How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (free reads .txt) 📕

in the ground at their smaller ends. The neighbourhood also abounds with tumuli, dolmens, and later monuments that belong to the Polished Stone Age.

Furthermore, remains of such monuments as we have been describing are found in Scandinavia, Ireland, North Germany (in Hannover and the Baltic Provinces); also in India and Asia Minor, in Egypt, on the northwest of Africa and in the region about the Atlas Mountains. This fact, assuming that the monuments are of Celtic origin, testifies to the wide-spread migrations of this important branch of the Indo-European family which in prehistoric times swept westward in successive waves. It is known that this race also overflowed into Northern Italy and Spain. That none of their monuments of the Rough Stone and Polished Stone ages exist in these countries seems to point to the migration thither having been made at a later period.

From the time that the Celtic race finds its way into recorded history it has been recognised as pre-eminently characterised by artistic genius. The rude menhirs, under the combined influences of Christianity and art were in time replaced by Stone Crosses that in form closely approximate the thickset simplicity of the monolith, but are embellished with carved ornament. And the latter in its detail is evidently akin to the motives of decoration found upon the weapons and earthenware of the Bronze Age, combined with the interlace of lines, suggested by the example of weaving, and the use of motives derived from plant forms. These same principles of decoration were applied to the metal-work in which the Celt excelled and later to the decorated manuscripts in which he reached so high a degree of artistry. The Celtic artists in time also introduced human and animal figures into their designs, but always treated them solely as motives of decoration and never with the purpose of representing them naturally.

The prevalence of these decorative motives in ancient Asiatic and European ornament may have been due to the extended migrations of the Celts. But not necessarily; for they are equally to be found in the primitive ornament of the South Sea Islanders, North American Indians, and the inhabitants of Peru, Mexico, and Central America. Primitive man, in fact, shows a tendency to similarity of motives and methods at corresponding stages of his evolution.

 

In the last three countries have been discovered some of the most remarkable remains of the Polished Stone Age and the Bronze Age. For it was to this stage—after how many centuries of development is only a matter of conjecture—that the mighty nations of the Incas, Aztecs, and others had attained, when the Spanish invaders in the sixteenth century overcame them and wiped out their civilisations.

Hitherto the most famous example has been the ruins of Cuzco, the imperial city of the Incas in Peru, which was captured by Pizarro; but the exploration of Professor Hiram Bingham has recently unearthed, also in Peru, Machu Picchu, a city of refuge, perched almost inaccessibly on the heights of the Andes. It is the belief of the explorer that this is the traditional city of Tampu Tocco, to which a highly civilised tribe retreated, when they were hard pressed by barbarian enemies and from which, legend says, they descended later to conquer Peru and found the city of Cuzco, under the leadership of “three brothers who went out from three windows.” Now Tampa means a place of temporary abode and Tocco means windows; and in the principal plaza of this newly discovered city has been found a temple with three windows.

Thus it is possible that it was actually a deserted city at the time of the Spanish invasion, held in reverence as the cradle city of the Incas. Anyhow, it escaped the knowledge and the ravages of the Spaniards and retains to-day its primitive state, unmixed with the additions of any subsequent civilisation.

It occupies an immense area, only rivalled by that of Cuzco, and is constructed of stones, many of which weigh several tons, hewn into shape with stone hammers. Large portions of the mountain sides are built up with terraces, which were used for agricultural purposes and suggest an analogy with the “hanging gardens” of Babylon. No less than a hundred flights of steps connect the various parts of the city, which is divided into wards or “clan groups” by walled enclosures, enclosing houses and sometimes a central place of worship. The typical design of the houses is much like that of an Irish cabin—a ground story and a half story with gabled ends, each pierced by a small window. The wooden roofs have disappeared, but the stones, bored with a hole, to which the timbers were lashed, are still in place. In the burial caves bronze objects of fine workmanship have been discovered.

Among other noted remains of early buildings is the Teocalli or “House of the God” of Guatusco in Costa Rica. It shows a truncated pyramid of masonry, rising in steps, the top forming a platform on which the temple stands. A still more important example of this form of structure must have been the Teocalli of Tenochtitlan, the ancient name of Mexico City. Built about 1446, it was destroyed by the Spaniards and part of its site is now occupied by the Cathedral. According to accounts it comprised a truncated pyramid, measuring at the top, which was 86 feet from the ground, 325 by 250 feet. In the ascent it was necessary to pass five times round the structure by a series of terraces. On the platform were several ceremonial buildings, the terrible image of the god Huitzilopochtli, supposed to be the one that is now in the Museum of Mexico City, and the sacrificial stone. Upon the latter were sacrificed immense numbers of human victims; report saying, though no doubt with exaggeration, that at the dedication of the temple seventy thousand were slaughtered to appease the sanguinary appetite of this hideous idol.

The exteriors of the latest remains of Central America and Mexican primitive civilisation are embellished with ornament, the motives of which exhibit curved and rectangular meanders and interlacings, derived from the example of weaving and plaiting, as well as vegetable and animal forms. Often, as in the Casa de Monjas in Yucatan, the ornament is so profuse that it obscures the character of the structure, while the forms are fantastic and extravagant and in some instances horribly grotesque. Their intention apparently was to strike awe into the spectator.

Most of what we have been studying in this chapter comes under the head of archaeology rather than of art. Nevertheless, since it represents the gradual approach of civilisation toward the artistic conception, it is well worth attention.

BOOK II

PRE-CLASSIC PERIOD

 

 

CHAPTER I

EGYPTIAN CIVILISATION

The most ancient civilisation known to us is that of Egypt, and the knowledge of it is mainly derived from its architectural remains and the sculpture, painting, and inscriptions with which they are decorated. In addition, there are the records written upon papyri, the Biblical books of Exodus, and the history of Manetho, an Egyptian priest, who lived about 250 B.C. By this time Egypt had been subdued by Alexander the Great and had passed under the rule of the Ptolemies. So Manetho wrote in Greek, but only fragments of his work have survived, through quotations made from it by Eusebius, Josephus, and other historians.

It is from all these materials that scholars have endeavoured to piece together some sort of connected history of the period covered by Manetho; the difficulty being increased by the fact that the Egyptian system of chronology reckoned by dynasties and computed the time by the years of the reigning sovereign, beginning anew with each succession. Furthermore, the inscriptions omit references to any interruptions that occurred in the sequence of the dynasties; recording only the periods of Egyptian supremacy and leaving out those in which the country suffered from the domination, short or long, of foreign conquerors.

Accordingly, while Manetho names the first ruler of the First Dynasty as Menes, there is nothing but the conjecture of scholars as to the date; and the latter has been variously estimated as from 3892 to 5650 years before Christ.

It will be a help at the outset to summarise the Dynasties under two heads: (A) those of Independent Egypt; (B) those of Subject Egypt.

A. Dynasties of Independence.

1. I-X—The Ancient Empire; Capital, Memphis in Lower Egypt. Lasted about 1500 years.

2. XI-XIII—The Middle Empire, or First Theban Monarchy; Capital, Thebes in Upper Egypt. Lasted about 900 years.

3. XIV-XVII—Hyksos Invaders occupy Lower Egypt; the Egyptian princes rule as vassal princes in Upper Egypt: from 400-500 years.

4. XVIII-XX—The New Empire or Second Theban Monarchy. The Great Epoch of Egyptian power and art. Lasted about 600 years and ended about 1000 B.C.

B. Dynasties of Subjection.

5. XXI-XXXII—The Period of Decadence under various foreign rulers; sometimes called the Saitic Period, because the first conquerors, the Libyans, made their capital at Sais. Lasted from about 1000-324 B.C.

6. XXXIII—The Ptolemaic Period of Greek rule, following the Conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great; 324-31 B.C.

7. XXXIV—The Roman Rule: Egypt a Province of the Roman Empire; 31 B.C. to 395 A.D. At the latter date it became a part of the Eastern Roman Empire.

In 389 the emperor, Theodosius, issued an edict proclaiming that Christianity was to be recognised as the religion of Egypt. In consequence of this change all knowledge of the old form of writing gradually disappeared and the antiquities of Egypt remained a sealed book for some fourteen centuries.

 

The commencement of the modern interest in Egypt, as a mine of historical, archæological, and artistic lore, dates from Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion, for he took with him a body of savants to explore the topography and nature of the country and its antiquities. The results of their labours were published in 1809-13 in twenty-five volumes, illustrated with 900 engravings.

Meanwhile, in 1799, Captain Boussard, an engineer under Bonaparte, had discovered in the trenches a tablet of black basalt, inscribed with three kinds of writing, one of which was Greek. From the name of the village near which it was found it is called the Rosetta Stone and is now in the British Museum. Various attempts were made to decipher through the Greek the other two scripts, which were, respectively, hieroglyphic and the demotic or popular writing-form of ancient Egypt.

Finally, the clue was discovered by the French scholar, Champollion. He found there had been three kinds of characters which represented successive developments of one system of writing: that in the hieroglyphic each letter was represented by a picture-form; that in the hieratic or priestly writing, these forms were represented in a freer and more fluent way, which was further simplified in the demotic characters, used generally by the scribes. Two of these had been repeated as nearly as possible in the Greek text. It is out of this discovery that Egyptology, or the science which concerns itself with the writing, language, literature, monuments, and history of ancient Egypt, is being gradually developed. Yet the subject is still involved in great uncertainty, owing to the difficulty in discovering principles of grammar, so that the translations of one scholar vary from those of others and all reach only the general sense, without assurance of accuracy.

 

The civilisation of a country is always largely determined by its geographical character and the latter, in the case of Egypt, is of exceptional significance. Herodotus called Egypt the “Gift of the Nile.” The great river created it and has continued to preserve it. For the country comprises a narrow strip of soil varying from 4 to 16 miles in width, bordering the two sides of the stream, and extending in ancient times, as far as the second cataract, a distance of some 900 miles; approximating, that is to say, the distance from