Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/142

 110 EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. Part I. 'i^ to that which Herodotus writes of as erected by Psammeticus and the kings of his day. As, however, the materials for acquiring a far more perfect knowledge of this building are said to exist at Berlin, it is needless speculating on such imperfect data as we now possess, while there is a hope that the mystery that still shrouds this singular monument may before long be removed. Tombs. The most interesting series of monuments of this dynasty, which have come down to our time, are the tombs of Beni Hassan in Middle Egypt. Strange to say, they are situated on the eastern side of the Nile, and are almost the only hypogea that are so placed in Egypt.' The character of the sculp- tures which adorn their walls approaches that found in the tombs surrounding the pyramids, but the archi- tecture differs widely. They are all cheerful-looking halls, open to the light of day, many of them with pillared porches, and all possessing pretensions to architectural ornament either internal or external. One of the most interesting of these possesses a portico of two ])illars, in architecture so like the order afterwards employed by the Greeks as to be named with propriety the proto-Doric order. The same class of pillar is also used internally, supporting a plain archi- trave, from which spring two curvilinear roofs, which we cannot help suspecting were so formed in imitation of arches. All the features of this order indeed seem to be borrowed from brick architecture; the pillar is just what we should expect in one built up of small materials. The abacus is the tile or wooden capping which is indispensable in that case to distribute the superincumbent weight over the whole substance of the pier, and if bricks were so employed nothing is more probable than that the arch should also have been introduced. The form of the cornice also indicates a far more ephemeral and lighter 15. Tomb at Beni Hassan. 1 Were they originally tombs? Were they not, when first excavated, intend- ed as dwelling-places for the livinp;, to be afterwards appropriated as sepulchres for the dead ? Tliat such should he the case may appear strange to death-fear- ing races like those that now inhabit Europe; but among the Moguls of India the fashion always was for a king to builil his own sepulchre, and use it as a pleasure palace during his life. It was only after his death that it became the tomb and monument of its founder.