Egyptian Architecture Flashcards
What is a Matsaba?
Arabic for ‘bench’
- the first tombs made of mud brick and grew
What is a Necropolis?
Cemeteries clustered with Matsabas
-Necropolis translates to ‘city of the dead’
What were the THREE major periods?
Old Kingdom (Large Pyramids) Middle Kingdom (Retreat to hidden cliffs of the Nile) New Kingdom (Noted for temples)
What are the parts of the New Kingdom Temple?
Pylon, Peristyle Court, Hypostyle Hall, Sanctuary
What were the components that lead to the New Kingdom Temples?
Frontality, Facade, and linear procession to a sacred space of New Kingdom Temples
What happened in the Old Kingdom?
- Had large pyramids, emphasizes tomb, obsessed with preserving the body and pure forms
- pyramid building gets paused with Menkure’s tomb, economic and political decline brings the Old Kingdom to ruins
- pyramids get smaller, no longer respite ties for kings’ remains
What material was used to build the Pyramids?
Built with mud-brick
What happened that caused the pyramids to no longer hold kings’ remains?
Preservation of the trappings and riches of life for the afterlife lead to grave robbing
What happened in the Middle Kingdom? Where did development occur?
- moves away from large kingdoms and involves more funerary architecture
- development occurred in cliffs of the Nile where architecture was mostly hollowed out of the living rock, rather than ‘built’
What happened in the New Kingdom?
- known for the Fundamental Shift
- focused on developing the temple, notion of frontality
- builders sacrificed monumentality of tombs in favor of increased security
The Pyramid of Zoser
- started off as a Matsaba
- bottom began to crumble due to an angle problem
- Zoser wanted to build a Funerary Complex which was a replica of his palace
- served as a monument to Zoser, wasn’t buried within it but below it
- funerary complex is surrounded by 33’ high stone wall
- his tomb chamber
Where is The Pyramid of Zoser located?
Located in Saqqara, Egypt
