SETTING OUT - Ancient Building Technology - page 33

In one set of circumstances only has something resembling it been suggested as
utilised in the ancient world. h is concerns Pharaonic Egyptian building construc-
tion. Perhaps the characteristic feature of this building style is the batter ( sqd ) to
external walls. It is the feature which invests the style with its air of gravity. On
numbers of occasions it has been proposed that this batter (i.e. the inward incli-
nation of wall faces from the vertical at an angle of ca 6°) was controlled by way
of building L shaped screen walling outside the external angles of the proposed
building and marking on them the setting out lines for the batter (cf Arnold,
pp. 11-13, 19; i gs 1-8). In fact this was never general practice in Pharaonic build-
ing style, and the control was ef ected in plan not in elevation. h e angle of batter
can be controlled readily by e.g. measuring outwards from the vertical inner face
of the walls. h e supposed evidence for setting out the batter by way of proi les
marked on external screens (e.g. at Medum) relates to underground construction
of massifs (e.g. mastabas, v infra p. 150).
It is a misfortune that we know virtually nothing of the actual setting out prac-
tices in ancient building construction. Not only is information lacking but the term
“setting out” is itself used confusingly in dif erent senses. While the basic usage
of the term (when unqualii ed) is, as here, marking out on the ground controls
to demarcate projected construction, the term is ot en used confusingly for the
quite dif erent but closely related, proceedure of drawing out (to scale) the plan
of a projected building so as to determine its design. Particularly is this in point
when the design of the building is based on some geometrical i gure or i gures,
e.g. equilateral triangle, octagon, ellipse, etc. h e confusion lies in that the use
of the term in this sense ot en implies that the same proceedure (cf geometrical
construction) was also used for setting out the building lines on the ground. In
fact, in some instances it might have been, but this was not necessarily so; and
the proceedure of setting out on the ground was always subject to the fact that
basic control points must be marked out beyond the area disturbed by building
operations. In certain instances of geometrically based plans setting out (on the
ground) may have entailed (successive) use of both proceedures, the basic geo-
metrical construction to establish the plan followed by marking out critical points
outside the plan to control erection of the building according to the plan (R. Taylor,
Roman Builders , pp. 67-68).
h e means and methods available during antiquity for setting out on the ground
have been discussed, and it has been shown that only simple proceedures were
required. However exactly what markings were set out on the ground in vari-
ous instances can not be reported as matters of fact. Exposition of this matter is
largely conjectural based on common sense and survivals into traditional modern
practice.

Battered
walls

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47

157, 168

51

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