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Egyptian temples were built for the official worship of the gods and in commemoration of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt and regions under Egyptian control. Temples were seen as houses for the gods or kings to whom they were dedicated.
Karnak is the site of the largest temple complex in Egypt and the second largest ancient complex after Angkor Wat in Cambodia. It was the center of the worship of Amun and had four separate temple complexes (one of which was dismantled). The three extant precincts contain temples for Amun, Mut and Montu.
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ancient Egyptian architecture, the architectural monuments produced mainly during the dynastic periods of the first three millennia bce in the Nile valley regions of Egypt and Nubia. The architecture, similar to representational art, aimed to preserve forms and conventions that were held to reflect the perfection of the world at the primordial mome...
Any survey of Egyptian architecture is weighted in favour of funerary and religious buildings, partly because of their location. Many temples and tombs survived because they were built on ground unaffected by the Nile flood, whereas most ancient Egyptian towns were lost because they were situated in the cultivated and flooded area of the Nile Valley. Yet the dry, hot climate of Egypt allowed some mud brick structures to survive where they have escaped the destructive effects of water or humans.
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The two principal building materials used in ancient Egypt were unbaked mud brick and stone. From the Old Kingdom (c. 2575–2130 bce) onward, stone was generally used for tombs—the eternal dwellings of the dead—and for temples—the eternal houses of the gods. Mud brick remained the domestic material, used even for royal palaces; it was also used for fortresses, the great walls of temple precincts and towns, and for subsidiary buildings in temple complexes.
Mortuary architecture in Egypt was highly developed and often grandiose. Most tombs comprised two principal parts, the burial chamber (the tomb proper) and the chapel, in which offerings for the deceased could be made. In royal burials the chapel rapidly developed into a mortuary temple, which, beginning in the New Kingdom (c. 1539–1075 bce), was usually built separately and at some distance from the tomb. In the following discussion, funerary temples built separately will be covered with temples in general and not as part of the funerary complex.
Mastabas were the standard type of tomb in the earliest dynasties. These flat-roofed, rectangular superstructures had sides constructed at first from mud brick and later of stone, in the form of paneled niches painted white and decorated with elaborate “matting” designs. They were built over many storage chambers stocked with food and equipment for the deceased, who lay in a rectangular burial chamber below ground.
In the great cemeteries of the Old Kingdom, changes in size, internal arrangements, and groupings of the burials of nobles indicate the vicissitudes of nonroyal posthumous expectations. In the 3rd dynasty at Ṣaqqārah the most important private burials were at some distance from the step pyramids of Djoser and Sekhemkhet. Their large mastabas incorporated offering niches as well as corridors that could accommodate paintings of equipment for the afterlife and recesses to hold sculptures of the deceased owner. By the later Old Kingdom, internal space in mastabas became more complex as they accommodated more burials. In the mastaba of Mereruka, a vizier of Teti, first king of the 6th dynasty, there were 21 rooms for his own funerary purposes, with six for his wife and five for his son.
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The tomb for Djoser, second king of the 3rd dynasty, began as a mastaba and was gradually expanded to become a step pyramid. It was built within a vast enclosure on a commanding site at Ṣaqqārah, the necropolis overlooking the city of Memphis. The high royal official Imhotep was credited with the design and with the decision to use quarried stone. This first essay in stone is remarkable for its design of six superposed stages of diminishing size. It also has a huge enclosure (1,784 by 909 feet [544 by 277 metres]) that is surrounded by a paneled wall faced with fine limestone and contains a series of “mock” buildings (stone walls filled with rubble, gravel, or sand) that probably represent structures associated with the heraldic shrines of predynastic Egypt. At Djoser’s precinct the Egyptian stonemasons made their earliest architectural innovations, using stone to reproduce the forms of predynastic wood and brick buildings. The columns in the entrance corridor resemble bundled reeds, while engaged columns in other areas of the precinct have capitals resembling papyrus blossoms. In parts of the subterranean complexes, fine reliefs of the king and elaborate wall panels in glazed tiles are among the innovations found in this remarkable monument.
Two principal kinds of temple can be distinguished—cult temples and funerary or mortuary temples. The former accommodated the images of deities, the recipients of the daily cult; the latter were the shrines for the funerary cults of dead kings.
It is generally thought that the Egyptian cult temple of the Old Kingdom owed most to the cult of the sun god Re at Heliopolis, which was probably open in plan and lacking a shrine. Sun temples were unique among cult temples; worship was centred on a cult object, the benben, a squat obelisk placed in full sunlight. Among the few temples surviving from the Old Kingdom are sun temples built by the 5th-dynasty kings at Abū Jirāb (Abu Gurab). That of Neuserre reveals the essential layout: a reception pavilion at the desert edge connected by a covered corridor on a causeway to the open court of the temple high on the desert, within which stood the benben of limestone and a huge alabaster altar. Fine reliefs embellished the covered corridor and also corridors on two sides of the court.
The cult temple achieved its most highly developed form in the great sanctuaries erected over many centuries during the New Kingdom at Thebes. Architecturally the most satisfying is the Luxor Temple, started by Amenhotep III of the 18th dynasty. Dedicated to Amon, king of the gods, his consort Mut, and their son Khons, the temple was built close to the Nile River and parallel with the bank. The original design consists of an imposing open court with colonnades of graceful lotus columns, a smaller offering hall, a shrine for the ceremonial boat of the god, an inner sanctuary for the cult image, and a room in which the divine birth of the king was celebrated. The approach to the temple was made by a colonnade of huge columns with open papyrus-flower capitals, planned by Amenhotep III but decorated with fascinating processional reliefs under Tutankhamun and Horemheb. Later Ramses II built a wide court before the colonnade and two great pylons to form a new entrance. In front of the pylon were colossal statues of the pharaoh (some of which remain) and a pair of obelisks, one of which still stands; the other was removed in 1831 and reerected in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
The necessary elements of an Egyptian temple, most of which can be seen at Luxor, are the following: an approach avenue of sphinxes leading to the great double-towered pylon entrance fitted with flagpoles and pennants; before the pylon a pair of obelisks and colossal statues of the king; within the pylon a court leading to a pillared hall (the hypostyle), beyond which might come a further, smaller hall where offerings could be prepared; and, at the heart of the temple, the shrine for the cult image. In addition, there were storage chambers for temple equipment and, in later periods, sometimes a crypt. Outside the main temple building was a lake, or at least a well, for the water needed in the rituals; in later times there might also be a birth house (mammisi) to celebrate the king’s divine birth. The whole, with service buildings, was contained by a massive mud brick wall.
Successive kings would often add to temples so that some complexes became enormous. The great precinct of the Temple of Karnak (the longest side 1,837 feet [560 metres]) contains whole buildings, or parts of buildings, dating from the early 18th dynasty down to the Roman period. Of the structures on the main Karnak axis, the most remarkable are the hypostyle hall and the so-called Festival Hall of Thutmose III. The former contained 134 mighty papyrus columns, 12 of which formed the higher central aisle (76 feet [23 metres] high). Grill windows allowed some light to enter, but it must be supposed that even on the brightest day most of the hall was in deep gloom. The Festival Hall is better described as a memorial hall. Its principal room is distinguished by a series of unusual columns with bell-shaped capitals, inspired by the wooden tent poles used in predynastic buildings. Their lightness contrasts strikingly with the massive supports of the hypostyle hall.
The most remarkable monument of Ramses II, the great builder, is undoubtedly the temple dedicated to the sun gods Amon-Re and Re-Horakhte at Abu Simbel. Although excavated from the living rock, the structure follows generally the plan of the usual Egyptian temple. Four colossal seated statues emerge from the cliff face: two on either side of the entrance to the main temple. Carved around their feet are small figures representing Ramses’s children, his queen, Nefertari, and his mother, Muttuy (Mut-tuy, or Queen Ti). Three consecutive halls extend 185 feet (56 metres) into the cliff, decorated with more colossal statues of the king—here, disguised as Osiris, god of the underworld—and with painted scenes of Ramses’s purported victory at the Battle of Kadesh. On two days of the year (about February 22 and October 22), the first rays of the morning sun penetrate the whole length of the temple and illuminate the shrine in its innermost sanctuary.
Mud brick and wood were the standard materials for houses and palaces throughout the Dynastic period; stone was used occasionally for such architectural elements as doorjambs, lintels, column bases, and windows.
The best-preserved private houses are those of modest size in the workmen’s village of Dayr al-Madīnah. Exceptional in that they were built of stone, they typically had three or four rooms, comprising a master bedroom, a reception room, a cellar for storage, and a kitchen open to the sky; accommodation on the roof, reached by a stair, completed the plan. Similar domestic arrangements are known from the workmen’s village at Kabun.
Villas for important officials in Akhenaton’s city of Tell el-Amarna were large and finely decorated with brightly painted murals. The house of the vizier Nakht had at least 30 rooms, including separate apartments for the master, his family, and his guests. Such houses had bathrooms and lavatories. The ceilings of large rooms were supported by painted wooden pillars, and there may have been further rooms above. Where space was restricted (as in Thebes), houses of several stories were built. Tomb scenes that show such houses also demonstrate that windows were placed high to reduce sunlight and that hooded vents on roofs were used to catch the breeze.
Palaces, as far as can be judged from remains at Thebes and Tell el-Amarna, were vast, rambling magnified versions of Nakht’s villa, with broad halls, harem suites, kitchen areas, and wide courts. At Tell el-Amarna some monumental formality was introduced in the form of porticoes, colonnades, and statuary. Lavish use was made of mural and floor decoration in which floral and animal themes predominated.
After the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, the independent rule of pharaohs in the strict sense came to an end. Under the Ptolemies, whose rule followed Alexander’s, profound changes took place in art and architecture.
The most lasting impression of the new period is made by its architectural legacy. Although very little survives of important funerary architecture, there is a group of tombs at Tunah al-Jabal of unusual form and great importance. Most interesting is the tomb of Petosiris, high priest of Thoth in nearby Hermopolis Magna in the late 4th century bce. It is in the form of a small temple with a pillared portico, elaborate column capitals, and a large forecourt. In its mural decorations a strong Greek influence merges with the traditional Egyptian modes of expression.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Sep 16, 2023 · September 16, 2023 by Claudine Cassar. The Nile River, a lifeline that snakes through the deserts of Egypt, gave rise to one of the most remarkable civilizations in human history. The ancient Egyptians, with their deep reverence for the divine, built awe-inspiring temples that served as spiritual centers and hubs of community life. These ...
The reliefs in this “high gate” suggest that the suite was used for recreational purposes by the king together with his women. Egyptian art and architecture - Temples, Pyramids, Obelisks: Two principal kinds of temple can be distinguished—cult temples and funerary or mortuary temples. The former accommodated the images of deities, the ...
Sep 18, 2016 · Shellapic76 (CC BY) Ancient Egyptian Architecture is often associated closely with the pyramids of Giza but was actually quite diverse, taking a number of forms in the construction of administrative buildings, temples, tombs, palaces, and the private homes of nobility and commoner. Ornamentation of these various structures also varied according ...
The best known example of ancient Egyptian architecture are the Egyptian pyramids and Sphinx, while excavated temples, palaces, tombs, and fortresses have also been studied. Most buildings were built of locally available mud brick and limestone by paid laborers and craftsmen. [1] [2] Monumental buildings were built using the post and lintel ...
