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)

70 ARCHITECTURE OF EGYPT. PART II.

found there with those of Thothmes III, (his
fourth successor,) and of Remeses IV; and it
seems to have been known in the time of Osir-
tasen I, of the 12th dynasty, judging from the
representation of what appear to be vaulted gra-
naries at Beni Hassan. That it should have ori-
ginated in a country, where wood was rare, is
consistent with probability; and it has been con-
jectured that the chambers in the large brick
pyramids, near Memphis, were arched. Those at
Thebes, of a rather later period, were so roofed;
nor is it unreasonable to suppose the other larger
ones to have been the same; and the superiority
over the stone pyramids, boasted in the inscription
upon that of Asychis, has been supposed by Dr.
Richardson, with great probability, to have con-
sisted in its vaulted chambers. It is also evident
that, in the early time of Osirtasen, the vaulted
roofs of rock-tombs were made in imitation of
arches; and the arch seems to have been parti-
cularly used in sepulchral monuments. Indeed,
the side rooms of the pavilion of Remeses III,
at Thebes,* seem to have had arched roofs of
stone; but there is no evidence to show how
they were constructed; and the earliest known
stone arches, as I have already stated, are of the
time of Psamaticus, in the seventh century before
our era. Still, these are not more certain proofs of
the invention, than the brick arches at Thebes,
which are on the same principle,! the bricks (or

* Vide Plate xviii, fig. 2.

t Vide Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii, p. 316, 318, 321.