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RIBA Research Trust Award
Nicholas Warner: Building with Mud
Building with mud: the evolution of the archaeological expedition house
in Egypt.
Abstract
Following the pioneering work of the English architect Somers Clarke in the first
decade of the 20th century, a group of foreign architects continued the tradition of
building in mud brick. Their work was concentrated in Luxor, and served the needs
of archaeological missions that required accommodation and workspace while
engaged upon the excavation and documentation of the numerous antiquities sites in
the region. These expedition houses collectively represent the first revival of the
vernacular mud brick tradition in combination with a European Arts and Crafts
aesthetic. It is the description and contextualisation of this hitherto ignored corpus
of buildings that forms the core of this article, supplemented by a discussion of the
continuity of the typology of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt to the present
day.
Living on the Past
The early exploration of Egypt’s pharaonic heritage by foreigners, before archaeology
had been developed as a discipline, most often took the form of direct exploitation.
Whether under the spurious guise of science or guided by honest greed, many were
driven to plunder Egypt’s past and export it for display in foreign museums or private
collections. For much of the 19th century this behaviour was accepted by the rulers
of Egypt, who found it hard to comprehend the attraction of such relics i and
preferred to utilise the raw materials from the past in the form of ready-cut stone
for building, mummy wrappings for the manufacture of paper, and mud bricks for
fertiliser. ii Nowhere was this activity felt so strongly as in Luxor, with its plethora of
tombs and temples within a geographically confined territory. Competition was
particularly fierce in the 1820s when the consuls of Britain and France, Henry Salt
and Bernardino Drovetti, battled it out with their respective agents for the choicest
pieces. The early explorers and plunderers, just as the archaeologists of today,
needed accommodation close to their livelihood, from where they could wage often
long-lasting looting campaigns. For this purpose, Salt’s agent, Giovanni d’Athanasi,
built a substantial mud brick house directly over a pharaonic tomb on the west
bank, iii while Drovetti constructed for himself a dwelling of mud brick atop the first
pylon of Karnak temple on the east bank. iv This spatial opposition reflected the
agreement (occasionally violated) that the British would lay claim to the antiquities
west of the Nile, and the French to those on the opposing bank. v
By the beginning of the 20th century, archaeologists began to replace antiquities
looters in the cultural landscape of Luxor, but national interests remained
paramount. The first proper expedition house was that of the Germans, built in 1905
on the west bank of the river out of fired brick, with a tower and crenellations that
emulated the design of the gatehouse at the nearby New Kingdom temple of
Medinat Habu. vi National prejudice, fostered by the outbreak of the First World
War, led to the structure being dynamited in 1915. Other expedition houses soon
followed the German example. The fact that these were mud brick, rather than fired
brick, structures may be partly due to the influence of the English architect Somers
Clarke. vii In 1906, Clarke built himself an enormous mud brick house at al-Kab,
complete with twenty-seven domes over six meters in height, that was visible to all
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those travelling on the Nile between Aswan and Luxor. viii He also contributed
several studies on ancient building crafts, of which one was mud brick construction.
In the two decades that followed the building of Clarke’s own home, three large mud
brick expedition houses were built in Luxor on the desert margin of the west bank
of the Nile. They served the practical needs of the growing number of foreign
archaeologists and institutes then engaged on the archaeological exploration of the
area. Although the First World War had slowed this activity, international interest
was aroused once again by the discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun in 1924.
Indeed, Howard Carter himself built the first of this group of three houses, thirteen
years in advance of his great discovery.
Carter House
Howard Carter first met Somers Clarke in the 1890s while engaged on the
clearance, recording, and restoration of the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Deir
al-Bahri for the Egypt Exploration Society. Carter was ‘in charge of the many
constructional and small engineering operations which continued season after
season. His mentor and point of reference in such matters was Somers Clarke. Each
year [Clarke] made visits to Deir al-Bahri to prepare annual strategies for action, to
instruct Howard Carter in technicalities, and to leave him to get on with the work.
His advice and practical experience were crucial.’ ix The relationship between the two
men remained sound until Clarke’s death to judge from surviving correspondence. x
In 1911, Carter built himself a new dig house with the financial assistance of his
patron Lord Carnarvon (figure1). The house was situated on a low rise in the
ground at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings, the focus of their archaeological
quest. The spot was known colloquially as ‘The Place of the Flies’, but it is unclear
why this location was singled out above others for the attention of these insects. It
has been suggested that Carter himself designed the house, xi but a closer
examination of its detailing indicates that Clarke may have been involved as an
advisor to the project. Several commentators have supposed that Carnarvon’s
contribution extended beyond simple financing to the manufacture of fired bricks for
the construction of the house, made in a factory he owned at Bretby in England and
exported to Luxor. xii This assumption is primarily based on the survival at the house
of a single massive engineering brick (c.40 x 25 x 40 centimeters) stamped with the
legend ‘Made at Bretby England for Howard Carter A.D. Thebes 1910.’ This loose
brick was put on display in the vestibule of the house in 2009, when it was opened as
an interpretative centre serving the Valley of the Kings. The renovation of the house
that took place prior to this event, however, revealed no further bricks of this type
used anywhere in the structure, whether in the foundations or door jambs. xiii Indeed,
the house has sandstone rubble foundations and a superstructure built entirely of
mud bricks. Other bricks bearing the same legend are known to survive in England. xiv
This evidence suggests that the use of imported bricks from Bretby may have been
an initial idea for the house that was wisely discarded, or may have been a simple act
of commemoration on the part of Carnarvon.
The original elements of Carter House have, in some cases, been obscured by later
constructions on its western flank. The general disposition of the principal rooms is,
however, clear. The house follows an exact north-south orientation, and has a
square plan with a small rectangular vestibule placed on axis to the north, facing the
Valley of the Kings (figure 2). At the center of the house, connected to the
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entrance vestibule by a corridor, stands a hall with a dome. Doors from this hall give
access to four large rooms and another corridor leading to the kitchen. Of the three
rooms on the southern side of the house, the two occupying the corners (a dining
room and a living room) each have doors onto veranda spaces with three arched
openings facing due south, the central opening being wider than those that flank it
(figure 3). Between these two verandas, but not connected to them, is the third
room which may have been a study, square in plan with a single rectangular window.
The largest of the rooms in the house is that on the northeast corner. This room is
unusual in that the north wall is symmetrically canted, almost as if it were a shallow
bay window. When first built, the room only had a single window in its northern
wall, but another window was added later to the east. The room was latterly used as
a large workspace for the examination and treatment of objects found in the tomb of
Tutankhamun.
Inside the house, three spaces have paired semicircular-arched niches in them: the
corridors leading to the central domed hall, and the workroom on the northeast
corner. Internal doors are simple plank constructions, and windows are glazed
casements with external wooden shutters. The main rooms of the house have a
number of additional small high-level windows for ventilation. The floors are made of
cement tile, and the roofs are all timber beam structures. Mud brick piers can be
seen above the verandas that suggest secondary shade roofs may once have covered
these spaces. No provision for electric light is apparent in any of the archival
photographs of the interior (figure 4), although this may have been added in the
1920s. The only significant architectural elaboration is reserved for the dome. This
has a curious, not very Egyptian, arrangement of double-arched squinches supported
on classical wooden brackets (figure 5). A similar treatment can be observed in the
squinches below the principal dome of St. Mark’s church at Aswan, built by Somers
Clarke in the late-1890s. xv The hemispherical dome at Carter’s house has no lantern,
but sits directly above these squinches, and is pierced by four small opening
windows. It is crowned with finial made of wood or copper.
The area to the west of the main block was clearly developed in phases. One of the
earliest known photographs of the house, taken from the north, shows a square
ancillary structure in this area. It is not known whether this contained the
photographic laboratory used by Harry Burton in the preparation of the
documentation of the tomb of Tutankhamun and its artefacts, or whether the
laboratory was built following the discovery of the tomb. Today the laboratory and
developing room are approached through a small subsidiary vestibule with a
windscoop positioned over it, and a built-in stand for water jars. This vestibule also
gives access to a bathroom. More recent additions have been made to the south of
this annex, and a walled courtyard created to the north of the kitchen.
Those visiting the house in 1911 shortly after its completion were favourably
impressed. The peripatetic Mrs Andrews, the companion of the noted financier
Theodore Davis, wrote: ‘Theo and I had a charming afternoon with Mr. Carter in his
new house – so well built and arranged and pretty – it looked like the abode of an
artist and a scholar’. xvi The noted Egyptologist Alan Gardiner commented: ‘[The
house] is quite delightful; simple mud walls not rendered conspicuous by any plaster;
very little furniture, but what there is artistic. In the middle is a little domed hall
quite in the ancient Arabic style.’ xvii Carter willed his house (‘Castle Carter’ as it was
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commonly known) together with its contents to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
upon his death in 1939. It subsequently became the property of the Egyptian
Antiquities Department, who used it as a resthouse for inspectors until its
conversion in 2009 into a visitors’ center.
Metropolitan House
Standing slightly to the south-east of the great temples of Deir el-Bahri, on a slight
rise in the hills known as the Assasif that frame the funerary monuments of the west
bank of Luxor, is a sprawling single storey house. The house is fronted by verandas
and crowned by domes in several places. This is the former expedition house of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, in use by the expedition from the time of its
completion in 1913 to 1948. It was subsequently taken over by the Polish Centre for
Mediterranean Archaeology, and has remained in use as a dig-house until today.
Compared to Carter House, Metropolitan House (as it is often still referred to) was
a far more sophisticated piece of architecture. An English architect, William John
Palmer-Jones (1887 -1974), who was employed as the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Egyptian Expedition's first architect from 1908-13, was responsible for the design.
Jones (he added the name Palmer when he married in 1911) was trained at the
Architectural Association in London, and probably first came to Egypt in 1909.
Architectural documentation drawings by him from this period survive. xviii They
include two drawings for Max Herz Pasha, the Chief Architect of the Comité de
Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe that was charged with the protection
of Egypt’s Coptic and Islamic monuments. For the Museum expedition, Palmer-Jones
worked at several sites around Egypt, primarily engaged on the task of architectural
recording, including the sites of Lisht, Kharga Oasis, Wadi Natrun, and Malkata at
Thebes. He also may have been involved in the architectural conservation of the
Hibis temple in Kharga, xix although the records of the Metropolitan Museum suggest
that his contribution was limited to documentation, and that Emile Baraize, the
engineer of the Service des Antiquités, carried out the conservation. xx
The genesis of the Expedition House at Assasif is closely connected to the great
American financier and collector, J.P. Morgan. xxi It was Morgan who established the
fund under which the Expedition operated in 1907, and he who was the President of
the Board of Trustees of the Museum at the time. The idea of the house may have
taken root on Morgan’s first trip to Egypt in 1909, accompanied by Albert Lythgoe,
then director of the Egyptian Department. Lythgoe’s wife comments in her diary
entry for February 7 1912 that “Mr. Morgan had been anxious that we should build
here at Thebes a large and adequate Expedition headquarters with comfortable living
rooms and every facility for our work, and it was at this time that he approved of the
plans which we submitted to him for such an Expedition House. Work was begun at
once, and Winlock xxii carried the construction forward.” xxiii The first indication of the
project’s design can be found in unpublished correspondence files in the
Metropolitan Museum. xxiv In October 1911 Palmer-Jones wrote from London to
Lythgoe enclosing sketches for the Luxor expedition house. Morgan advanced the
sum of £750 in March 1912 for the project to proceed, and construction of the
house took exactly a year. He visited the completed building on February 6 1913
shortly before his sudden death, and the loan was repaid to his estate by the
Museum shortly thereafter. xxv
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Despite Lucy Lythgoe’s assertion that the building project was overseen by Winlock,
Palmer-Jones himself must have been on hand to supervise the construction
personally as he was carrying out field-work for the Expedition at the nearby Palace
of Amenhotep III at Malkata at the same time. The discovery of this astonishing,
richly decorated, structure does not, however, seem to have materially affected the
design of the expedition house, whose exterior is shown in a perspective exhibited
in 1912 at the Royal Academy and now in the Metropolitan Museum archive (figure
6). xxvi The small plan with a key that is also included on this drawing bears some
slight differences with another much larger dimensioned plan in the archive (figure
7). xxvii
Palmer-Jones’ design for the Metropolitan Museum’s Expedition House seems to
have been inspired to a certain extent by the Coptic monastic architecture he
recorded while working in the Wadi Natrun. In this respect he shared the interests
of Somers Clarke. The architecture of these monasteries is characterized by large
mud brick structures made up in many cases of vaults and domes. Palmer-Jones
wrote two articles for the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that attest to
his interest in this subject. xxviii His contribution in the field of drawings and
photographs is also noted in the introductions to two major books that were the
fruits of the Museum’s involvement in the monasteries of the Wadi Natrun. xxix That
Palmer-Jones knew Somers Clarke personally seems more than likely, since he refers
to the latter’s work in correspondence dating to 1909, xxx but the two architects
seem to have had no recorded personal or professional exchanges.
Palmer-Jones designed the house to be responsive to general environmental
concerns as well as to the specific topography of the hill behind it. The builder used
for the project is reported to have been a local man called ‘Anerdullah’ [sic]. xxxi The
house faces north-west, the direction from which the prevailing breeze blows. The
main structure is constructed of unplastered mud brick masonry with bricks
measuring 10 x 20 x 7 centimeters laid in ‘English Bond’ (figure 8). This is set over a
battered stone rubble and mud mortar plinth, capped with a soldier course of fired
bricks. The plan has two unequal wings separated by a central suite of rooms housing
the main entrance, living room, and dining room. The wings contain the staff
bedrooms and are fronted by deep verandas with piers and arches (figure 9). Such
verandas owe little to local architectural traditions, but are a feature of most British
colonial-era constructions from Gibraltar to Hong-Kong. They serve as shaded
‘lounging’ spaces. The fact that the western, smaller, wing of the house is set back
against the hillside provides space at the front of the building for an off-axis entrance.
A flight of stone steps leads up to the central public rooms that are ‘wrapped’ by an
ambulatory that is part veranda (where the stairs reach the building), and part
corridor. The entrance to the public rooms is accentuated architecturally by a baywindow projection on the façade: this axis is only reached, however, by negotiating a
180 degree turn in the plan – perhaps a nod to the eastern tradition of never
entering a house directly.
Three spaces within the house are covered with domes. At each end of the open
veranda, a shallow dome sits over a two-tier octagonal drum without openings. To
the west this space is enclosed to form a room (part of the director’s suite), while to
the east it remains open, being part of the veranda itself that returns to the south.
The third dome is that which covers the living room at the centre of the plan. This
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dome is much larger, with a diameter of four meters, and has a high octagonal drum
with semicircular arched reveals into which are set rectangular windows: the dome
is topped off with a ceramic ornament, in the style of Clarke’s house at al-Kab. All
the remainder of the roofs are flat timber beam constructions with secondary,
ventilated, shading roofs over them to provide for improved thermal insulation
(figure 10).
All the windows in the house are of wood, with wooden shutters. The interior is
plastered with a lime wash except for the semicircular arches supporting the main
dome over the living room and some other smaller arches (figure 11). These
arches are constructed of fired brick, and spring from squared blocks of limestone.
The floors are finished with modest grey cement tiles. The original furnishings were
mostly purchased from London, with a number of local touches such as mashrabiyya
(turned wood) screens, oriental rugs, brass hanging lamps and tabouret tables. The
house was also lit by electric light: a real luxury.
The perspective rendering by Palmer-Jones of the exterior of the house, executed in
pencil, pastel, and watercolour wash, owes more than a little to the contemporary
representational styles of Charles Rennie Mackintosh or the Vienna School. It also
demonstrates certain divergences between the original design and the final building
(figure 12). Perhaps the most noteworthy of these differences is that the original
design shows the building with a white lime-wash finish, whereas it was completed in
fair-faced brickwork. The external staircase that rises to the podium of the house
was switched from a north-south to an east-west orientation running parallel to the
main veranda arcade. The domes also exhibit certain differences between the
perspective and the as-built condition: the small corner domes became more
complex, with raised octagonal stepped drums, while the central dome was made
more simple: the as-built version does not have the elliptical profile seen in the
perspective or the keel arched window niches in the zone of transition. A semidome was also constructed over the bay window on the axis of the entrance hall, in
response to a change in plan from a rectangular to a facetted projection. The
‘Mission Style’ bell emplacement over the front entrance is a later addition to the
structure.
Immediately to the south of Metropolitan Museum House stands another mud brick
house of the same period (figure13). This was constructed by Nina and Norman de
Garis Davies, xxxii long-term members of the Expedition who documented the tombs
of the area in remarkable detail. The house is on a relatively small scale but has an
elegant timber porch and a diminutive dome with a wooden finial. Perhaps because
of the artistic nature of its inhabitants (Nina had studied painting with Walter
Crane), delicate details such as mashrabiyya, for the balustrades and some windows,
and scalloped eaves are employed. The construction of the core of this building was
carried out in 1907, before the Metropolitan Museum House was built. xxxiii The
house was extended in 1913 and the dome was added at a still later date. xxxiv In 2010
the building was in occasional use by the staff of the antiquities department. xxxv
Chicago House
The largest mud brick house to be constructed on the west bank of Luxor was built
to house the Epigraphic Survey xxxvi of the Oriental Institute of the University of
Chicago in 1924. It was situated immediately behind the demolished temple of
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Amenhotep III, whose sole visible remains at that time were the two enormous
seated statues known as the ‘Colossi of Memnon’. Unlike Carter House and
Metropolitan House, the structure no longer survives: the Epigraphic Survey moved
to its present headquarters on the East Bank in 1930-31. An image of the exterior of
the first Chicago House, dating to shortly after its construction, can be found in Mrs.
Harry Burton's Guest Book for the Metropolitan House, along with a note by
Charles Wilkinson on its unsanitary situation: "The Chicago House shown in this
album was the first one...built by Anerdullah [sic] who was the builder of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art house...but from inferior plans. Perhaps through being
built at the edge of the cultivation and a possible polluted water supply there was
considerable hepatitis. A library was later added - financed by Rosenwald - it was
opened to the strains of Aida on the gramophone and toasts in ginger ale in lieu of
champagne."xxxvii
The origins of the design for this house can be traced back to a meeting in Cairo on
April 1 1924 between James Henry Breasted (the founding Director of the Oriental
Institute of the University of Chicago), Harold Hayden Nelson (the first Field
Director of the Epigraphic Survey), and Arthur Robert Callender (the British
engineer who was Howard Carter's assistant during the clearance of the Tomb of
Tutankhamun). xxxviii Although the drawings of "Old" Chicago House that survive in
the Oriental Institute Archives bear no indication of the name of the designer, xxxix it
is highly likely that Callender was responsible working in collaboration with Breasted
and Nelson. Callender worked as an engineer for the Egyptian State Railways until
his retirement in about 1920, after which he built a house for himself at Armant,
south of Luxor. xl The initial construction of the house was completed in early
November 1924, and the building received at least two additions prior to 1930. The
possible influence of Somers Clarke on the design of the house is purely tangential:
Callender would have known him as an associate of Carter, and Breasted paid at
least one visit to the house at al-Kab during the winter season of 1922-23.
Photographs of Clarke’s house survive in the Oriental Institute archive in Chicago, xli
and a postcard from Breasted to Clarke, showing the newly built Chicago house
shortly after its completion dated March 8 1925, can be found in the Griffith Institute
archive in Oxford (figure 14). xlii
The exterior of the house, when first built, was relatively utilitarian. Its rectangular
windows were accentuated with a protruding decorative semicircular arch above
them, half a brick thick. The main block was emphasized by two domes on its eastwest axis: a large egg-shaped dome on an octagonal base (without fenestration) and a
much smaller dome to the west, more or less centred on the mass of the building. It
is not known what spaces the domes covered, but there is likely to have been some
point of circulation under the small dome and a main reception space under the big
dome. To the north of the main domed area, a large veranda with five semicircular
arches on piers faced east. There seems to have been no clearly expressed main
entrance on the façade, only a number of doors around the perimeter. The main
roof of the building was obviously a timber beam construction, over which a
secondary shade roof was constructed, much in the manner of the earlier
Metropolitan Museum house.
Later phases of construction at the house included a fence around the property,
another veranda on the south side, and ancillary work and storage facilities also to
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the south. The main addition, however, was made in the winter of 1928-29 when a
new library wing was built to the west, financed by Julius Rosenwald. It is not known
whether the services of the original architect were retained for this project. The
library was framed by a series of large pointed arches, seen under construction in
figure 15, and was expressed on the west façade by a large four-sided projecting
bay, lit by four semicircular arched windows and covered by a semidome, as at the
Metropolitan Museum house (figure 16). The interior of the library was gracious in
its proportions, entirely plastered white with a quarry-tiled floor and a suspended
wooden boarded ceiling with a diagonal grid of applied wooden strips (figure 17).
All the rooms in the house were provided with electrical light, and the bedrooms
had with Spartan yet functional fixtures (figure 18).
Despite the construction of its fine new library in 1929, the Epigraphic Survey moved
to its present headquarters on the East Bank the following year. xliii The University of
Chicago retained title to the original property until 1940. Parts of the buildings were
used for storage magazines after 1930, but the facility was essentially unoccupied
until the season of 1939-40, when furnishings that had not already been transferred
for use at "New" Chicago House were auctioned. In early 1940, Nelson reported to
Professor John A. Wilson (Breasted's successor as Director of the Oriental Institute)
that the buildings had been totally demolished and the construction materials sold
off. xliv The site was then sold to an anonymous local landowner and subsequently
overbuilt.
Aftermath
The mud brick architecture of Clarke and his contemporaries in Egypt seems to have
had no resonance in the work of later Egyptian architects. This appears strange,
particularly given the prominence of the buildings in Luxor. Both Ramses WissaWassef (1911-74) and Hassan Fathy (1900-89), who were deeply concerned with the
survival of the tradition of mud brick architecture in Egypt, seem to have been
unaware of their existence, or indeed of Clarke’s diverse writings on the subject of
mud brick building. xlv It was not until the1940s that Hassan Fathy began to build in
the ‘vernacular style’, after the personal epiphany he describes in Gourna. A Tale of
Two Villages. xlvi One of the houses he constructed that still survives is on the west
bank at Luxor, directly overlooking Carter House on a hill at the entrance to the
Valley of the Kings. A conservator working for the Antiquities Service on the Theban
tombs, Dr. Alexandre Stoppelaere, xlvii commissioned the building in 1950 after seeing
Fathy’s work at nearby New Gurna (1946). Like the earlier houses on the west bank,
the Stoppelaere House was expressly designed as an expedition house and contained
spaces for drafting and working within it. xlviii
The house provides ample evidence for Fathy’s mastery of forms resulting from the
expression of mud brick vaulting techniques, and contains many architectural details
that are characteristic of his work. The building is a long rectangle in plan and, like
Carter House, is oriented to the cardinal points (figure 19). Here, however, the
main bedrooms are sensibly disposed along the north side to take advantage of the
prevailing winds. The main entrance lies to the south, adjacent to a small, partly
enclosed, garden. Within, the house is split into two areas: one for the director at
the west end and the remainder devoted to common areas and staff bedrooms. The
most significant difference between this house and its predecessors is that it has an
introverted quality bestowed in part by its organisation around three internal
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courtyards (one partially covered). There are four domes: one large one over the
main living area, and three smaller ones over the bedrooms. The dome over the
director’s suite has a much shallower pitch compared to the others that follow a
hemispherical profile. These domes have simple single-arched squinches and a
stepped zone of transition externally with small arched window openings at two
levels. Both barrel and inclined elliptical vaults of a variety of scales are employed,
together with deep arched recesses (iwans). A windcatcher (malqaf) with an open
diagonal brick screen is located over a small toilet, open to the north, and other
spaces also use this traditional method of brick screen. It is unfortunate that the
Stoppelaere House, owned by the Antiquities Service, has now been neglected for
more than two decades as it represents one of Hassan Fathy’s few surviving works
from the early period of his activity.
In the latter half of the twentieth century it has, however, been predominantly
foreign organisations and architects that have continued to build excavation houses
out of mud brick, motivated by the low cost of the raw materials as well as strong
aesthetic preferences. In the past forty years, mud brick houses have been
constructed at Dendera by the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale (1968), at
Aswan and at Luxor xlix by the German Archaeological Institute (1973 and 1979), and
at Hierakonpolis (1996). Away from the Nile Valley, in the western desert oasis of
Dakhleh, other houses have been built by the Dakhleh Oasis Project and Columbia
University and Cologne University (1990s). The earliest example in Dakhleh,
however, was built in 1978 for the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale. The
French architect Georges Castel designed this building for a site near the Old
Kingdom remains of Balat. l It is undoubtedly the most ambitious of all the later
excavation houses in its architectural expression, with over thirty mud brick domes
arranged around a courtyard, and is a worthy follower in the tradition first
established by Clarke at al-Kab in 1906 and continued by others at Luxor in the
1910s and 1920s.
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I am grateful to the Royal Institute of British Architects for the research award in 2008 that allowed
me to prepare this article.
i
For the attitude of Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha, ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1849, see H. von Pückler-
Muskau, Aus Mehemed Ali’s Reich, vom Verfasser der Briefe eines Verstorbenen 3 vols. (Stuttgart:
s.n., 1844), vol.2, 125.
ii
The full scope of the destruction is outlined in G.R. Gliddon, An Appeal to the Antiquarians of
Europe on the Destruction of the Monuments of Egypt (London: s.n., 1841).
iii
Described by Edward William Lane in 1832. See. J. Thompson, Sir Gardner Wilkinson and his Circle
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992), 105. This house in the village of Gurna was only demolished
in 2008 in the government-sponsored mass clearance of all ‘invasive’ structures on the Theban hills.
From 1827, Wilkinson himself occupied a rock-cut tomb close by to which he made mud brick
additions over the years. See Thompson, op.cit., 104 and the portfolio of Robert Hay in the British
Library, BL. Add. Mss. 29816:130 for a view.
iv
For details of this house see E. de Montulé, Travels in Egypt during 1818 and 1819 (London: Sir R.
Phillips & Co, 1821), 26: “In the midst of the ruins of Karnak…rises a portal sixty feet high, where M.
Drovetti…has caused an earthen house to be constructed, from where he appears to command the
precious relics of antiquity that surround him.”
v
J-J. Rifaud to B. Drovetti, 14 Jun. 1822, letter no.163, S. Curto and L. Donatelli, Bernardino Drovetti
Epistolario (1800-1851) (Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino - La Goliardica, 1985), 209-12.
vi
For an image, see D. Polz, “Das Deutsche Haus in Theben: ‘die Möglichkeit gründlicher Arbeit und
Frischen Schaffens,’” in G. Dreyer and D. Polz (eds.), Begegnung mit der Vergangenheit-100 Jahre in
Ägypten: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Kairo 1907-2007 (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern,
2007), 27.
vii
For Clarke’s activities, see N. Warner, “Somers-Clarke (1841-1926) and the Revival of Mud Brick
Architecture in Egypt,” forthcoming and S. Clarke, “The Use of Mud-Brick in Egypt,” The Cairo
Scientific Journal 2 no.21 (June 1908), 211-220.
viii
The house, which still survives, marks the beginning of a trend amongst architects to build in mud
brick that reached its apogee in the constructions of Hassan Fathy.
ix
T.G.H. James, Howard Carter. The Path to Tutankhamun (London & New York: Kegan Paul
International 1992), 62.
x
James, Howard Carter, 342, cites a letter from Clarke written in 1925 to H.R.H. Hall, Keeper of
Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum.
xi
N. Reeves and J. Taylor, Howard Carter Before Tutankhamun (London: British Museum Press,
1992), 104.
xii
James, Howard Carter, 158-9; Reeves and Taylor, Howard Carter Before Tutankhamun, 104.
xiii
Hani al-Miniawi (architect for the restoration of Carter House), pers. com., 23 May 2010.
xiv
James, Howard Carter, 159, n.43.
xv
Cf. Warner, “Somers-Clarke,” figure 22.
10
RIBA Research Trust Award
Nicholas Warner: Building with Mud
xvi
Emma B. Andrews, A Journal on the Bedawin 1889-1912. The Diary kept on board the Dahabiyeh
of Theodore M. Davis during 17 Trips up the Nile unpublished typescript in 2 vols., 19 Feb. 1911,
Department of Egyptian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
xvii
Alan Gardiner to Margaret Gardiner, 4 Oct. 1911, quoted by James, Howard Carter, 159.
xviii
See for example AM2273 and AM2145, Department of Egyptian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.
xix
The entry for Palmer-Jones in F. Chatterton (ed.) Who’s Who in Architecture (London:
Architectural Press, 1926), 225-26 indicates this. Palmer-Jones is credited as one of those responsible
for plans and drawings in H.E. Winlock, The Temple of Hibis in el-Khārgeh Oasis Part 1. The
Excavations (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Expedition 1941).
xx
See A.M. Lythgoe, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (henceforth BMMA) 5, no.10, Oct.
1910, 222.
xxi
For more background on Morgan, see Jean Strouse, “J. Pierpont Morgan: Financier and Collector,”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 57, no.3, Winter 2000.
xxii
Winlock was then a young Egyptologist destined to be Lythgoe’s successor as Director of the
expedition in Egypt, later head of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities and Director of the
Museum.
xxiii
Mr. Morgan’s visits to Egypt 1909-1913. Extracts from the Diary of Lucy T. Lythgoe with
comments by A.M. Lythgoe, unpublished typescript, 21, Department of Egyptian Art, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York.
xxiv
I am grateful to Christine Liliquist and Susan Allan, Department of Egyptian Art, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, for fielding my questions and guiding me to the relevant material.
xxv
Internal Memorandum filed under “Palmer-Jones in Egypt,” Department of Egyptian Art,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
xxvi
W. Palmer-Jones, House at el-Assasif nr Luxor, Egypt for the Egyptian Expedition of the Met.
Museum of Art, N.Y. Pencil and pastel, 33.5cm high x 51cm wide, signed and dated. AM2183,
Department of Egyptian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
xxvii
Perhaps drawn by Walter Hauser. Pencil and watercolour, c.75 x 105cm. AM2182, Department of
Egyptian art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
xxviii
“The Coptic Monasteries of the Wadi Natrun,” BMMA 6: 2 (Feb. 1911), 19–29; ‘Monasteries of
the Wady Natrun’, BMMA 6: 5 (May 1912), 84–90
xxix
Walter Hauser, Prefatory Note in Hugh G. Evelyn White, The Monasteries of the Wâdi Æn
Natrûn, Part II. The History of the Monasteries of Nitria and of Scetis (New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 1932), vii; Hugh G. Evelyn White, The Monasteries of The Wâdi Æn Natrûn, Part III.
The Architecture and Archaeology (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1933), vii.
xxx
Palmer-Jones to Lythgoe, Dec. 20 1909, Palmer-Jones correspondence, Department of Egyptian
Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
xxxi
Noted by Charles Wilkinson in the 1924-25 section of the Guest Book of Mrs. H. Burton of
Visitors to the Metropolitan Museum Egyptian Expedition House Gourna opposite a photograph of
11
RIBA Research Trust Award
Nicholas Warner: Building with Mud
the First Chicago House, constructed in 1924 by the same contractor. See MMA 1976.200,
Department of Egyptian Art Archive, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
xxxii
For the careers of this remarkable husband and wife team, see M. Bierbrier, Who was who in
Egyptology (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1995), 117-19.
xxxiii
Anonymous photographer, photographic print 1907 (dated on verso), 12.11, Somers Clarke
Archive, Griffith Institute, University of Oxford.
xxxiv
Anonymous photographer, photographic print 1913 (dated on verso), 12.10, Somers Clarke
Archive, Griffith Institute, University of Oxford. See also 12.15 and 12.16 for photographs of the
construction.
xxxv
The interior was not accessible at time of writing.
xxxvi
For an overview of the history of the Epigraphic Survey see W.R. Johnson, “The Epigraphic Survey
in Luxor: the first seventy-five years,” The Oriental Institute News and Notes, No. 164, Winter 2000.
xxxvii
Guest Book of Mrs. H. Burton of visitors to the Met. Mus. Eg. Exp. House, Gourna, 1976.200,
Department of Egyptian Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
xxxviii
xxxix
Dr. John A. Larson, University of Chicago Oriental Institute Museum Archivist, pers. comm.
This archive has unfortunately been inaccessible in recent years.
xl
Bierbrier, Who was who in Egyptology, 77-8.
xli
J.H. Breasted, photographic print 10084 / negative 4966 and photographic print 10085 / negative
4967, 1922-23, Oriental Institute Photographic Archive, University of Chicago, Chicago.
xlii
Anonymous photographer, photographic print, 19.30, Somers Clarke Archive, Griffith Institute,
University of Oxford.
xliii
I am grateful to the current director of the Epigraphic Survey, Dr. Ray Johnson, and Sue Lezon for
giving me access to the Institute’s photographic archive.
xliv
Larson, pers.comm.
xlv
The library of Fathy, held by the American University in Cairo, contains none of Clarke’s works.
xlvi
See H. Fathy, Gourna. A Tale of Two Villages (Cairo: Ministry of Culture, 1969), 6-11.
xlvii
For biographical information on Stoppelaere, see Bierbrier, Who was who in Egyptology, 406.
xlviii
For a brief description and photographs of the Stoppelaere House, see J. Steele, An Architecture
for People. The Complete Works of Hassan Fathy (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997), 91-95. The
published plan is inaccurate, and I am grateful to Dr. Kent Weeks and the Theban Mapping Project for
providing drawings by Walton Chan from a survey carried out in 2000.
xlix
l
Polz, “Das Deutsche Haus in Theben,” 29-30.
G. Castel, “Construction pour l’IFAO d’une maison de fouille à Balat (Oasis de Dakhla),” Bulletin de
l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 78 (1978), 589-94. See also G. Castel,
“Construction d’un magasin d’antiquités à Douch (Oasis de Kharga),” Bulletin de l’Institut Français
d’Archéologie Orientale, 81 (1981), 149-58.
12
Building with mud: the evolution of the archaeological expedition house
in Egypt.
Illustrations and captions
Figure 1 Plan of Carter House, Luxor, 1912. Author’s drawing, 2010, after a survey
by Hani al-Miniawi. Key: 1 vestibule; 2 hall; 3 dome; 4 bedroom; 5 work room; 6
living room; 7 veranda; 8 dining room; 9 kitchen; 10 bathroom; 11 photographic
laboratory.
Figure 2 View of Carter House, Luxor, from north. Photographer, circa 1912,
courtesy John Carter.
Figure 3 View of Carter House, Luxor, from south. Author’s photo, 2010.
Figure 4 View of interior of Carter House, Luxor. Photographer, circa 1912,
courtesy John Carter.
Figure 5 Detail of squinch under dome, Carter House, Luxor. Author’s photo, 2010
Figure 6 House at el-Assasif nr. Luxor, Egypt for the Egyptian Expedition of the Met.
Museum of Art, N.Y., Pencil and pastel, 33.5cm high x 51cm wide, signed and dated.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Egyptian Antiquities, AM2183.
Figure 7 As-built plan of Metropolitan House. Author’s drawing after Walter Hauser
(?), undated pencil and watercolour plan, c.75 x 105cm. Metropolitan Museum of
Art, Department of Egyptian Antiquities, AM2182. Key: 1 entrance staircase; 2 hall; 3
main dome; 4 dining room; 5 east veranda and bedrooms; 6 west veranda and
bedrooms; 7 director’s suite; 8 bathroom; 9 kitchen; 10 work rooms.
Figure 8 Exterior view of Metropolitan House, Luxor, from the east while under
construction. Anonymous photographer, 1911, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of
Art, Department of Egyptian Antiquities, T22.
Figure 9 West veranda of Metropolitan House, Luxor. Anonymous photographer,
1912, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Egyptian Antiquities,
T337.
Figure 10 Exterior view of Metropolitan House, Luxor, from the east. Anonymous
photographer, 1912, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Egyptian
Antiquities, M3866.
Figure 11 Interior views of Metropolitan House, Luxor. View from entrance
vestibule to dining room (left) and from dining room to entrance vestibule (right).
Photographs by H. Burton(?), 1912, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Department of Egyptian Antiquities, MM79399 (left) and MM3818.
Figure 12 Exterior view of Metropolitan House, Luxor, from the west. Anonymous
photographer, after 1912, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of
Egyptian Antiquities, M3815.
Figure 13 Exterior view of the Davies House, Luxor, seen from the south. Author’s
photo 2009.
Figure 14 Exterior view of Chicago House, Luxor, seen from the east. Anonymous
photographer, 1925, courtesy Griffith Institute, University of Oxford, Clarke Archive
19.30.
Figure 15 The Rosenwald Library, Chicago House, Luxor under construction.
Anonymous photographer, 1929, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago,
Epigraphic Survey Archive (Luxor) 17505.
Figure 16 View of Chicago House, Luxor from the west showing the addition of the
Rosenwald Library. Anonymous photographer, 1929, Oriental Institute of the
University of Chicago, Epigraphic Survey Archive (Luxor) 1045.
Figure 17 Interior views of the Rosenwald Library, Chicago House, Luxor looking
due west (top) and south-west. Anonymous photographer, 1929, Oriental Institute
of the University of Chicago, Epigraphic Survey Archive (Luxor) 1081 (top) and
1101.
Figure 18 Interior view of staff bedroom, Chicago House, Luxor. Anonymous
photographer, circa 1929, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Epigraphic
Survey Archive (Luxor) 1072.
Figure 19 Hassan Fathy, Stoppelare House, 1950. As built plan, sections, and
elevation by Walton Chan (surveyed 2000), courtesy Theban Mapping Project,
American University in Cairo.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.1 Plan of Carter House, Luxor, 1912. Author’s
drawing, 2010, after a survey by Hani al-Miniawi. Key: 1
vestibule; 2 hall; 3 dome; 4 bedroom; 5 work room; 6
living room; 7 veranda; 8 dining room; 9 kitchen; 10
bathroom; 11 photographic laboratory.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.2 View of Carter House, Luxor, from north.
Photographer, circa 1912, courtesy John Carter (high-res
pending).
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.3 View of Carter House, Luxor, from south. Author’s
photo, 2010.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.4 View of interior of Carter House, Luxor.
Photographer, circa 1912, courtesy John Carter (high-res
pending).
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.5 Detail of squinch under dome, Carter House, Luxor.
Author’s photo, 2010
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.6 House at el-Assasif nr. Luxor, Egypt for the
Egyptian Expedition of the Met. Museum of Art, N.Y.,
Pencil and pastel, 33.5cm high x 51cm wide, signed and
dated. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Egyptian
Antiquities, AM2183.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.7 As-built plan of Metropolitan House. Author’s
drawing after Walter Hauser (?), undated pencil and
watercolour plan, c.75 x 105cm. Metropolitan Museum of
Art, Department of Egyptian Antiquities, AM2182. Key: 1
entrance staircase; 2 hall; 3 main dome; 4 dining room; 5
east veranda and bedrooms; 6 west veranda and bedrooms; 7
director’s suite; 8 bathroom; 9 kitchen; 10 work rooms.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.8 Exterior view of Metropolitan House, Luxor, from
the east while under construction. Anonymous
photographer, 1911, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Department of Egyptian Antiquities, T22.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.9 West veranda of Metropolitan House, Luxor.
Anonymous photographer, 1912, courtesy Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Department of Egyptian Antiquities, T337.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.10 Exterior view of Metropolitan House, Luxor, from
the east. Anonymous photographer, 1912, courtesy
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Egyptian
Antiquities, M3866.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.11 Interior views of Metropolitan House, Luxor. View
from entrance vestibule to dining room (left) and from
dining room to entrance vestibule (right). Photographs by
H. Burton(?), 1912, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Department of Egyptian Antiquities, MM79399 (left) and
MM3818.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.12 Exterior view of Metropolitan House, Luxor, from
the west. Anonymous photographer, after 1912, courtesy
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Egyptian
Antiquities, M3815.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig. 13 Exterior view of the Davies House, Luxor, seen
from the south. Author’s photo 2009.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.14 Exterior view of Chicago House, Luxor, seen from
the east. Anonymous photographer, 1925, courtesy Griffith
Institute, University of Oxford, Clarke Archive 19.30.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.15 The Rosenwald Library, Chicago House, Luxor under
construction. Anonymous photographer, 1929, Oriental
Institute of the University of Chicago, Epigraphic Survey
Archive (Luxor) 17505.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.16 View of Chicago House, Luxor from the west showing
the addition of the Rosenwald Library. Anonymous
photographer, 1929, Oriental Institute of the University
of Chicago, Epigraphic Survey Archive (Luxor) 1045.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig.17 Interior views of the Rosenwald Library, Chicago
House, Luxor looking due west (top) and south-west.
Anonymous photographer, 1929, Oriental Institute of the
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
University of Chicago, Epigraphic Survey Archive (Luxor)
1081 (top) and 1101.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Fig18 Interior view of staff bedroom, Chicago House,
Luxor. Anonymous photographer, circa 1929, Oriental
Institute of the University of Chicago, Epigraphic Survey
Archive (Luxor) 1072.
The evolution of the mud brick expedition house in Egypt
Figure 19 Hassan Fathy, Stoppelare House, 1950. As built
plan, sections, and elevation by Walton Chan (surveyed
2000), courtesy Theban Mapping Project, American
University in Cairo.