At Memphis, too, near the modern village of Saqqara, is a tomb, with two large vaulted chambers, whose roofs display in every part the name and sculptures of the second Psamaticus. They are cut in the limestone rock; and in order to secure the roof, which is of a friable nature, they are lined, if I may so call it, with an arch, as our modern tunnels. The arch is of stone, and presents a small and graceful segment of a circle, having a span of seven feet ten inches, and a height of two feet eight inches and a half.*

Numerous crude brick arches, of different dates, exist in Thebest, besides the small pyramids already alluded to, some of which are of very beautiful construction. The most remarkable are the doorways of the enclosures surrounding the tombs in the Assaseéf, which are composed of two or more concentric semicircles of brick t, as well constructed as any of the present day. They are of the time of Psamaticus and other princes of the 26th dynasty, immediately before the invasion of Cambyses. All the bricks radiate to a common centre: they are occasionally pared off at the lower part, to allow for the curve of the arch, and sometimes the builders were contented to put in a piece of stone to fill up the increased space between the upper edges of the bricks. In those roofs of houses or tombs, which were made with less care, and required less solidity, the bricks were placed longitudinally, in the direction of the curve of the vault,

* Vide Vignette I. of this chapter.

† One is introduced into wood-cut, No. 388. fig. 1.

and the lower ends were then cut away considerably, to allow for the greater opening between them; and many were grooved at the sides, in order to retain a greater quantity of mortar between their united surfaces.

Though the oldest stone arch, whose age has been positively ascertained, dates only in the time of Psamaticus, we cannot suppose that the use of stone was not adopted by the Egyptians for that style of building, previous to his reign, even if the arches of the pyramids in Ethiopia should prove not to be anterior to the same era. Nor does the absence of the arch in temples and other large buildings excite our surprise, when we consider the style of Egyptian monuments; and no one who understands the character of their architecture could wish for its introduction. In some of the small temples of the Oasis, the Romans attempted this innovation, but the appearance of the chambers so constructed fails to please; and the whimsical caprice of Osirei, who introduced an imitation of the arch in a temple at Abydus, was not followed by of his successors. any In this building the roof is formed of single blocks of stone reaching from one architrave to the other, which, instead of being placed in the usual manner, stand upon their edges, in order to allow room for hollowing out an arch in their thickness: but it has an effect of inconsistency, without the plea of advantage or utility.

*

Another imitation of the arch occurs in a building at Thebes. Here, however, a reason may perhaps

* Vide wood-cut, No. 388. fig. 3.

be given for its introduction, being in the style of a tomb, and not constructed as an Egyptian temple, nor bound to accord with the ordinary rules of architecture. The chambers, like those of the tomb of Saqqara, lie under a friable rock, and are cased with masonry, to prevent the fall of its crumbling stone; but instead of being roofed on the principle of the arch, they are covered with a number of large blocks, placed horizontally, one projecting beyond that immediately below it, till the uppermost two meet in the centre, the interior angles being afterwards rounded off to form the appearance of a vault.

The date of this building is about 1500, B. C.,

2. An imitation of an arch at Thebes.

3. Another at Abydus.

4. Mode of commencing a quarry

consequently many years after the Egyptians had been acquainted with the art of vaulting; and the reason of their preferring such a mode of construction probably arose from their calculating the great difficulty of repairing an injured arch, in this position, and the consequences attending the decay of a single block; nor can any one suppose, from the great superincumbent weight applied to the haunches, that this style of building is devoid of strength, and of the usual durability of an Egyptian fabric, or pronounce it ill suited to the purpose for which it was erected.*

STONES HEWN FROM QUARRIES FOR BUILDING, FOR SCULPTURE, AND OTHER PURPOSES.

The most ancient buildings in Egypt were constructed of limestone, hewn from the mountains bordering the valley of the Nile to the east and west, extensive quarries of which may be seen at El Maasara †, Nesleh Shekh Hassan, El Mahabdeh, and other places; and evidence of its being used long before sandstone is derived from the tombs near the pyramids, as well as those monuments themselves, and from the vestiges of old substructions at Thebes. ‡ Limestone continued to be occasionally employed for building even after the succession of the 16th dynasty §; but so soon

* Vide wood-cut, No. 388. fig. 2.

+ Vide Egypt and Thebes, p. 322. and 348., the Troici lapidis mons of Ptolemy and Strabo.

Limestone blocks are sometimes found in the thickness of the walls of sandstone temples, of the time of Remeses II. and other kings, taken from older monuments.

Herodotus says, Amasis, even, used the stone of the quarries near Memphis, probably of the Maasara hills, for part of the temple of Minerva at Saïs, lib. ii. 175. Vide Egypt and Thebes, p. 442.

as the durability of sandstone was ascertained, the quarries of Silsilis* were opened, and those materials were universally adopted, and preferred for their even texture, and the ease with which they were wrought.

The extent of the quarries at Silsilis, is very great; and, as I have elsewhere observed, "it is not by the size and scale of the monuments of Upper Egypt alone that we are enabled to judge of the stupendous works executed by the ancient Egyptians; these would suffice to prove the character they bore, were the gigantic ruins of Thebes and other cities † no longer in existence. And safely may we apply the expression, used by Pliny in speaking of the porphyry quarries, to those of Silsilis, "they are of such extent, that masses of any dimensions might be hewn from them."

In opening a new quarry, when the stone could not be taken from the surface of the rock, and it was necessary to cut into the lower part of its perpendicular face, they pierced it with a horizontal shaft; beginning with a square trench, and then breaking away the stone left in the centre (as indicated in the wood-cut by the space в), its height and breadth depending of course on the size of the stones required. They then cut the same around c, and so on to any extent in a horizontal direction, after which they extended the work downwards, in steps, taking away E, and leaving D for the present, and thus descending as far as they found

*Egypt and Thebes, p. 439.

+ Herodotus (ii. 177), and Pliny (v. 9.), reckon 20,000 cities in Egypt in the time of Amasis.