Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/100

 78 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. subject should remain, we asked Mariette for more information during the last winter but one that he spent In Egypt. We received the following answer, dated 29th January, 1880: "I have just consulted my journal of the Abydos excavations. I there find an entry relating to a tomb of the sixth dynasty with the accompanying drawing (Fig. 44) : ci is In limestone, and there can be no doubt that in it we have a keystone In the form of a true voussoir ; b, d, are also of stone. The rest is made up of crude bricks, rectangular in shape, and kept In place by pebbles imbedded in the cement. " Obviously, we have here the principle of the arch. Speaking generally, I believe that the Egyptians were acquainted with that principle from the earliest times. They did not make an extensive use of the arch because they knew that it carried within It the seeds of Its own death. Uite inaille rongde emporte tout Vouvragc, and a bad stone in a A vault may ruin a whole build- ing. The Egyptians preferred their Indestructible stone beams. I often ask myself how much would have been left to us of their tombs and temples if they had used the arch Instead." ^ Mariette adds that the Serapeum contains the oldest known example of a vault of dressed stone, and as it dates from the time of Darius the son of Hystaspes, we suppose that the fine limestone arch at Sakkarah, bearing the cartouch of Psemethek I., which Is figured at the head of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's tenth chapter, no longer exists. It was in their brick buildings that the Egyptians chiefly employed arches. Such structures were looked upon as less sacred, less monumental than those in which stone was used, and a process might therefore be admitted which would be excluded from the latter. We shall here give several examples of the Egyptian arch and Its principal varieties, and it will not surprise our readers to find that they are all taken from the New Empire. The remains from earlier periods consist almost entirely ' "An arch never sleeps" says the Arab proverb- Fig. 44. — Arch in the necropolis of Abydos ; communicated by Mariette.