DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.572#0066
38 . -ARCHITECTURE OF EGYPT. PART II.
sons passing freely round them; and for this
reason, the Egyptians made the plinths of their
columns circular also, though the abacus was square.
The Greeks had both the plinth and abacus rectan-
gular; bnt in the Doric order, the round shaft, re-
posing at once on the stylobate, presented still less
impediment to a free passage, even than the circular
Egyptian plinth; and though in the Ionic (as well
as in the Corinthian) it was a Greek custom to have
square plinths, they were frequently omitted.
. The Egyptian fluted column was evidently the
prototype of the Doric shaft. It is found in monu-
ments of the time of Osirtasen I, in the oldest part
of the temple, of Karnak, and in the rock-tombs of
Beni Hassan; of Thothmes III at Samneh, and
Amada; and of Remeses II* at Kalabshee; the
first dating upwards of two thousand years before
our sera, and the last about one thousand three
hundred; and the proportions, and form of the
flutes, of the columns at Thebes, which have been
allowed by architects to accord, in a striking man-
ner, with those of the early Doric columns of
Greece, f are the more remarkable, from their
having been made long before any kind of archi-
tecture flourished in that country.^
* Remeses the Great. It is now universally admitted that the name,
called by some Remeses III, is only a variety of that of Remeses II.
Vide my " Materia Hieroglyphica."
+ Canina (Sect, i, c. 2, p. 50) says : "e da credere che sino a questii
epoca rernota si sia cominciato a trasportare dall'Egitto nella Grecia le
prime cognizioni sull' arte dell' edificare ; ove, prendendosi ad adattare
ai mezzi ed al clima di questa rcgione, si riprodussero sotto un carattere
proprio e distinto."
% Vide Vitruvius, lib. iv, c. 1, of the date of the Doric order. Dorus,
sons passing freely round them; and for this
reason, the Egyptians made the plinths of their
columns circular also, though the abacus was square.
The Greeks had both the plinth and abacus rectan-
gular; bnt in the Doric order, the round shaft, re-
posing at once on the stylobate, presented still less
impediment to a free passage, even than the circular
Egyptian plinth; and though in the Ionic (as well
as in the Corinthian) it was a Greek custom to have
square plinths, they were frequently omitted.
. The Egyptian fluted column was evidently the
prototype of the Doric shaft. It is found in monu-
ments of the time of Osirtasen I, in the oldest part
of the temple, of Karnak, and in the rock-tombs of
Beni Hassan; of Thothmes III at Samneh, and
Amada; and of Remeses II* at Kalabshee; the
first dating upwards of two thousand years before
our sera, and the last about one thousand three
hundred; and the proportions, and form of the
flutes, of the columns at Thebes, which have been
allowed by architects to accord, in a striking man-
ner, with those of the early Doric columns of
Greece, f are the more remarkable, from their
having been made long before any kind of archi-
tecture flourished in that country.^
* Remeses the Great. It is now universally admitted that the name,
called by some Remeses III, is only a variety of that of Remeses II.
Vide my " Materia Hieroglyphica."
+ Canina (Sect, i, c. 2, p. 50) says : "e da credere che sino a questii
epoca rernota si sia cominciato a trasportare dall'Egitto nella Grecia le
prime cognizioni sull' arte dell' edificare ; ove, prendendosi ad adattare
ai mezzi ed al clima di questa rcgione, si riprodussero sotto un carattere
proprio e distinto."
% Vide Vitruvius, lib. iv, c. 1, of the date of the Doric order. Dorus,