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. INVENTION OF THE ARCH. 19

are none of the same early date, as the crude brick
arches of Thebes; and the oldest built of stone,
that now remain, are of the 26th dynasty, in the
reign of Psamaticus II, about 600 b. c* These
are in the tombs about the Pyramids; and it is
singular that there are few monuments there, of
the period which intervened between the 4 th, and
26th, dynasty .f

In a country like Egypt, where wood was rare,
and bricks were used for houses and tombs, the
necessity of such a mode of roofing would not
be long in suggesting itself; % wood was not a
suitable material for covering tombs, that were
intended to vie in durability with stone monu-
ments ; and the want of it naturally led to the
invention of the arch. Here, again, the fact of in-
ventions having spread, as they became known,
into other countries, is sufficiently obvious; and
as the Greeks began by using the two modes of
construction, before mentioned in the pyramids, so
they subsequently arrived at the knowledge of the
arch, when its invention became known to those
who had intercourse with Egypt. For even if some
arches were really built by the Greeks, and Etrus-
cans, before the age of Psamaticus, their being of
stone would not in any way afford their builders a
claim to that invention; and no one would be silly

* In tie tomb at Sakkara, the stones may be considered a " mere
lining to the rock," but this objection cannot apply to Campbell's tomb,
and others, near the Great Pyramid.

t The sphinx has the name of Thothmes IV, of the 18th dynasty.

* Canina seems to be of the same opinion, that the use of brick led to
the invention of the arch.

c2