Full text of "The Legacy Of Egypt"
See other formats
i$4 Mechanical and Technical Processes. Materials be considered. The arch was known both in brickwork and in rough stonework, but in monumental masonry no example of the arch as we know it—the voussoirs mutually supporting— has been preserved before Roman times. A round roof was obtained by the Egyptians either by bringing each course slightly inwards until the two walls met and afterwards cutting the round roof (Fig. 3i), or by constructing a pent-roof and cutting the 'arch' in that (Fig. 32). The subject of masonry in ancient Egypt leaves many prob- lems unsolved. When one reflects on the considerations that I have brought forward, incomplete as the length of this article of necessity makes them, it is a mystery how the great pyramids could each have been constructed in the lifetime of a man. The reasons for many of the strange masonic fantasies are even more perplexing—if reasons there ever were. For instance, why did Sneferu and Amenemhet III build two pyramids each; what were the reasons for Djoser's apparent continual changes of inind while the superstructure and galleries of the Step Pyramid were being constructed ? Lastly why, in the first gallery of the Great Pyramid, do we pass, at regular intervals of 10 cubits (17 feet), clean through the middle of a vast block ? Apart from gold beads and beads of semi-precious stones, the earliest jewellery dates from the First Dynasty, the outstanding example being the armlet found on the arm of the Queen of Djer. This consists of a 'banner-name' sign, surmounted by a hawk, alternating in gold and turquoise and supplemented by amethyst beads. By the Sixth Dynasty the celebrated cloisonne jewellery appears, the gold cloisons being filled with hard stones cut to fit. This form of jewellery reached a height of excellence in the Twelfth Dynasty, some of the pectorals from Dahshur and El Lahun containing several hundred pieces of inlay. The pro- portions and fine taste of some of these pieces are unsurpassed in later periods. By Tut'ankhamun's time, although the motifs multiply to an enormous extent, the inlay is almost entirely of