Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/203

 Construction by Assemblage. 1 1 which is the distinguishing principle of all their architecture. Thus self-deprived of a valuable resource, they were driven to the discovery of some other means of giving the required cohesion and stability to their walls. This requirement they thought they had fulfilled in exaggerating the points of connection between the vertical and horizontal members, which were thus brought into more intimate relation than would in these days be thought necessary.^ The consequence of this was that theip wooden buildings presented much the same closed appearance (Fig. 83) as Fig. 83. — Wooden building (first system^ composed by Charles Chipiez.- we have already noticed in their stone constructions ; and, more- over, as every joint was made at right angles, the pyramidal form was entirely absent. But the Egyptians also made use of wood for buildings very ^ In this respect there is a striking resemblance between Egyptian carpentry (see Fig. 83), and much of the joinery of the modern Japanese. — Ed. - In this figure we have attempted to give some notion of what a wooden building must have been like in ancient Egypt, judging from the imitations of assembled construction which have been found in the tombs and sarcophagi of the ancient emi^ire.