived. Most surviving temples date from the 18th Dynasty or later, when major temples were built of stone, and stone structures had replaced older ones of brick. Decorated stone elements from earlier temples were sometimes reused in the foundations or walls of later temples, but most of the earlier buildings themselves have disappeared.

Because the space within a temple was sacred, a wall enclosed the temple area and separated it from the outside world. Most temples were rectangular, with the entrance on the side nearest the Nile. A huge gateway called a pylon stood at the entrance to the temple area and led into an open court. Then followed a covered, pillared room called a hypostyle hall. Beyond this was the sanctuary, which contained the shrine in which the cult statue of the god was kept.

The Egyptians believed that gods were fundamentally different from human beings, and that it was dangerous for humans to interact with gods unprotected. In fact, most people never went inside a temple. For those who had been purified through special religious rituals, the temple provided a safe place for contact with the gods. The space within the temple became increasingly sacred as one went further in, and the more sacred inner parts were restricted to the king and priests. The sanctuary was the most sacred space of all. Here the deity entered the temple from the divine realm and took up residence in the cult statue.

The architecture of the temple was designed to replicate the universe at the moment of creation. The Egyptians believed that before creation there existed only the dark, marshy primeval waters of chaos. Out of these waters a mound arose on which the creator god came into being and created the ordered universe. The dark hypostyle hall with its many pillars represented the primeval waters, and the pillars topped by papyrus or lotus capitals represented marsh plants. The polished stone floor represented the water itself. Moving back into the temple, the floor levels rose, because the sanctuary symbolized the mound of creation. The temple’s god, manifested in the cult statue, thus represented the creator god.

Every morning before dawn priests entered the temple. As the sun rose, the officiating priest opened the shrine doors in the sanctuary to reveal the deity. Each sunrise repeated the creation, so that every day in every temple the deity of the temple reenacted the moment when the newly created world emerged from the dark, primeval waters and was illuminated by the light of the newly born sun. The rituals that the priests performed for the god included the presentation of offerings, the burning of incense, and the recitation of ceremonial words and hymns.

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Palaces

Palaces provided a setting for Egyptian kings to carry out the rituals of kingship. Most were built of mud brick and have not survived well. Palaces that Egyptologists have excavated date mainly from the New Kingdom and include the palace of Amenhotep III at Malqata near Thebes, the palaces of Akhenaton at Amarna, and the palace of Merenptah at Memphis.

The nature of the Egyptian king was complex. Although he was a human being who was born, grew up, and died like other human beings, his body housed the royal ka-spirit, which transmitted the divine aspects of kingship from one king to the next. The king was also the earthly manifestation of various deities, such as Ra, the sun god, or Horus, the god of the sky. For this reason, the ritual area of the king’s palace resembled a temple. As in temples, an entranceway led into an open court that was followed by a pillared hall. But beyond the hall, instead of a sanctuary, was the throne room. Against the center of the back wall, a raised platform supported the king's throne. The throne sat within a kiosk that took the place of the shrine in a temple’s sanctuary. The enthroned king was therefore equivalent to the cult statue of a god.

The floors of the palace were decorated with images of pools surrounded by flowering plants through which young calves leapt while birds flew above, depicting the world at sunrise. The enthroned king therefore took on the role of the sun god Ra, at whose appearance each day the world came to life again after the dark night.

In Egyptian thought, foreign lands and their inhabitants represented the forces of chaos. Images of bound foreigners were painted on the steps leading up to the throne platform and on the platform itself. As the king ascended the platform, he walked on these images and then sat on them. The foreigners lay under his feet in subjection, symbolizing the triumph of the king over the forces of chaos.

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Sculpture

The function of most ancient Egyptian statues was to provide a physical place where a god or spirit could appear. In temples the god took up residence in the cult statue, and the divine royal ka-spirit could reside in statues of the king. Statues of the elite provided a place in the world of the living for the spirits of the dead. Such statues were the focal point of rituals. Offerings were presented to them, incense was burned, and ritual words were recited in their presence. These spirits were not restricted by time and space, but could simultaneously be present in all their statues, wherever the statues were located.

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