Encyclopedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture, The

Dieter Arnold. The Encyclopedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture. Translated by Sabine H. Gardiner and Helen Strudwick. Edited by Nigel Strudwick and Helen Strudwick. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. 288 pp. Illustrations. Maps. Glossary. Chronological Table. Bibliography. $39.95. Cloth.

Warm applause is due for the English edition of Dieter Arnold's Encyclopedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture, by far the most comprehensive reference work on this subject to date, and one that will give its readers new respect for the richness of Egypt's architectural heritage. From pyramids to obelisks, from flagpoles to drainage systems, from stone-working techniques to scaffolding, almost any topic one might want to look up relating to architectural design and construction in the ancient Nile valley is clearly and concisely explained in this volume. Arnold's useful book consists of short, alphabetically arranged entries featuring diverse aspects of architecture along with individual monuments and sites. Building types appear under broad and narrow headings such as "Temple," "Tomb," "House," and "Fortress," or "Kiosk," "Grain store," and the like. Other entries cover architectural elements and technical details. Building materials such as basalt and sandstone receive handy discussions, telling where the materials were obtained and how they were used. A few important abstract topics, such as "Style" and "Symbolism," also appear. Entries on individual monuments describe significant features of their design, while sections on sites survey notable buildings at a location. Each entry is accompanied by a bibliography, and the text is interspersed with more than three hundred illustrations, consisting of black and white photographs, plans, reconstructions, and other explanatory drawings.

A leading authority on Egyptian architecture and a curator at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Arnold brought strong qualifications to the writing of his Encyclopedia. For his entries on construction techniques, he had his own landmark study, Building in Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry (Oxford, 1991) to draw upon. For other subjects, his experience preparing Die Tempel Ägyptens (Zurich, 1992) and many scholarly articles gave him a core body of knowledge to work from. he is the author, too, of monographs on monuments at Dahshur, Lisht, and Deir el-Bahari, where he has conducted fieldwork. Throughout the present volume, the text and drawings reflect careful scholarship and the hands-on experience of an excavator. The book represents a distillation of earlier writings joined with plentiful fresh material to make it an all-encompassing reference source.

The work first appeared in German in 1994. The English edition incorporates revisions by Arnold and updated references. The editors, Nigel Strudwick and Helen Strudwick, themselves specialists on ancient Thebes, have adjusted many telegraphic-style notations in favor of a more fluid and accessible presentation and have improved the method of cross-reference. The translation is graceful, with rare awkward phrases.

A wave of recent books testifies to an ongoing fascination with Egyptian architecture. The latest studies generally tackle a single category of monument, such as pyramids (Mark Lehner, 1997) or temples (Byron Shafer et al., 1997; Arnold, 9 1999; Richard Wilkinson, 2000). One must look back to the 1950s and 1960s, to Alexander Badawy or Jacques Vandier, for example, to find authors attempting as broad a survey of Egyptian architecture as Arnold gives in his Encyclopedia. With his knowledge of construction procedures and of data unavailable to an earlier generation, his reach is even wider.

The book is not without problems. Finding certain entries can take a few attempts until one gets accustomed to the listing methods, and an index would have made this source even more useful. A few items that should have been updated were not, such as a statement under "Giza" that "associated pyramid towns... have disappeared." This needs modification to reflect Lehner's important discoveries of structures for feeding and housing pyramid workers. For another key site, Karnak, an overview would have been helpful. Occasional editorial lapses such as entries for the same chapel under different names (e.g., "Hakoris" and "Akoris") are minor enough not to detract from an outstanding work. Students and specialists alike will find Arnold's book a highly valuable reference tool.

Diana Wolfe Larkin

Mount Holyoke College Art Museum

South Hadley, Massachusetts

Copyright African Studies Association Dec 2003
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