A short history of architecture

by Arthur Lyman Tuckerman

"A short history of architecture" by Arthur Lyman Tuckerman is a concise architectural history written in the late 19th century. It sketches the origins, principles, and hallmark features of major building traditions across cultures—moving from prehistoric stoneworks through Egypt, Asia, Greece, Rome, and on to medieval and Renaissance Europe—aimed at general readers and students, with minimal technical jargon. The beginning of this volume sets its purpose: to give the main facts of architectural development plainly, defining architecture as the union of utility and beauty, rooted in construction and decoration, and outlining the periods to be covered. It then surveys early evidence—Celtic megaliths (menhirs, dolmens, cromlechs like Stonehenge) as the first clear post‑and‑lintel thinking—and turns to Egypt’s tombs and temples (the Gizeh pyramids, the Sphinx, mastabahs and Beni Hassan “proto‑Doric” columns, Theban rock tombs, Karnak’s hypostyle hall, and Nubian rock temples), praising technical mastery while noting a rigid conventionality. Next come India’s stupas, rock‑cut caves, and monolithic temples (Ellora’s Kylas) and pagodas; China’s largely wooden tradition, great bridges, taas towers, and the Great Wall; and Mesopotamia–Persia: Assyrian palaces with winged bulls, early true arches and glazed bricks, staged temple‑towers (ziggurats), and Persepolis with its bull‑headed columns, followed by Sassanian elliptical vaults. The narrative briefly treats the Temple of Jerusalem and Lycian tombs that bridge wood and stone, then shifts to Greece—from Cyclopean Tiryns and Mycenae to the codified Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders and the monuments of the Athenian Acropolis (Propylæa, Parthenon, Erechtheion’s caryatids, Temple of Nike), with notes on theatres, houses, and colonial temples—before opening the section on Etruria and Rome’s adaptation of Greek orders to the arch and vault.