Ancient Egyptian architecture

Ancient Egyptian architecture includes some of the most famous structures in the world: the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Temples of Thebes. Construction projects were organized and financed by the state not only for religious purposes and as monuments, but also to consolidate the pharaoh's vast power. The ancient Egyptians were skilled builders, using only simple but effective tools, and with such tools, architects were able to build large stone structures with great precision that would be the envy of modern architects.
The dwellings of elite and common Egyptians were built from perishable materials such as mud brick and wood, and therefore have not survived to this day. Peasants lived in simple houses, while the palaces of the nobility and the pharaoh were built with more complex architectural designs. The decorated walls and floors of the few surviving New Kingdom palaces, such as Malkatan and Amarna, are rich in depictions of human scenes, birds, bodies of water, deities, and geometric designs. Important structures such as temples and tombs, which were meant to last forever, were built with mud bricks rather than stone. The world's first large-scale stone structure, the Tomb complex of Djoser used architectural elements including semi-columns with lotus, palm and papyrus motifs representing Egyptian flora.
The oldest surviving Egyptian temples, such as the Temple at Giza, consisted of columns and separate attached halls. In the New Kingdom, architects added a pylon, an open courtyard, and an enclosed hall in front of the temple sanctuary, which was the standard until the Greco-Roman period. The earliest and most popular type of Old Kingdom tomb architecture was the mastaba, a rectangular structure with sloping walls and a flat roof. The step pyramid of Djoser was a series of stone mastabas with a series of pinnacles. Pyramids were built during the Old and Middle Kingdoms, but later rulers abandoned them in favor of less visible rock tombs. The use of the pyramid shape continued into the New Kingdom, especially in the construction of high-ranking tombs and royal Nubian pyramids.