Volume II Part 10 (1/2)

The papyrus belongs to the faypt by several species, but the fas of mankind, the _Papyrus antiquoruypt, where it is only to be found in a few private gardens The ancients made it an object of special care It was cultivated in the Sebennitic noave a sufficiently accurate idea of its appearance when he described it as a ”peeled wand surreen plu 98) According to Theophrastus the plant attained to a height of ten cubits, or about sixteen feet[113] This eration The finest plants that I could find in the gardens of Alexandria did not reach ten feet

Their steular in section

[112] STRABO, xvii 1, 15

[113] Strabo only speaks of ten feet, which would agree better with modern experience

The reed-brakes which occur so frequently in the paintings consist of different varieties of the papyrus (Fig 8, Vol I) The uses to which the plant could be put were very numerous The root was used for fuel and other purposes The lower part of the stalk furnished a sweet and aromatic food substance, which was chewed either raw or boiled, for the sake of the juice[114] Veils, mats, sandals, &c, were made from the bark; candle and torch wicks from the bark; baskets and even boats from the stalk[115] As for the processes by which the precious fabric which the Greeks called ???? was obtained they will be found fully described in the paper of Dureau de-la-Malle _Sur le Papyrus et la Fabrication du Papier_[116] Our word _paper_ is derived fro reat services rendered to civilization by the inventive genius of the Egyptians The importation of the papyrus, which followed the establishypt in the tireatest influence upon the developht It created prose composition, and with it history, philosophy, and science

[114] DIODORUS, i 80

[115] PIERRET, _Dictionnaire d'Archeologie egyptienne_, see _Papyrus_ Upon the different varieties of papyrus, see also WILKINSON, vol ii p 121; pp 179-189; and EBERS, _aegypten_, pp 126, 127

[116] _Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions_, vol xix p

140, with one plate

[117] EGGER, _Des Origines de la Prose dans la Litterature Grecque_ (_Memoires de Litterature Ancienne_, xi)

The two plants which we have yptians that they constituted thereat divisions of the country were indicated in their writings The _papyrus_ was the emblem of the Delta, in whose lazy waters it luxuriated, and the lotus that of the Thebad[118]

[118] MASPERO, _Histoire Ancienne_, p 8

Besides this testimony to their importance, the careful descriptions left by the ancient travellers in Egypt, Herodotus and Strabo, also show the estiyptians; the palm alone could contest their well-earned supremacy

It is easy, then, to understand how the artist and ornaraceful forms We have already pointed out many instances of such e its importance, but we have yet to explain the ree of iyptian artist allowed himself

The lotus especially has been found everywhere by writers upon Egypt[119] The pointed leaves painted upon the lower parts of colunized as imitations of ”those scaly leaves which surround the point where the stem of the lotus, the papyrus, andto this theory the ligneous stem which rises from a depth beneath the water of, perhaps, six feet, and carries the large open flower at its top, was the prototype of the Egyptian column The bulbous form hich so many shafts are endowed at the base, would be another feature taken directly fro, which spread around the flower, are found about and below the capital, while the capital itself is nothing else, we are told, than the flower, sometimes fully opened, sometimes while yet in the bud When the shaft is srooved, it ether by a cord

[119] _Description de l'egypte_; _Hist Naturelle_, vol ii p

311 _Antiquites_, vol i _Description generale de Thebes_, p

133: ”Who can doubt that they wished to imitate the lotus in its entirety? The shaft of the column is the stem, the capital the flower, and, still more obviously, the lower part of the column seems to us an exact representation of that of the lotus and of plants in general”

[Illustration: FIG 98--Papyrus plant, drawn in the gardens of the Luxe, Paris, by M Saint-Elme Gautier]

Others make similar claims for the papyrus They refuse to adyptian orders were founded upon the lotus Mariette allowed that the capitals which we have called lotiform were copied from that plant, but he contended that the bell-shaped capital was freely copied from the plume of its rival He proposed that this latter capital should be called _papyriform_, and to my objections, which were founded upon the coyptians neglected what may be called internal details, and were contented with rendering the outward contours In support of his idea, he called attention to the fact that soular sections, like that of the papyrus stem

In spite of this latter fact, Mariette did not convert ular section is found are not crowned by an open flower The profiles of their capitals resemble that of a truncated bud, a form which cannot possibly be obtained from the papyrus, and they seem, therefore, to combine characteristics taken from two different plants His explanation of the campaniform capital seems still less admissable It is iracefully yielding to the wind, which is figured on page 127, we have the prototype of those inverted bells of stone, whose uninterrupted contours express so th and amplitude No less difficult is it to discover the first idea of those sturdy shafts which seehty architraves which they have to support, in the slender stalk of the famous water plant The hypostyle halls roves, to forests of pine, of oak, or of beech In such a co, but the papyrus, with its attenuated proportions and yielding fraetables, the least likely to have inspired the architects of Karnak and Luxor

The lotus seeht than the papyrus to be considered the unique origin of the for

All those resemblances, of which so much has been made, sink to very little when they are closely exanize the formless _folioles_ which cluster round the base of the stalk in those large and well-shaped triangular leaves with parallel ribs, which decorate the bases of Egyptian columns Moreover, these leaves reappear in other places, such as capitals, in which, if this explanation of their origin is to be accepted, they could have no place They frequently occur, also, at the foot of a wall As for the true circular leaf of the lotus, it is not to be found, except, perhaps in a few Ptolemaic capitals Its stem, concealed almost entirely by the estive than that of the papyrus of a massive stone column The bulbous form of the lower part of the shaft would be a constant form if it were an imitation of nature, whereas it is, in fact, exceptional With the capitals, however, it is different Those which are to be found at Thebes are referred, by common consent, to the lotus-bud And yet, perhaps, they resemble any other bud as much as that of the lotus It is, however, when they are fully open, that one flower is easily distinguishable from another by the shape and number of their petals, as well as by the variety of their colours Like babies in their cradles, unopened buds are strangely alike But seeing the place occupied by the lotus in the yptians, in their wooden architecture and painted decorations, it is natural enough to believe that it gave them their first hint for the capital in question; we have, therefore, not hesitated to use the epithet lotiform which has been consecrated to it by custom

As for the campaniform capital we find it difficult to allow that it represents the open flower of the lotus Froeneral lines of so to the family of the _Campanulaceae_ rather than to that of the nymphaeaceae The profile of this inverted bell, however, does not seeested by the wish to imitate any flohatever, least of all that of the lotus The capitals at Soleb and Sesebi (Figs 82 and 93) eeneral shapes and curves of date-tree branches Here there is nothing of the kind There is not the slightest indication of the elongated and crowded petals of the lotus Both at Karnak and at the Ra the stalks of papyrus and other freely imitated flowers, but _upon_ the columns and not in their shapes Both base and capital were ornamented with leaves and flowers

Their contours have been gently indicated with a pointed instrument and then filled in with brilliant colours, which help to relieve theround The whole decoration is superficial; it is not eeneral for explanation of the resemblances which do undoubtedly exist between certain details of Egyptian architecture and the forms of some of the national plants, is the most probable The stalks of the lotus and the papyrus are too weak and slender ever to have been used as supports by themselves, but it is quite possible that on _fete_ days, they were used to decorate pillars and posts ofbound round theot This fashi+on has itsthe columns of a church with cloth or velvet on special occasions, and in the French custoarlands and white cloth for the procession of the _Fete Dieu_

The river and the canals of Egypt offered all the elements for such a decoration The lotus and papyrus stems would be attached to the column which they decorated, at the top and bottom The leaves at the roots would lie about its base, those round the flower and the flower itself would droop gracefully beneath the architrave, would ee the capital when it existed, or supply its place when there was none The eyes of a people with so keen a perception of beauty as the Egyptians could not be insensible to the charreen leaves, with the splendour of the open flower and with the graceful forh that the architect, when he began to feel the necessity for e the bare surface of his column, took this temporary and often-renewed decoration for his model