This gallery contains photos of the original Nubian vaults at the funerary temple of Rameses II, on the West Bank of the Nile, at Luxor (the ancient city of Thebes, capital of the Egyptian empire for almost a millenium). The temple took over 20 years to build, and was completed in 1250 BC. The aerial photo below (courtesy of cyark) clearly shows some of the remaining vaults, in the northwest corner of the temple complex (in the left of the picture).
They were built as store-rooms, granaries, workshops, and living quarters for the tens of thousands of workers who built and serviced the temple. The fact that over a dozen of these mud brick vaults are still standing after more than 3,200 years is a tribute to the durability of the Nubian vault technique.
One of the most fascinating aspects of these vaults is that you can see the marks of the fingers of the brickmakers on the surface of the exposed bricks - ’frogging’ marks made in the wet clay to help the bricks adhere to the earth mortar and to each other.
A detailed description of the Ramesseum site, with plans and another aerial photo, by the archeologist Guy Lecuyot can be found here.
Hassan Fathy mosque and house at New Gourna
The famous Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy revived the Nubian vault (and dome) technique in the 1940’s, notably for constructions in New Gourna, a few km from the Ramesseum. Below are photos of two the few remaining buildings still in regular use: the mosque, and the house of the Abdel Rady family.
Further information on New Gourna is available from the entry on Hassan Fathy in our Links page.