Wilkinson, John Gardner: The Architecture Of Ancient Egypt: In Which The Columns Are Arranged In Orders, And The Temples Classified; With Remarks On The Early Progress Of Architecture, Etc.; With A Large Volume Of Plates Ilustrative Of The Subject, And Containing The Various Columns And details, From Actual Measurement (Text) (London, 1850)

PART I. TRUE AND FALSE ARCHES. 17

Egyptian architects, long before the erection of that
building.

A third method was that of cutting an arch in
horizontal blocks, so placed as to overlap each
other, until the upper courses met in the centre,*
the oldest instance of which dates in the reign of
Thothmes III, or rather of his sister, B. c. 1520 ;
and a similar caprice, of cutting an arch in solid
blocks, was adopted in the time of Sethos, or Osirei,
the father of Remeses II.f This last method, there-
fore, was employed long after the true principle
of the arch was known in Egypt, and after vaulting
with crude brick had become a common mode of
roofing tombs; and it is a singular fact that, in a
very ancient chamber, near the fountain at Tus-
culum,J the inner passage is constructed on the
real principle of a pointed arch,§ while in the outer
chamber the lower part of the arch is cut in horizon-
tal courses of stone, and is crowned by long blocks
inclined towards each other, and meeting at a little
more than a right angle, to form the apex. Both
the true, and false, arch were therefore used at the
same period, by people well acquainted with the
principle of forming voussoirs, with stones radiating
to a common centre; and the argument against

* Plate 1, fig. 14.

t At Abydus. Plate 4, fig. 13.

% It is supposed to have been built at the time when the kings ruled
at Rome. Some ascribe it to the Pelasgi.

§ The date of the earliest pointed arches is not (as generally sup-
posed) confined to Saracenic, or to Church, architecture; they are found
at Ephesus; at Zindan; at Pompeii; and in Egypt, of early Christian
time, before the Arab invasion in ad. 640.