Glossary · P

Pyramid

A solid on a square base whose four triangular faces meet at an apex; in Egypt the royal tomb of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, set out by its base and its seked.

Rules that use the word

The pyramid is a platform for a temple. Treat the stepped pyramid as a platform whose purpose is to lift a small temple towards the sky, reached by a single steep stair on its principal face; enlarge it by building a new shell over the old.

Lay out the city on a skewed sacred grid. Align the principal avenue and every building of the city to a single bearing (at Teotihuacan about 15½° east of north) so that the whole city shares one orientation with its great pyramids.

The seked of a pyramid. Specify the slope of a pyramid face by its seked: the number of palms (and fingers) by which the face runs inward for every cubit of rise. The height follows from half the base divided by the seked, times seven.

The Great Pyramid: 440 cubits by 280. The Great Pyramid of Khufu was laid out 440 royal cubits square and 280 cubits high, a seked of exactly 5½ palms and a slope of about 51°50′.

From mastaba to true pyramid. The royal tomb grew in about a century from a low battered mastaba, through a stack of diminishing mastabas (the step pyramid), to a smooth-faced true pyramid; a failure of stability in between forced the change of slope of the Bent Pyramid.

The bent pyramid: changing the seked in mid-course. When a steep pyramid shows signs of distress, flatten the slope of the upper part: Sneferu’s pyramid at Dahshur rises at about 54° for its lower part and about 43° above.

Where it appears in the book

In the chapters Walls and Openings, The Roof, Proportion and Number, The Ancient World, Byzantium and the Early Church, South and Southeast Asia, Enlightenment and Revival, Gardens and Landscape.

A feature of Ancient Egyptian, Mesoamerican, Khmer, Russian, Neoclassical architecture.

Nearby in the glossary

Pseudoperipteral · Purlin · Pycnostyle · Pylon · Pyramidion · Qibla · Quadrant vault · Quadratura