LITMIR.BIZ

      Most of the localities from which the Egyptians derived their metals and choicest materials in hard stone, were difficult of access, and would have been useless had roads not been made, and works of this kind carried out, so as to make life somewhat less insupportable there.

      In order to reach the diorite and grey granite quarries of the Hammamat Valley, the Pharaohs caused a series of rock-cut cisterns to be constructed along the line of route. Some few insignificant springs, skilfully conducted into these reservoirs, made it possible to plant workmen's villages in the neighbourhood of the quarries, and also near the emerald mines on the borders of the Red Sea. Hundreds of hired labourers, slaves, and condemned criminals here led a wretched existence under the rule of some eight or ten overseers, and the brutal surveillance of a company of Libyan or negro mercenary troops. The least political disturbance in Egypt, an unsuccessful campaign, or any untoward incident of a troubled reign, sufficed to break up the precarious stability of these remote establishments. The Bedawîn at once attacked the colony; the workmen deserted; the guards, weary of exile, hastened back to the valley of the Nile, and all was at a standstill.

      The choicest materials, as diorite, basalt, black granite, porphyry, and red and yellow breccia, which are only found in the desert, were rarely used for architectural purposes. In order to procure them, it was necessary to organise regular expeditions of soldiers and workmen; therefore they were reserved for sarcophagi and important works of art. Those quarries which supplied building materials for temples and funerary monuments, such as limestone, sandstone, alabaster, and red granite, were all found in the Nile valley, and were, therefore, easy of access. When the vein which it was intended to work traversed the lower strata of the rock, the miners excavated chambers and passages, which were often prolonged to a considerable distance. Square pillars, left standing at intervals, supported the superincumbent mass, while tablets sculptured in the most conspicuous places commemorated the kings and engineers who began or continued the work. Several exhausted or abandoned quarries have been transformed into votive chapels; as, for instance, the Speos Artemidos, which was consecrated by Hatshepsut, Thothmes III. and Seti I. to the local goddess Pakhet.14

      The most important limestone quarries are at Tûrah and Massarah, nearly opposite Memphis. This stone lends itself admirably to the most delicate touches of the chisel, hardens when exposed to the air, and acquires a creamy tone most restful to the eye. Hence it was much in request by architects and sculptors. The most extensive sandstone formations are at Silsilis (fig. 49). Here the cliffs were quarried from above, and under the open sky.

      Fig 49.–Quarries of Silsilis.

      Clean cut and absolutely vertical, they rise to a height of from forty to fifty feet, sometimes presenting a smooth surface from top to bottom, and sometimes cut in stages accessible by means of steps scarcely large enough for one man at a time. The walls of these cuttings are covered with parallel striae, sometimes horizontal, sometimes slanting to the left, and sometimes to the right, so forming lines of serried chevrons framed, as it were, between grooves an inch, or an inch and a half, in width, by nine or ten feet in length.

      Fig 50.–Draught of Hathor capital in quarry of Gebel Abûfeydeh.

      These are the scars left upon the surface by the tools of the ancient workmen, and they show the method employed in detaching the blocks. The size was outlined in red ink, and this outline sometimes indicated the form which the stone was to take in the projected building. The members of the French Commission, when they visited the quarries of Gebel Abûfeydeh, copied the diagrams and squared designs of several capitals, one being of the campaniform pattern, and others prepared for the Hathor-head pattern (fig. 50).15 The outline made, the vertical faces of the block were divided by means of a long iron chisel, which was driven in perpendicularly or obliquely by heavy blows of the mallet. In order to detach the horizontal faces, they made use of wooden or bronze wedges, inserted the way of the natural strata of the stone. Very frequently the stone was roughly blocked out before being actually extracted from the bed. Thus at Syene (Asûan) we see a couchant obelisk of granite, the under side of which is one with the rock itself; and at Tehneh there are drums of columns but half disengaged.

      Fig 51.–Bas-relief from one of the stelae of Ahmes, at Tûrrah, Eighteenth Dynasty.

      The transport of quarried stone was effected in various ways. At Syene, at Silsilis, at Gebel Sheikh Herideh, and at Gebel Abûfeydeh, the quarries are literally washed by the waters of the Nile, so that the stone was lowered at once into the barges. At Kasr es Saîd,16 at Tûrah, and other localities situate at some distance from the river, canals dug expressly for the purpose conveyed the transport boats to the foot of the cliffs. When water transit was out of the question, the stone was placed on sledges drawn by oxen (fig. 51), or dragged to its destination by gangs of labourers, and by the help of rollers.

      Chapter II.

      Religious Architecture

      In the civil and military architecture of Ancient Egypt brick played the principal part; but in the religious

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