EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE

(Non-Funerary)

Due to scarcity of wood ancient Egyptian used sun-baked mud brick and stone, mainly limestone, but also sandstone and granite as their alternatives materials in building.

From the Old Kingdom onward, stone was generally reserved for tombs and temples, while bricks were used even for royal palaces, fortresses, the walls of temple precincts and towns, and for subsidiary buildings in temple complexes.

Sun-baked mud bricks

They collected mud from the Nile river and used it to build their houses.

It was placed in molds and left to dry in the hot sun to harden for use in construction.

Ancient Egyptian houses

As the river bed of the Nile river began to rose many Egyptian towns have disappeared because they were near the cultivated area of the Nile valley and it is flooded there.

Peasants used some of the mud bricks as their fertilizers.

Some mud brick structures were preserved because of the hot climate there in Egypt.

The village Deir al-MadinahThe Middle Kingdom town at Kahun

The fortresses at BuhenMirgissa

EXAMPLES OF MUD BRICK STRUCTURES

Deir el-Medina Is an ancient Egyptian village which was

home to the artisans who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the 18th to 20th dynasties of the New Kingdom period (ca. 1550–1080 BC)

The houses in Deir-el-Medina

Walls were made of mud brick, built on top of stone foundations. Mud was applied to the walls which were then painted white on the external surfaces with some of the inner surfaces whitewashed up to a height of around one metre. A wooden front door might have carried the occupants name.

Kahun• The town was laid out in a regular plan, with mud-brick

town walls on 3 sides. No evidence was found of a fourth wall, which may have collapsed and been washed away during the annual flood.

• The town was rectangular in shape and was divided internally by a mud brick wall as large and strong as the exterior walls.

FortressO Buhen is known for its large fortress, probably

constructed during the rule of Senusret III in around 1860 BC (12th dynasty).

O The other forts along the banks were Mirgissa, Shalfak, Uronarti, Askut, Dabenarti, Semna, and Kumma.

O The fortress itself extended more than 150 metres (490 ft) along the west bank of the Nile. It covered 13,000 square metres (140,000 sq ft), and had within its wall a small town laid out in a grid system. At its peak it probably had a population of around 3500 people.

O The fortress at Buhen is now submerged under Lake Nasser as a result of the construction of the Aswan Dam in 1964.

O Buhen also boasted a temple of Horus built by Hatshepsut, which was moved to Khartoum prior to the flooding of Lake Nasser.

Buhen Fortress

Khakaure Senusret III was a pharaoh of Egypt.

He ruled from 1878 BC to 1839 BC during a time of great power and prosperity, and was the fifth monarch of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom.

Khakaure Senusret III

THE OTHER FORTS ALONG THE BANKS

MIRGISSAWas a settlement in Northern state, Sudan. Situated at the 2nd cataract, it contained one of the largest fortresses in Nubia. In the time of Thutmose II, 250 to 450 people inhabited the area. Construction of the Aswan High Dam caused the disappearance of Mirgissa, which now lies under the waters of Lake Nubia.

Mirgissa

URONARTIUronarti was an ancient Egyptian fortress that was located on an island on the Nile River. It was located near the Second Cataract, specifically to the south of it. It stands out from the other fortresses because of its triangular-shaped geography. Uronarti along with the other fortresses were established in Nubia during a time where the Egyptian influence was sought out to be expanded.

Uronarti

ASKUTWas an ancient Egyptian island fortress in the Middle Kingdom on the Nile, which was built for the purpose of securing the border to Nubia.Since the completion of the Aswan High Dam, the island has been flooded with Lake Nubia.The highly fortified entrance protected a temple and warehouses along the harbor. Inside the castle were a commander's house and barracks.

Askut

DABENARTIDabenarti is an island in Sudan, situated in the middle of the Nile near the 2nd cataract. A fortress on the island was attributed to the Egyptian Nubian period. Construction began during the reign of Senusret I, around 1900 BC, and was completed under Senusret III.Dabenarti was abandoned around 1700 BC.

Dabenarti

SEMNASemna was a fortified area established in the reign of Senusret I (1965-1920 BC) on the west bank of the Nile at the southern end of a series of Middle Kingdom fortresses founded during the 12th Dynasty (1985-1795 BC) in the Second-Cataract area of Lower Nubia.There are three forts at Semna: Semna West, Semna East, and Semna SouthL-shaped

Semna

KUMMAKumma (also, Semna East) is an archaeological site in Sudan. Established in the mid-12th Dynasty of Egypt, it served as a fortress of ancient Egypt in Nubia. Along with Semna, Kumma was built by Pharaoh Sesostris III (1878 BC - 1839 BC). The forts protected the border between ancient Egypt and the southern areas.

Kumma

The Aswan Dam• The Aswan Dam is an embankment dam built across the

Nile at Aswan, Egypt between 1898 and 1902. Since the 1960s, the name commonly refers to the Aswan High Dam.

• The High Dam has the ability to control floods, provide water for irrigation, and generate hydroelectricity.

• It was constructed between 1960 and 1970, and has had a significant effect on the economy and culture of Egypt.

Before the dams were built, the Nile flooded every year during late summer, when water flowed down the valley from its East African drainage basin. These floods brought high water and natural nutrients and minerals that annually enriched the fertile soil along the floodplain and delta; this had made the Nile valley ideal for farming since ancient times.

Aswan Dam

MALKALA

Palace of Amenhotep III

There are various structures in the desert, consisting of several residential palaces, a temple of Amun, a festival hall, elite villas, houses for the relatives of the royal Family, apartments for attendants, and a desert altar termed the Kom al-Samak, all of which were constructed by mud bricks.

HISTORY OF THE PALACE

The palace seems to have been begun by Amenhotep III in the early 14th century BC and the site was occupied as late as the Roman-Byzantine Period. Malkata was most definitely Amenhotep's main residence near Thebes, the capital of ancient Egypt, and therefore, probably his main palace in all of the country. Remains of other smaller palaces in Thebes and other cities throughout Egypt have been found, but none were as large as Amenhotep's palace at Malkata.

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PALACE

All monumental buildings are post and lintel constructions, with flat roofs constructed of huge stone blocks supported by the external walls and the closely spaced columns.

Exterior and interior walls, as well as the columns and piers, were covered with hieroglyphic and pictorial frescoes and carvings painted in brilliant colors.

ColumnA column or pillar in architecture and

structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below.

A column is a compression member.Early columns were constructed of stone,

some out of a single piece of stone.

Column

PierA pier, in architecture, is an upright support

for a structure or superstructure such as an arch or bridge. Sections of structural walls between openings (bays) can function as piers.

Columns are a similar upright support, but stand on a round base. In buildings with sequence of bays between piers, each opening (window or door) between two piers is considered a single bay.

Pier

HieroglyphsHieroglyphs were inscribed for decorative

purposes as well as to record historic events or spells. In addition, these pictorial frescoes and carvings allow us to understand how the Ancient Egyptians lived, statuses, wars that were fought and their beliefs. This was especially true when exploring the tombs of Ancient Egyptian officials in recent years.

Hieroglyphs

THE END

By: Edison Lin