What are the architectural features of ancient Egypt?

A. Ancient Egypt's architectural style and features

1, huge: the most famous architectural art of ancient Egypt, such as the pyramids, sphinxes, obelisks,

are all huge works of art, and are also related to the survival of the kingdom.

2, building materials are mainly stone: the world's all stone buildings, the first out of Egypt. Characterized by the majestic and thick, grand and solid. To the pyramids, for example, all of its building materials weighing several tons, or even more than a dozen tons of stone, after thousands of years, not deformed, not collapsed, still stands on the west bank of the Nile.

3, a strong sense of order: we will not find surprising elements in ancient Egyptian painting, sculpture and architecture. Each part of the production will follow a certain law, such a style, continued for at least 3000 years. This sense of order sometimes strikes us as rather unnatural: in order to keep things organized and visible, the faces of the figures were generally sideways, but possessed a large eye that belonged to the front; the arms and legs were not shortened. So, although the ancient Egyptian architecture is a bit raw, but gives us an extraordinarily calm and steady feeling, which is the result of the strict sense of order.

4, the application of geometry in art: ancient Egyptian pyramid architecture and a variety of carvings, all reflect the use of geometry in it. The development of geometry in ancient Egypt stemmed from the regular annual flooding of the Nile River. When the river washed away farmland, the people had to redivide the land, redrawing the fields with straight lines and geometric shapes. Geometry in the ancient Egyptian architectural art, mainly to make it rich in three-dimensional, sharp angles, but also to strengthen the law of order, the apparent rigidity, but intensified the solemnity and rigor of the feeling.

5, continuity and fixity: Plato said "in Egypt, all things never any change". People loyal to the firm religious beliefs, resulting in thousands of years of ancient Egyptian art style has remained incredibly fixed, unchanging style, continued for thousands of years.

Two, religious beliefs and ancient Egyptian architecture and art are closely related

1, Egyptian art is a process leading to eternity, thirst for immortality, which is because of religious beliefs and the cultivation and derivation of the concept of art ---- Ancient Egyptian art expresses the content of the core of the religion and faith. The ancient Egyptians used stone to build the great works on the banks of the Nile, and the pyramids stood like a mountain on the desert horizon. A pyramid, a king's tomb, the Egyptians believed that the emperor was the embodiment of the gods, and when he died, people tried to preserve his body from decaying, so that his soul could continue to exist in the future. They applied many antiseptic spices and medicines to the body, and then wrapped the whole body in linen, which was mummified. The mummy was placed in a coffin, deep inside the pyramid. Incantations and spells were written around the coffins to comfort the emperor's soul on its journey to rebirth. This is the profound connotation embedded in ancient Egyptian architecture ---- death is eternal and life is even more eternal.

2, religious belief is the driving force of ancient Egyptian architectural art, producing a great cohesion. Religious beliefs so that each emperor in his lifetime to convene a large number of clan members and slaves, with their flesh and blood drive in the grueling conditions piled up one after another to make descendants marvel at the giant mound. Although it was the Pharaohs who used their supreme power to finalize the construction of their tombs, in reality the entire dynasty was far more involved and motivated than we can imagine. It was believed that these great pyramids, obelisks and temples would immortalize the ancient Egyptian dynasty for generations to come.

3. Religion, as an important part of ancient Egyptian culture, was present throughout the history of the dynasty. Heliopolis, Memphis, Thebes and Hermopolis were the four most important religious cities in Egypt. People worshiped those "gods" and primitive totems, which led to the static and fixed state of ancient Egyptian art for thousands of years. In short, religious beliefs are the core and driving force of ancient Egyptian architectural art and even all kinds of art.

Three, the analysis of typical architectural forms of ancient Egypt

1, pyramid: Egypt's ancient slave society of square conical imperial tombs. One of the seven wonders of the world. Numerous and widely distributed. Southwest of Cairo on the Nile River west of the ancient city of Memphis around the most concentrated. Giza southern suburb of 8 kilometers in the Libyan desert in the three particularly famous, called the pyramids of Giza. The largest of these is the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty, which is famous for its high degree of architectural skill, in addition to being amazing for its sheer size. Built in the twenty-seventh century B.C., this pyramid is 146.5 meters high equivalent to a 40-story skyscraper, 230 meters long on each of its bottom sides, and is made of 2.3 million large stone blocks weighing about 2.5 tons stacked on top of each other, covering an area of 53,900 square meters. Inside the tower there are corridors, stairs, halls and various precious decorations. The entire project took more than 30 years. To the southeast of the tower is the majestic and stunning Sphinx.

2, obelisk: another architectural masterpiece of ancient Egypt, but also in addition to the pyramids, the ancient Egyptian civilization is the most characteristic symbol. Obelisk shape is a pointed square pillar, gradually narrowed from the bottom up, the top is shaped like the tip of the pyramid. Wrapped in gold, copper or gold and silver alloy, when the rising sun shines on the tip of the monument, it shines like the dazzling sun. Generally carved from a block of granite, weighing hundreds of tons, all four sides are engraved with hieroglyphics, indicating that the monument's three different purposes: religious (often dedicated to the sun god Amun), commemorative (often used to commemorate the pharaoh's reign for a number of years) and decorative. At the same time, the obelisk was a powerful symbol of power in the Egyptian Empire. From the Middle Kingdom onwards, obelisks were erected by pharaohs in years of amnesty or to show off their victories, and were usually erected in pairs on either side of the doors of temple towers. The oldest surviving obelisk belongs to the reign of Pharaoh Sinusert I (c. 1971-1928 BC) of the Twelfth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt (c. 1991-1786 BC), and was erected in front of the site of the former temple of the City of the Sun in the northeastern suburb of Cairo, the Hieroglyphics. The obelisk, which is 20.7 meters high and weighs 121 tons, was erected by Sinnocent I to celebrate his coronation as king. During the New Kingdom era, Thutmose I (c. 1525-1512 BC), Queen Hatshepsut (c. 1504-1450 BC), and Ramses II (c. 1304-1237 BC) all erected huge obelisks, all over 20 meters in height. The excavation and erection of obelisks was a difficult project. According to hieroglyphics on an obelisk in front of the Temple of Karnak, it took seven months to cut the monolithic stone from the quarry and transport it from Aswan to Thebes. In the temple of Queen Hatshepsut in Aswan, there is a picture depicting the transportation of the obelisk from the Nile River by barge, and after arriving at the destination, people lifted the obelisk up a slope made of earth and then erected it on a pedestal. This fully illustrates the high degree of wisdom of the ancient Egyptians in mechanics.

3, the temple: as a religious building, the temple is the main place for ancient Egyptians to worship the gods, the religious ceremonies held during the worship of the gods, has become an important part of the daily life of ancient Egyptians. Therefore, the influence of ancient Egyptian temple architecture at that time can be said to a certain extent is more than the influence of the pyramid building. Ancient Egyptian temple architecture is the most striking is those a large number of beautifully shaped columns: the column body has a beautiful degree of isolation, there are imitation papyrus carved out of a bunch of decorative lines, the column head decorative motifs, most of them are papyrus, lotus and palm leaves, modeling, such as budding buds, and some of them are presented as a full bloom of the flower, showing the ancient Egyptian peculiar columns of the architectural style. This architectural style and approach to the later ancient Greek architecture has had a certain impact. As early as the 3000s BC, Egypt appeared and the Athens Parthenon very similar to the colonnade form. The Parthenon is a typical ancient Greek Doric architecture, its architectural features are slightly protruding from the middle of the column body, simple column head, no column base, known for its solemnity and simplicity, built in the Egyptian step pyramid of Saqqara annexed to the imitation of the papyrus stone columns, and the pure Greek Doric columns are almost no great difference.

The construction of pyramids, temples and obelisks fully demonstrated the ingenuity of the ancient Egyptian working people, superb artistic skills and superb architectural talent, and wrote a glorious page in the history of world architecture. The dissemination and inheritance of these architectural techniques have added treasures to the world's cultural treasury and made important contributions to human civilization.