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)

20 ARCHITECTURE OF EGYPT. PART T.

enough to maintain, that the principle of the arch
was unknown, until it had been made of some
particular material.

The use of bricks also exercised an influence on
the domestic architecture of the Egyptians; and
their houses, which in early times rarely exceeded
one story, afterwards (if we may believe Diodorus)
rose to the height of four or five.* For this, and for
the marked difference in their style from the massive
Temple, they were doubtless indebted to the mate-
rials, of which they were built; and elongated pro-
portions had already become the established cha-
racter of an Egyptian house, in the early part of the
eighteenth dynasty. Even the pyramidal towers,
copied, with their flag-staffs, from the temples,
were increased to a disproportionate height; and
the vertical line seems to have predominated in the
large villa, in preference to the horizontal character
of the original architecture of Egypt. This style of
building originated in the use of brick, and wood;
and the introduction of lengthy columns, to ornament
the exterior and interior of houses, was probably
borrowed from Egypt by the Persians, (as wrell as
by the Hebrews, and others, as Canina has shown),
from whom, according to Strabo,+ it was adopted
by the Romans, even before the reign of Augustus;
and it was this fashion, with the introduction of

* Diodorus (i. 48) says the houses of Thebes were " aj /uv rtrpa-
poijiove, ag de itKrwpo^owc." He probably reckoned the ground floor as
one. The highest represented in the sculptures are of four stories, above
the ground floor.

t Strabo, lib. v. 2.