ndulge in a decorative style, and as
they were totally unable to originate a legitimate stone architecture,
we find carved in stone, rounded beams as lintels, grooved posts,
and--most curious of all--roofs that are an almost exact copy of the
early timber huts when unsquared baulks of timber were laid across
side by side to form a covering. Figs. 12 and 13 show this kind of
stone-work, which is peculiar to the old dynasties, and seems to have
had little influence upon succeeding styles.

A remarkable feature of these early private tombs consists in the
paintings with which the walls are decorated, and which vividly
portray the ordinary every-day occupations carried on during his
lifetime by the person who was destined to be the inmate of the tomb.
These paintings are of immense value in enabling us to form an
accurate idea of the life of the people at this early age.

[Illustration: FIG. 12.--IMITATION OF TIMBER CONSTRUCTION IN STONE,
FROM A TOMB AT MEMPHIS.]

[Illustration: FIG. 13.--IMITATION OF TIMBER CONSTRUCTION IN STONE,
FROM A TOMB AT MEMPHIS.]

It may possibly be open to doubt whether the dignified appellation of
architecture should be applied to buildings of the kind we have just
been describing; but when we come to the series of remains of the
twelfth dynasty at Beni-Hassan, in middle Egypt, we meet with the
earliest known examples of that most interesting feature of all
subsequent styles--the column. Whether the idea of columnar
architecture originated with the necessities of quarrying--square
piers being left at intervals to support the superincumbent mass of
rock as the quarry was gradually driven in--or whether the earliest
stone piers were imitations of brickwork or of timber posts, we shall
probably never be able to determine accurately, though the former
supposition seems the more likely. We have here monuments of a date
1400 years anterior to the earliest known Greek examples, with
splendid columns, both exterior and interior, which no reasonable
person can doubt are the prototypes of the Greek Doric order. Fig. 14
is a plan with a section, and Fig. 15 an exterior view, of one of
these tombs, which, it will be seen, consisted of a portico, a chamber
with its roof supported by columns, and a small space at the farther
end in which is formed the opening of a sloping passage or well, at
the bottom of which the vault for the reception of the body was
constructed. The walls of the large