History of Ancient Civilization Author:Charles Seignobos Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: for the dead, i.e., temples and tombs. Only a slight amount of debris is left of their houses, and even the palaces of their kings in comparison with the tombs a... more »ppear, in the language of the Greeks, to be only inns. The house was to serve only for a lifetime, the tomb for eternity. Tombs.—The Great Pyramid is a royal tomb. Ancient tombs ordinarily had this form. In Lower Egypt there still remain pyramids arranged in rows or scattered about, some larger, others smaller. These are the tombs of kings and nobles. Later the tombs are constructed underground, some under earth, others cut into the granite of the hills. Each generation needs new ones, and therefore near the town of living people is built the richer and greater city of the dead1 (necropolis). Temples.—The gods also required eternal and splendid habitations. Their temples include a magnificent sanctuary, the dwelling of the god, surrounded with courts, gardens, chambers where the priests lodge, wardrobes for his jewels, utensils, and vestments. This combination of edifices, the work of many generations is encircled with a wall. The temple of Ammon at Thebes had the labors of the kings of all the dynasties from the twelfth to the last. Ordinarily in front of the temple a great gate-way is erected, with inclined faces—the pylone. On either side of the entrance is an obelisk, a needle of rock with gilded point, or perhaps a colossus in stone representing a sitting giant. Often the approach to the temple is by a long avenue rimmed with sphinxes. Pyramids, pylones, colossi, sphinxes, and obelisks chapter{Section 4characterize this architecture. Everything is massive, compact, and, above all, immense. Hence these monuments appear clumsy but indestructible. Sculpture.—Egyptian sculptors began with imitating nature. ...« less