Temple Comparison

COMPARISON OF TEMPLES

Today we will be comparing some of the most important buildings of the Ancient Egyptians and Romans; Temples.

As it is commonly known, religion was taken very seriously in the Ancient periods, to the point of sacrifices and death. Lives, cattle and land were given to the gods of the civilisations, purely to please and hopefully be rewarded. Buildings of worship were constructed for them, and we call them temples.

Egypt: Egyptian structures were grand places of worship. They received endowments from the country such as gold, land and livestock, to support priests and workers that fled there to seek holy enrichment.

Temples were sometimes splayed over whole towns, purely because the number of worshipers were so many.

There is a picture of an old temple here, it is called the Ramessuem (Luxor):

All the little trenches around the structure in the middle are bases of the walls that used to form rooms, most likely lodgings or praying areas for aspiring priests.

There are also carvings on the wall, telling the story of the reign of an emperor or the life of a particular god worshipped in that area. These would have been fantastically painted, but as the centuries passed by the color has faded but we are still left with the mark of a historical story.

The carvings are seen here:

I think we can agree that the Egyptians were very spiritual people, and built the temples as a sign of respect and love for their gods.

Rome: The Roman temples, although still highly spiritual, were mainly built to impress. They were built with marble, rare gems, expensive timber and the finest materials money could buy. Buildings with roofs that soar up fifty meters high. Expensive marbles on every inch of every surface. The Romans were very proud of their buildings, and liked to show them off.

When paeganism was overruled as the national religion and Christianity was introduced the temples were either converted to churches, or stripped of their marble and statues to be used in the Churches.

One of the converted temples is the Pantheon, a Christian church in the heart of Rome. It is here:

A temple stripped of it's treasures is shown here:

Thank you for listening. Next time we will cover the heirarchy and how to identiy the levels of homes.

Rome: Aqueducts

509-600 BC; Rome was expanding, fast. Population numbers had exploded and food supplies were running low. There was a huge threat that they would be wiped out due to to starvation. The main problem: Water was scarce. Lakes and fresh water was not abundant in Rome, and when they were, it proved a difficult task to ship around.

Then, the geniuses of Rome had a spark: What if they had long trenches connecting the cities together? Carrying the water along it. After many assumed trials and errors, the Romans had invented the aqueduct: trenches on brick stilts (to keep dust and foul play out of the water) that would not only ship clean spring-water to all different roman cities but also collect rainwater.

This is how they were laid out:

Another startling step forward for a civilisation so far back in time.

Next will be Egyptian tombs: Who got what.

Houses

Homes and houses have been around since the dawn of humanities progressing intelligence. Whether it be a hut or a tent, or even a plot of 'territory', we have always had something to figuratively call home. As you can imagine, as humanity progressed and our tools and methods improved, our homes began to take shape and become more civilised, perhaps the most civilised first was Egyptian and Roman houses. Egypt wasn't the first country to adapt to mud houses, but perhaps the smartest with it. Many homes that had been built way back to BC are still standing today, a truly amazing feat considering their day and age, how this happened even through all the sand-storms and theives, archaeologists are baffled. This is a recreation of an egyptian home:

Another spectacle would be the Romans, the first people to ever use the brick, and apparently the first to reside in multi story houses, or as we know them today; Apartment buildings called insulae.

Yes, evidence shows that Romans had indeed rented out rooms stacked on top of each other and live in them like homes! This truly is fantastic, especially considering the similarity to the apartment buildings today, have a look for yourselves!

Egyptian and Roman building were both incredibly advanced for their age, well beyond it. They both show improvements in different fields; Romans for occupation. Egyptians for structure. But this is only a little fragment of a whole area we have yet to cover, these marvelous buildings are just a little highlight. Please wait for my next post as we look into Aqueducts and Tombs

Welcome

Welcome! In this blog we will be explaining the architectural and structure differences between Roman and Egyptian buildings, plus how they benefit modern planning.
Some of the buildings we will be examining are the temples, the landmarks (Colosseum, Pyramid etc.) and even the minor homes.
There is also another site here [link]

Many benefits have surfaced from ancient structures, inspecting it closer gives us a little push in the direction of evolutionary thinking. Egyptians used ramps, and Romans invented bricks, many things that are a few steps forward in thinking!

Posts will be added regularly, I hope you enjoy

~Skye & Hannah~