Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/298

 2oS A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. or must it be referred to ignorance of the full beauties of the pyramidal form on the part of its builders ? If the conjecture of Mariette is well founded, the Stepped Pyramid is not only the most ancient building in Egypt but in the whole world ; and in the remote century which witnessed its construction men may not yet have learnt to fill up the angles left in their masonry, they may have been quite satisfied to leave their work in a condition which to us seems imperfect. The Germans have evolved a complicated system of con- struction from notes made by Lepsius upon the details of the masonry in different pyramids. In order that this system may be more easily understood, we give, on the opposite page, a series Fig. 135. — The Stepped Pyramid ; restored from the measurements of Perring. of representations of such a pyramid in different stages of com- pletion (Figs. 136 to 142). A commencement was made by erecting a very narrow and perpendicular pyramid crowned by a pyramidion, like a stumpy obelisk (Fig. 136). This finished, sloping masses were erected against it so as to form, with the pyramidion of the first mass, a second pyramid. The apex of this pyramid, a pyramidion of a single stone, might be put in place and the work considered finished (Fig. 137) ; or, if the builder were sanguine as to time, he might seek to push on still farther. Then, at the line where the slopes of the pyramid left the earth, four perpendicular walls were erected to the height of the pyramidion. .The space between the sides of the pyramid and the inner faces