Feature: On the subject of masonry

The history of architecture is largely the study of what survives, and building in stone is an essential prerequisite if you want posterity to admire your architecture -- Certainly if you want it to visit. It was lucky our ancestors in Northern Europe had the good sense to stick a few stones upright in the ground just to prove they were human.

Architecture sells, and if you want to pick a favourite ancient civilisation as a travel destination, Egypt ticks this, and most of the other, boxes. So our conception of ancient architecture is naturally drawn from those places like ancient Egypt, where stone was available and used, and architecture, as a practice in wood and earth, fades into a hazy background. The narrative of architectural history woven around these somewhat atypical and often eccentric monuments of Egypt has to be set against this vast and unimaginable backdrop of absence.

I don’t think Egypt as important as Mesopotamia in the wider scheme of things, but like so much of the ancient world, Mesopotamia used mud brick architecture, so there is not much to see.

The same is actually true of Egypt; most buildings would have been mud brick, a shortsighted economy, if you want people to admire your pyramid in 4000 years.

It is in Egypt that we first see historical figures whom we can clearly identify as architects, or at they least claim to be. Characters like Hemiunu, architect of the Great Pyramid, were members of the wider royal family.[7] As Vizier to Khufu he had a range of titles.

He could be just some bloated aristocrat taking credit for the work of others, but it would be nice to think he was an architect.

Pyramids are an extraordinary architectural achievement, better known for the pharaohs who extracted the resources to build them rather than the architects who conceived them. It really does not help to dwell on the nature of the societies that created these extraordinary monuments.

Pharaohs, the rich and powerful celebrities of their day, with bigger architecture, pretty tombs, and lots of shiny things, still fascinate; they are still box office. But you not want to be owned by one. Then again, this may have been considered a lucky break by a slave at the time -- tricky thing, anthropomorphism.