Volume II Part 8 (1/2)

These feords had to be given, in passing, to an hypothesis which has found much favour since the days of Champollion, but we hasten to resuyptian orders, and to class them by the varieties of their proportions and by the ever-increasing complication of their ornaonal column with a flat vertical band]

[Illustration: FIG 75--Polygonal pier with mask of Hathor; from Lepsius]

At Beni-Hassan and elsewhere we find pillars with two or four flat vertical bands dividing their flutes into as roups These bands are covered with incised inscriptions So

74), there are four flat bands inclosing five flutes between each pair Such an arrangement accentuates the difference between these so-called proto-doric pillars and the Greek doric column They take away from the proper character of the pillar, the inscribed tablet becomes the most important member of the composition, and the shaft to which it is attached seems to have been made for its display In the Greek order, on the other hand, ays find the structural requireht into absolute harmony with those of the aesthetic sentiment; every line of every detail is necessary both to builder and artist

A later variety of this type is found in a pillar in which the vertical band is interrupted to make room for a mask of Hathor, which is placed i 75) We find it in a te to Lepsius, frohteenth dynasty

After the eleventh dynasty we find h side by side with true polygonal piers, are columns in the strictest sense of the word; that is to say, their vertical section offers curvilinear forh, they are so far fro a development from the pier that they do not even distantly resemble it They may fairly be compared, however, with a type of colu of the ephemeral wooden or metal architecture whose forms have been preserved for us in the bas-reliefs of the Ancient E 54)[97]

[97] MARIETTE has shown this clearly in his _Voyage dans la Haute-egypte_ (p 52) ”This light column or shaft was not abandoned, it reappeared in stoneit reappeared to give birth to the great faggot-shaped coluht This column, with its capital in the shape of a lotus-bud or flower, is seen in its full development at Karnak, at Luxor, and in the first temple of the New Empire”

[Illustration: FIG 76--Column from Beni-Hassan; from Lepsius]

The shaft is formed of four bold vertical ribs, cruciforether at the top by narrow fillets The re-entering angles between the ribs are deep The horizontal section of the capital is similar to that of the shaft, froradually tapers to the top, where it76)

If four steether immediately beneath the point where the ste a rude resemblance to this coluot its origin has often been attributed The fillets which surround the shaft at its summit represent the cord wound several times round the stalks, the reeds which fill up the upper parts of the hollows between the ribs are meant for the ends of the knots

Not far from the remains of the labyrinth some columns formed upon a similar principle have been discovered Their shafts are coular on plan like stalks of papyrus The lower part of the shaft has a bold swell It springs from a corona of leaves and tapers as it rises The stalks are tied at the top with fro down between the ribs The buds which form the capital are also surrounded with leaves at their base

The nueeneral proportions, show that this column was the product of an art much more advanced than that of Beni-Hassan

Between the first and second Theban empires the form of the column underwent a development similar to that which we have already described in the case of the pier Its surface becaular; its horizontal section betrayed a constantly increasing tendency towards a circular form Moreover, like the edifices of which it formed a part, as it increased in size it turned its back upon its in and became a carefully constructed succession of horizontal courses

Thus we arrive, under the New Empire, at a colus at Thebes Its proportions are various, and so are the methods in which it is capped and decorated

The variant which preserves most resemblance to the colu 77)[98] It is faggot-shaped like its prototype, but the natural origin of its forms is much less clearly marked The capital recalls a bunch of lotus-buds in a very slight degree, the steatures are repeated in une of tinificance

[98] EBERS, _L'egypte_, p 185

The change beco e turn to another colu 78) The lotiforer faggot-shaped, except in a rudimentary fashi+on and over a very sature just below the capital, but the latter is encircled by a smooth band and is decorated with the uraeus; the botto band of painted leaves

[Illustration: FIG 77--Column at Luxor; _Description_, vol iii, pl 8]

[Illustration: FIG 78--Column at Medinet-Abou:; _Description_, vol

ii, pl 4]

Side by side with the type which we have just described we find another to which the holloard curve of the capital has given the na like it is to be found at Beni-Hassan, and no example, in stone, is extant from an earlier time than that of the Second Theban Empire[99] The base is small The flutes or separate stems have disappeared The shaft is either satures under the capital are still introduced The springing of the capital is decorated with leaves and flowers painted in brilliant colours A cubic abacus or die of stone stands upon the circular surface of the capital and trans power of the column to the architrave

[99] We shall call attention, however, to a hypogeum at Gizeh, which is numbered 81 in Lepsius's map of that tomb-field As at Beni-Hassan the cha (vol i pl 27, fig 1), the columns of this portico are caeneral appearance of the shaft vary greatly In the first court at Medinet-Abou it is short and stumpy, and the capital alone has received a few ornaments in relief

In the Great Hall at Karnak, on the other hand, it is taller, raceful in for (Fig 80) To give an idea of the colossal dimensions of these columns we need only repeat the often-made assertion that a hundred men can sit upon the upper surface of their capitals, which measure no less than 70 feet in circumference

[Illustration: FIG 79--Column at Medinet-Abou; _Description_, vol

ii, pl 6]

The shafts of both these coluradually froht that it is hardly perceptible by the eye In the hypostyle hall of the Ra 81), on the other hand, it tapers rapidly The columns in the central aisle come, by their proportions, midway between the thick-set type of Medinet-Abou and the lofty shafts of Karnak Their lower parts have the bulbous for of the lotiforh not so rich as that of Karnak, covers about one half of the whole surface