Ancient Egyptian Construction and Architecture

by Somers Clarke, R. Engelbach

When this book was first published in 1930, there was no shortage of excellent books dealing with the architectural styles of ancient Egypt; no book of any significance, however, discussed in detail the actual construction methods used to erect some of the world's most colossal and enduring structures.
This profusely illustrated volume remedied that situation by providing the first important description and analysis of Egyptian building practices, which differed radically from those of classical, medieval or modern architecture. Based on thirty years of research and investigation, much of it firsthand, the present work offers a detailed examination of Egyptian quarrying methods, transportation of stone, foundations, mortar, techniques for dressing and laying blocks of stone, pyramid construction, facing, sculpturing and painting masonry, brickwork, Egyptian mathematics and much more.
Nearly 270 photographs and other illustrations bring the text to life, providing superb pictorial documentation of actual sites and excavations, quarries, building plans, architects' diagrams and elevations and a myriad of construction details. Also presented are such evocative materials as a map for gold miners in the time of Seti I, photographs of tool marks left by ancient quarry workers, mason's guidelines on a column in the Great Hall at Karnak, a scene of workmen polishing a sphinx and other small details that bridge the centuries and remind us that flesh-and-blood human beings sweated and toiled to accomplish the marvelous technical feats so well described here.
For any student of ancient Egypt, this will be an enlightening and fascinating survey. For architects, engineers, and students of the history of technology, the book offers a revealing picture of early techniques of monumental construction. 125 photographs. 144 line illustrations.

Genres: Architecture, History, Egyptology, Egypt, Nonfiction

242 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1990

About the author

1841-1926

Reviews

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would have been thorough and well-done for its time, but today it’s more of an historical artifact for Egyptology itself than a useful resource. That’s no fault of the author; it’s just a byproduct of how scholarship has advanced over nearly a century since the book was written.

There are a few legacies of its time (like “everybody knows this, so I won’t bother discussing it here”), but the author was pretty humble and realistic as far as where provable facts and archaeology ended and gave way to educated speculation.

The descriptions are pretty clear and thorough and the writing style is pleasant. Not a bad read, and better than 2 stars may suggest, but not really worth reading unless you’re interested in the history of Egyptology itself.

[Blunt Of Mercia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found in an Oxfam— full of many excellent plans and photographs showing all aspects of Egyptian monumental architecture: quarrying, shipping, planning, foundation laying, lighting and ventilation, drainage, brickmaking, hardstone and soft stone work.

I imagine that its age will show up when compared to modern books on the same subject, but it is, at least, not as absurdly out of date as the type of speculation favoured by the "lost high technologists" who mostly follow idle 19th century speculations by Petrie.

If you find such Hancockists to be intellectually lazy, ignorant of basic chemical principles (hardness), and in all senses annoying, this book will show you just what does actually exist in Egypt — the quality of the existing stonework, the exact types of stone, the condition of the quarries, examples of found tools, records showing numbers of personel involved with construction, actual plans of buildings on papyri etc. — And then it gives good enough theories to account for the evidence at hand. For example, the "polygonal" masonry, which has interesting counterparts in Incan stonework, has often been used by "lost high technologists" as evidence for their unfathomable tools/stone melting lazers or what have you, wheras this seems, in reality, to have been a time and effort saving device.

There is also an interesting idea in regard to this, that the egyptians finished their stonework after it was put in place (as shown by the examples of unfinished Egyptian stonework) so they could have arranged one or two courses of a wall on the floor, fitting them together perfectly, making the top of the course dead level, then with levers, lay the entire course upside down, and then level the new top ready for the next course and so on. In such a way, you could have a mass-production, almost, of stonework, with several hundred skilled masons working all at the same time. When the wall was finished to a desired height, the sides of the stones were flattened off and the whole wall given polish.

There are contentious points in the book, such as whether the egyptians used rollers to move large blocks and how exactly they moved blocks into place they were resteicted to levers and sledges) — also a hypothetical method of tempering copper to the hardness of steel is admitted.

So far as I am aware, some examples of possible "half pulleys" have been found (most interestingly at Gizah), so the hypothesis that the egyptians had nothing other than levers might not be tenable. Also, the well-known story of herodotus, of some sort of wood machine that lifted blocks up the sides of the pyramids, may reflect a half remembered reality of some clever wooden contrivance that has since rotted away.

As for the copper, some have suspected that cold working certain copper-arsenic bronzes could have given a chisel hard enough to do some of the work on granite, but it should be noted, as the book says, the egyptians mostly used abrasive drills and dolerite pounders (possibly dolerite adzes) for working hard stones, as well as fire setting for removing large quantities of granite during quarrying.

All in all, it is an excellent book for reference, and for anyone interested in architecture or pre industrial technology.

[A.L. Sirois · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was originally published in 193o. A couple of times in the text, the author says something to the effect of, "Well, we know they did this, but we don't know WHY they did this. Perhaps someone will figure it out in the future." Which is a legitimate position. I read this book because I'm writing about ancient Egypt, and there are a lot of good photos of buildings that are no doubt much more deteriorated now, after nearly a century of weather, air pollution, and people creeping in and around the pyramids and so on. I learned a lot about how and why the ancients did what they did when it came to building and construction techniques, though I'm not sure how much of what I've learned will make its way into my work, which is fiction set in the Old Kingdom. There isn't as much info as I'd hope for on the Old Kingdom, but there were some good tidbits. That said, I can't see why anyone who's not an Egyptologist or a writer or a serious history buff would want to read this book. History books usually focus on personalities, but that focus is absent here, which makes for some pretty dry reading. Still, I'm glad I read it. I rather doubt anyone here on Goodreads would want to tackle it, though.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful and enlightening resource!

[Diana Wilder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Source book and interesting read

A useful source book that enables me to have a character cringe as he looks up at the stone architraves that might (had they but known it millenia ago) break off - stone being less flexible than wood - and fall on his head. Dover has done a good job reissuing older books in facsimile form. This is one that would be better if it could be updated in the light of several decades' discoveries, but it is good as it is.

Not a page-turner, but then it isn't supposed to be.