DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25500#0032
8
COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE.
the state of cheap labour thus produced was eminently favour-
able to the execution of great public works. In addition there
existed a centralized despotic government, which perhaps
more than any other form favours the execution of monu-
mental works. It is assumed by some that the spare time
which occurs during the annual floods enabled the population
to be employed on these state buildings. It is also possible
that the transport of stone required for the Pyramids, etc.,
was effected by means of rafts floated down at this season.
During the reign of Rameses II. the captives and foreigners,
who had largely increased, were also put to enforced labour
upon the public works, as in the first chapter of the book
of Exodus we learn how the natives viewed with alarm the
growing numbers and power of these strangers.
vi. Historical.—Egyptian civilization is the most ancient
of any of which we have a clear knowledge; its history
has come down to us from Holy Scripture and from Greek
and Roman authors, but more particularly from the
Egyptian buildings, by which it can be traced as far
back as 4,000 years b.c. The Pyramids are thought to
be a thousand years older than any building which has
yet been discovered in Western Asia, the subject of our
next division. The Kings or Pharaohs (from the title
“ Peraa ” = “great house’') have been arranged in thirty
dynasties, extending down to b.c. 340. These have been
based on the list of Manetho, an Egyptian priest who lived
b.c. 300, and compiled a history of Egypt in Greek. The
nineteenth dynasty, founded by Rameses I. (b.c. 1400-1366),
may be taken as the most brilliant epoch of Egyptian art.
The evidence of his greatness, and that of his grandson,
Rameses II. (b.c. 1333-1300), as builders, is to be seen
among the Temples of Thebes and elsewhere. The twenty-
sixth dynasty takes us to the time when the country was
conquered by the Persians in b.c. 527, from whom it was
wrested by the great Grecian general, Alexander the Great,
in b.c. 332. On Alexander’s death and the division of his
empire Egypt passed to Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s
generals, who founded a dynasty that ruled from b.c. 323
to b.c. 31. After the wars which ended in the death of
Cleopatra, Egypt passed, as did the whole of the then
COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE.
the state of cheap labour thus produced was eminently favour-
able to the execution of great public works. In addition there
existed a centralized despotic government, which perhaps
more than any other form favours the execution of monu-
mental works. It is assumed by some that the spare time
which occurs during the annual floods enabled the population
to be employed on these state buildings. It is also possible
that the transport of stone required for the Pyramids, etc.,
was effected by means of rafts floated down at this season.
During the reign of Rameses II. the captives and foreigners,
who had largely increased, were also put to enforced labour
upon the public works, as in the first chapter of the book
of Exodus we learn how the natives viewed with alarm the
growing numbers and power of these strangers.
vi. Historical.—Egyptian civilization is the most ancient
of any of which we have a clear knowledge; its history
has come down to us from Holy Scripture and from Greek
and Roman authors, but more particularly from the
Egyptian buildings, by which it can be traced as far
back as 4,000 years b.c. The Pyramids are thought to
be a thousand years older than any building which has
yet been discovered in Western Asia, the subject of our
next division. The Kings or Pharaohs (from the title
“ Peraa ” = “great house’') have been arranged in thirty
dynasties, extending down to b.c. 340. These have been
based on the list of Manetho, an Egyptian priest who lived
b.c. 300, and compiled a history of Egypt in Greek. The
nineteenth dynasty, founded by Rameses I. (b.c. 1400-1366),
may be taken as the most brilliant epoch of Egyptian art.
The evidence of his greatness, and that of his grandson,
Rameses II. (b.c. 1333-1300), as builders, is to be seen
among the Temples of Thebes and elsewhere. The twenty-
sixth dynasty takes us to the time when the country was
conquered by the Persians in b.c. 527, from whom it was
wrested by the great Grecian general, Alexander the Great,
in b.c. 332. On Alexander’s death and the division of his
empire Egypt passed to Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s
generals, who founded a dynasty that ruled from b.c. 323
to b.c. 31. After the wars which ended in the death of
Cleopatra, Egypt passed, as did the whole of the then