Wilkinson, John Gardner: The Architecture Of Ancient Egypt: In Which The Columns Are Arranged In Orders, And The Temples Classified; With Remarks On The Early Progress Of Architecture, Etc.; With A Large Volume Of Plates Ilustrative Of The Subject, And Containing The Various Columns And details, From Actual Measurement (Text) (London, 1850)

30 ARCHITECTURE OF EGYPT. PART I:

of a building, than the Egyptians; amounting to
■what has been called a symmetrophobia; and
nothing can be more erroneous than the supposi-
tion, that this variety of capitals, in an Egyptian
portico, was an introduction of the Greeks ; who,
of all people, were the most noted for uniformity,
in their columns, and the decorative parts of archi-
tecture. The Egyptians purposely avoided regu-
larity ; with a view of not fatiguing the eye; and
so careful were they to vary the lines, in the interior
of their great halls, that no two neighbouring
capitals were of the same height ;* and the same
principle was attended to, in the position of other
details.

The numerous forms of capitals, used in Ptole-
maic buildings, grew out of the more simple early
orders ;f their origin can be clearly traced; and it
is evident that no two are so dictinct, as the water-
plant, and the polygonal, column, of old time ;
which are known to have been employed contem-
poraneously, during the reigns of the Osirtasens.

* Vitle Plate 8, fig. b, c.

t Vide infra, ou the different orders of columns.