Ancient and Egyptian Architecture

1. Ancient and Egyptian Architecture Architectural History ACT 322 Doris Kemp

2. Topics • Paleolithic Era: The Early Stone Age • Neolithic Era: The New Stone Age • Post and Lintel • Corbelling • How did they move all that stone? • Megalithic Structure Categories • Megalithic Theories of Origin

3. Paleolithic Era: The Early Stone Age • Earliest dwellings of Western and Southern Europe took two forms: • Multichambered caves and rock shelters • Fragile, tent-like assemblages of poles covered with hides or thatched reeds. • Permanent structures were impractical • Occupants were nomadic, or constantly moving

4. Paleolithic Era: The Early Stone Age Swimming Deer, Lascaux, France, circa 15,000-13,000 BC.

5. Neolithic Era:The New Stone Age • Began about 9000 B.C. • Humanity learned to farm as well as hunt • More permanent structures begin to appear • Dwellings were crude fabrications of organic and impermanent materials including: • Timber • Straw • Mud

6. Neolithic Era:Catal Huyuk • Catal Huyuk • Anatolian Plain in Turkey • Community dating back to 7000 B.C. • Includes the first known religious shrine • Structures were made of shaped mud-brick Excavation, Catal Huyuk

7. Neolithic Era:Catal Huyuk Reconstructed Shrine Interior of Catal Huyuk

8. Neolithic Era:City of Jericho • Jericho • In modern day Jordan • c. 7000 – 6000 B.C • Rectangular, two room houses • Smoothly finished plaster floors and walls. • Settlement was enclosed by large stone walls View of excavation, Jericho

9. Neolithic Era:City of Jericho Settlement Wall and Tower, Jericho

10. Neolithic Era • Most impressive Neolithic architecture was not built for practical uses • Served spiritual and magical needs of the society • Megalithic • Means “great stone” • Huge stones assembled without mortar in basic structural arrangements • Characteristic of most later Neolithic architecture

11. Neolithic Era:Post and Lintel • Post and Lintel • Vertical uprights support a horizontal beam • Remains the single most important structural device used in architecture Post and Lintel, Dolmen de la Frébouchère, France

12. Neolithic Era:Corbelling • Corbelling • Successive courses of masonry project forward progressively from the wall plane to bridge a gap • Could provide: • solid roof for a space between two parallel walls • worked forward from the sides of a centralized enclosure to form a domelike ceiling. Corbelling at Agamemnon’s Citadel at Mycenae

13. Neolithic Era:How did they move all that stone? • Megalithic builders most likely quarried the large stones by splitting them at the lode • Barges and sleds using huge timber rollers probably provided transport • Lifting was provided through leverage over inclined masses of earth materials • Later removed after construction

14. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Structure Categories • Two categories: • Tombs (called Dolmens) • Chamber tomb • Passage Grave • Gallery grave • Non-tombs - Used for religious or spiritual purposes • Menhirs • Cromlechs or henge monuments

15. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Dolmens • Chamber tomb (simplest) • Single roofing stone supported by two more uprights • Post and Lintel • Passage Grave • Rectangular polygonal chamber • used for collective rather than a single burial • Gallery grave • Elongated, rectangular chamber • no entrance passage

16. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Passage Grave Tomb, New Grange, Ireland, c. 3000-2500 BC

17. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Menhirs • Menhirs • Single stones standing alone or in rows • Common in Europe Menhirs, Carnac, Brittany, France, c. 4250-3750 BC.

18. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Menhirs Menhirs, Carnac, Brittany, France, c. 4250-3750 BC.

19. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Henge Monuments • Henge monuments – also known as cromlechs • Composed stone groups, often in a circular shape • Extensive use of post and lintel in many formations • British Isles • Greatest concentration of henge monuments in the world • Sanctuary near Avebury • Stonehenge

20. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Henge Monuments • Sanctuary near Avebury • Largest prehistoric monument in Europe • 1300 ft. diameter enclosing several rings of stones • Only markers exist today representing the locations of the stones Sanctuary near Avebury, England

21. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Henge Monuments • Stonehenge • Located on the Salisbury Plain not far from Avebury • Built in the form of concentric rings • Construction was highly accurate for the time • Most likely built by a Sun worshipping cult

22. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Henge Monuments Stonehenge, England

23. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Henge Monuments Stonehenge, England

24. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Theories of Origin • “Diffusionist” Theory • Older theory • Megalithic buildings types and techniques originated in the Aegean Bronze Age of Crete and Greece • c. Second Millennium B.C. • Spread westward across the Mediterranean Sea and upwards to the Atlantic coastal region through the British Isles

25. Neolithic Era:Megalithic Theories of Origin • Recent scientific findings have questioned the “Diffusionist” Theory • Carbon dating has dated northern European structures 2000 years older than their Mediterranean predecessors • Great stone structures in Avebury and Stonehenge date back to 3000 B.C.; centuries before the great pyramids of Egypt

26. References • Sullivan, Mary; http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/ • http://www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/Cities/wld/wdpt1.html • Trachtenburg/Hyman; Architecture: From Prehistory to Postmodernity • Wodehouse/Moffett; A History of Western Architecture

27. Ancient and Egyptian Architecture Architectural History ACT 322 Doris Kemp