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Ancient Egyptian architecture is the architecture of Ancient Egypt, one of the most influential civilizations throughout history, which developed a vast array of diverse structures and great architectural monuments along the Nile, including pyramids and temples. ==Characteristics== Due to the scarcity of wood,〔R. G. Blakemore, ''History of Interior Design and Furniture: From Ancient Egypt to Nineteenth-Century Europe'', John Wiley and Sons 1996, p.100〕 the two predominant building materials used in ancient Egypt were sun-baked mud brick and stone, mainly limestone, but also sandstone and granite in considerable quantities.〔Blakemore, 1996, p.107〕 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. The core of the pyramids consisted of locally quarried stone, mudbricks, sand or gravel. For the casing stones were used that had to be transported from father away, predominantly white limestone from Tura and red granite from upper Egypt. Ancient Egyptian houses were made out of mud collected from the Nile river. It was placed in molds and left to dry in the hot sun to harden for use in construction. Many Egyptian towns have disappeared because they were situated near the cultivated area of the Nile Valley and were flooded as the river bed slowly rose during the millennia, or the mud bricks of which they were built were used by peasants as fertilizer. Others are inaccessible, new buildings having been erected on ancient ones. Fortunately, the dry, hot climate of Egypt preserved some mud brick structures. Examples include the village Deir al-Madinah, the Middle Kingdom town at Kahun,〔W. M. Flinders Petrie, ''Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara'', Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, and Co., London 1890〕 and the fortresses at Buhen〔Charles Gates, ''Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome'', Routledge 2003, p.101〕 and Mirgissa. Also, many temples and tombs have survived because they were built on high ground unaffected by the Nile flood and were constructed of stone. Thus, our understanding of ancient Egyptian architecture is based mainly on religious monuments,〔Dieter Arnold, Byron Esely Shafer ''Temples of Ancient Egypt'', I.B.Tauris, 2005〕 massive structures characterized by thick, sloping walls with few openings, possibly echoing a method of construction used to obtain stability in mud walls. In a similar manner, the incised and flatly modeled surface adornment of the stone buildings may have derived from mud wall ornamentation. Although the use of the arch was developed during the fourth dynasty, 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.〔Blakemore, 1996, pp.107ff.〕 Many motifs of Egyptian ornamentation are symbolic, such as the scarab, or sacred beetle, the solar disk, and the vulture. Other common motifs include palm leaves, the papyrus plant, and the buds and flowers of the lotus.〔Arnold, 2005, pp.204ff〕 Hieroglyphs 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. Ancient Egyptian temples were aligned with astronomically significant events, such as solstices and equinoxes, requiring precise measurements at the moment of the particular event. Measurements at the most significant temples may have been ceremonially undertaken by the Pharaoh himself.〔"Temples aligned with the stars", ''New Scientist'' 2724 (5 Sep. 2009), p. 7; see also J. Belmonte & M. Shaltout, "Keeping Ma’at: an astronomical approach to the orientation of the temples in ancient Egypt", ''Advances in Space Research'' (August 2009) 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ancient Egyptian architecture」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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