Why are ancient Egyptian buildings so much grander than ancient Greek buildings?

Author: Han Ruiqian

Link: /question/19650915/answer/13517805

Source: Zhihu

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In ancient times, religion had a great influence on architecture, so both ancient Egypt and ancient Greece put a lot of effort into the construction of temples and shrines, but ancient Egypt was even better.

Fundamentally speaking, the political system also leads to different architectural forms. The buildings in ancient Egypt are all magnificent, but their functions are to serve the gods or the emperor or even the soul of the emperor. If it were not for the efforts to create It cannot be accomplished under the system.

However, Egypt is also divided into various periods. The Old Kingdom period was a centralized emperor’s autocratic period. The pyramids were built during this period. The emperor was still a fetishist, and the monuments were simple and open;

The development of handicraft commerce during the Middle Kingdom separated the emperor from primitive fetishism and created a sacrificial class. The emperor's memorials gradually changed from mausoleums that mainly used external expressions with the help of natural landscapes to those that held mysterious religious rituals inside. The temples were transformed and gradually turned into mausoleums in the canyon;

In the New Kingdom period, which was the most powerful period of ancient Egypt, the worship of the emperor and the worship of the sun were combined, and the emperor's monuments were completely transformed from tombs into The Temple of the Sun strives for a mysterious and majestic atmosphere. The architecture at this time also has the influence of West Asian architecture.

After ancient Egypt was conquered by Persia in 525 BC, it gradually entered the later period, the Hellenistic period and the Roman period. The architecture was greatly alienated due to foreign conquests, and had many Greco-Roman elements.

When it comes to Greece, it is completely different. The stone structure and artistic nature of ancient Greece have completely influenced the architectural history of Europe for more than 2,000 years, especially the classic column styles-Doric, Ionic , Collins, and later gradually evolved into five column styles and became more fancy.

Ancient Greece was characterized by liberal democracy. Greece was the first place to implement democratic politics in cities. There was Agora, a political assembly square, and the first parliamentary hall and citizen building in human history were built in Agora. court. Interestingly enough, it was the ancient Greeks who invented the formal voting method.

Greece has a polytheistic faith, free and unrestrained, and the gods are more like humans than humans. One of the gods is the god of wine. It is said that the god of wine lives in a vineyard and is accompanied by a group of half-human and half-goat animals. During the Dionysus Festival, someone pretends to be the companion of the god of wine and imitates the bleating of sheep, which attracts many people. The onlookers laughed. Later, year after year, when people got tired of imitating sheep, someone would walk in front of these goat singers and recite the prepared lines. Together with various physical performances, this became the earliest drama of mankind. The Greeks were as keen on theater as the ancient Romans were on bathing. They built various theaters with good acoustics, which became the earliest cultural facilities of mankind.

At the same time, the Greeks also opened the earliest sports schools in mankind.

Also because of the development of civilization and the fact that people had nothing to do at that time, and the early architectural structures were underdeveloped, the architectural forms were relatively simple and could not make any big tricks, so the Greeks paid great attention to details. In depth, the perfect characteristics of Greek architecture can be seen from the contraction, inclination and even the correction of visual errors of the columns.

So "greatness belongs to Rome, but glory belongs to Greece"

The formation of architecture in history is always diverse, and it is often the social form at that time that produces corresponding architectural forms. Having said so much, I still can’t fully explain them, so I talk about the beauty of architecture. The beauty is that while understanding the architecture of a period, you can also understand the culture, religion, social life, and human activities at that time. That's all very interesting.