Wilkinson, John Gardner: Topographie of Thebes, and general view of Egypt: being a short account of the principal objects worthy of notice in the valley of the Nile, to the second cataracte and Wadi Samneh, with the Fyoom, Oases and eastern desert, from Sooez to Bertenice (London, 1835)

54 TOPOGRAPHY OF THKBES. [Chap. I.

scription, of which I have given merely a general
outline; nor could more be obtained without long
study and a careful comparison with several other
of the sculptures of this building. Passing through
the pylon, you enter a large hypsethral court, about
110 feet by 135, having on one side a row of seven
Osiride pillars, and on the other eight circular
columns, with bell-formed capitals, generally,
though erroneously, supposed to represent the full-
blown lotus. Columns of this form are usually
met with in the great halls of these temples, and
are undoubtedly the most elegant of the Egyptian
orders. The plant from which their capital is bor-
rowed is frequently seen in the sculptures of the
tombs at Thebes, where every traveller must have
observed the great distinction maintained between
this and the blossom of the lotus, whose character
not only differs from that in question, but is very
faithfully portrayed, both as to colour and general
outline. For some time I imagined the form of this
capital to have been derived from the leaf of the
Faba vEgyptiaca,* but from finding this plant repre-
sented growing at a distance from the water with
the garden-trees, I have been obliged to renounce
this opinion, and am still undecided as to its name
and nature. The singular effect of this strange
symmetrophobia cannot now be well understood,
owing to the mounds and crude brick walls, which

* The Nymphaea Nelumbo of Linnaeus, a plant now unknown
on this side of the Indian Ocean.