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 TEMPLE

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TEMPLE

peoples. The discussion, however, must be brief, be- cause temples, both pagan and Christian, have always been the highest achievements of architecture and have therefore been treated incidentally in other articles. The oldest architectural remains are those of EgjT^t. The main point of interest here is the structure of the gi-eat temples of the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasties (about 1530-1150 B. c). Of special importance are the ruins of temples at Thebes or the present villages of Luxor and Karnak. The Egyptian tcmjile is not an organic structure complete in itself; instead of unity there are the following dis- tinct parts: (homos, enclosing wall, pijlnn, peristyle, hypostylc, and sckos. The temple of the Egj'ptians therefore consisted of a large com])lex of buildings and the temple precincts, the whole surrounded by a massive wall, and reached by a broad avenue (dromns) bordered by figures of sphinxes and rams. Between the temples of Luxor and Karnak this avenue for pro- cessions was nearly a mile and a quarter in length and more than 75 feet wide. In the enclosing wall, which at Karnak was about 32 feet wide, there were several gigantic gateways called pylons, flanked by tower-like buildings. These led into the sacred precincts, within which was a lake. On certain days the statue of the god was rowed round this lake in a golden bark. A second pylon led into the peristyle, or protikos, a quadrangular open space containing covered halls with columns; a third pylon led into the hypostyle, or large covered colonnade. The hypostyle was called "the hall of manifestation", and only "the enhght- ened" were permitted to enter it, the lower classes of the population might come only as far as the peristyle. On the farther side of the hypostyle there were still other large halls which led ultimately to the actual sanctuary, or sckos, in which the divinity was rep- resented by a statue or some symbol; only the king or his reprc-^entative, the high priest, could enter the sekos. Beyond this sanctuary were other large halls and chambers for keeping the apparatus for the fes- tivals. A peculiarity of this extended series of sacred buildings is that the greater the distance from the entrance the narrower and lower the structure, so that the sekos is only a small dark chamber.

The huge size and rich equipment of Eg>'ptian tem- ples is explained by the fact that they were monu- ments of the piety of the ruler, royal houses of prayer; consequently the king alone had the right to enter the sanctuary. For this reason the paintings and reliefs on a sunken background (ccelanaglyphic), with which the temple walls were richly ornamented, presented in the most varied forms the homage and worship paid to the ruler. The ruler also showed the depth of his piety by the magnificent festivals which were connected with the temple.

The architecture of the temple was in harmony with the obscure, mysterious, and sensual religious conceptions of the Egyptians. The temple was an inorganic conglomeration of structures fitted the one into the other, that only arouse our astonishment by their size and magnificence. It is hardly necessary to say that no rigid system prevailed in the plan of either the Egyptian temples or those to be mentioned fur- ther on, and that there were small temples as well as large.

The Chaldean temples differed essentially from those of the Eg>-ptians; if in the latter the chief extent was horizontal, in the former it was vertical. The large teni])les of the Chaldeans were constructed so as to form a series of terraces or stei)s or something like a pile of rectangular prisms, decreasing in size from the base up. According to Herodotus, the tem- ple of Bel at Babylon, built in a series of terraces, mr-a-sured at the b;i.se two stadia (1214 feet) each way. On this broad ba.^e the Iciwcr-likc slructure ro.se in seven stories which were topjicd by llic actual sanctu- ary. The upper stories were reached by means of an XIV.— 32

exterior stairway or by an inclined roadway. Half- way up the ascent was a chamber where those who were mounting could sit down and rest. This pecul- iar form of architecture was certainly influenced by astrology which had so authoritative a position in the ChaldjEO-AssjTian religion. The temples raised on terraces were constructed in three, or five, or more stories, according to the importance of the divinity. Besides these there must certainly have been smaller houses of one story for the gods, though of this no positive proof has yet been discovered. Temples raised on terraces have also been found in Mexico and Peru, as, for instance, at Tehuacan and Santiago Guatusca.

The Indian temples are principally grottoes or caves. They are generally constructed in one or two forms: either hewn out of the rock and remaining connected with the main mass, or, cut away from the surrounding mass of rock so as to stand alone. To the first class belong largely the Buddhist temples (chaitya), while the latter form is preferred by the Brahmins. The more developed ground-plan of the Buddhist chaili/a resembles in some points the plan of the early Christian basilica. It is a quadrangular space, its length much greater than its width, and has a kind of apse opposite the entrance. The inner space is divided into several naves by pillars which follow the line of the apse. In the apse is the dagoba, a circular mound like a grave, terminating at the top in a hemisphere with a (i or lee (stone in the form of an altar). The dagoba is used to holl relics of Buddha, and the entire tumulus is covered by a large umbreUa. Noted cave-temples are to be found at KarU in the Chatt mountains (second century b. c), at Agunta, and at Pandu-Lena. The detached temple consists sometimes of several buildings and halls connected by stairs and bridges. These buildings have been cut out of the parent rock so as to stand in a court sur- rounded by columned cloisters. Such a temple is the wonderful structure of Kailas (Seat of the Blessed) at EUora, a work of the ninth century. Sometimes the temple is of small dimensions, as that at Mahavel- hopore on the Coromandel Coast, which is hewn out of a detached rock ; the ground-plan is a quadrangle, and it rises in several stories like a pyramid built in several terraces.

The tiTjical Greek temple stood alone on a broad foundation platform, built on all sides in terraces, which was called the cre]ndoma. The temple con- sisted, generally, first, of the naos, or ce//o, which was a rectangular enclosed space for holding the statue of the god; second, of the pronaos, a portico or vestibule in front of the cdla with which it was connected by a door, while to the front it had rows of columns with open spaces between; third, the poslicum, a portico behind the cella and corresponding to the pronaos. Large buildings contained two further structures, the opisthodomos, a chamber between the cella and the oslicum, and fifth, the peristyle, a covered walk with a system of columns surrounding the temple and open on the outer side. These two last-mentioned parts of the temple were probably added in the seventh century b. c.

The name of the Greek temple varied with its ground-plan. The simplest form was called the temple with onlcr (te7nplum m aniis), antm signifying pilasters which form the terminations of walls." If the two side-walls of the cella extend a httle beyond the transverse wall, and these ends of the side-walls are finished with nnta-, then these give the name to the entire structure. Two columns generallj' stand in the sjjace between the two anlac. The sense of synmietry led to the same construction at the rear without there being any change in the name. If the portico were formed merely by a row of columns without the aid of walls it was called a prostyle tem- ple; if the same construction were also placed at the