Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
sanctuaries, the Heb Zed festival pavilion (v Porta, pp. 68-97). h ese select forms
go back to the original construction in light materials. Moreover lapidiary repre-
sentations of some of these structures were received into the heiroglyphic script.
In this fashion original forms constructed during Neolithic times in pliant woody
materials are reliably attested.
Equally the reception of these forms into later monumental construction in brick
and stone is made vividly apparent by Egyptian building history. h e funerary com-
plex of King Zoser at Saqqarah (ca 2650 BC) is an astonishing world première in
monumental i nely dressed stone building. And here, as all concerned have pointed
out with varying rationales, although the technique of small stone masonry was
perfectly mastered, the forms expressed are recognisably those proper to construc-
tion in pliant woody material. h is includes both overall structural forms and, even
more obvious, the ornamental detailing. h ereat er as the logic of constructing
in the new solid materials prevailed for the overall form of edii ces, nonetheless
all the detailing of the structural ornament (i.e. h e Egyptian Order) remained
transparently derived from the original functional details of construction in pliant
vegetal material—e.g. the torus rolls and their decoration, the cavetto cornice, the
khaker frieze and the various plantform columns and capitals.
Sur-
vival of
wooden
forms
in later
stone
building
2.
Rigid Timber
h e use of solid heavy timber members in building construction would seem to
depend categorically on possessing a tool (axe) capable of felling trees—i.e. of
cutting through substantial tree trunks of say 30 cms or more in diameter. With
the felled trunk available the earliest stone and wood tools appear quite adequate
for converting it into whatever form required—debarked logs or posts, squared
baulks, planks etc. (Axe, adze, knife, chisel and auger were available before the
use of metals.) However it is not readily apparent to the senses that l int hand
axes/cleavers or polished stone “celts” will serve to fell heavy standing timber. It
is this common sense proviso which renders suspect some recent assertions that
Palaeolithic man built out of wood substantial dwelling places for himself in open
country. h e wooden structural members Palaeolothic men could procure regularly
for themselves are likely to be of very restricted section (i.e. poles) and this, together
with the cladding of the frame (generally imagined to be with skins and hides etc.)
make these shelters essentially tents rather than solid durable buildings.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that with rapid development of metal
(bronze) axeheads men by the third millenium BC were ei cient and practiced
lumber jacks felling the biggest trees imaginable, e.g. the cedars of Lebanon. It is
the use of heavy sections of timber in building during the Mesolithic and Neolithic
period which requires convincing experimental archaeology for its explanation.
Requisite
axes for
telling
timber
101, 102
103
