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)

42 . ARCHITECTURE OF EGYPT. PART I.

The largest of this variety are" at Luxor, of the time
of Amunoph III; which, I believe, measure about
21 feet iu height.

The third variety, of this order, has a single
circular shaft, without any indication of the united
water-plants, though still with the usual bands,
round the neck and capital. This is generally a
larger, and higher, column than the preceding;
and is used in the side colonnade of the great halls
of assembly ; while the central avenue has the
loftier columns of the fourth order. As in the
second variety, the lower end of the column is
covered with pointed ornaments, in imitation of
the sheaths, that grow above the roots of the
papyrus, and envelop the base of its stalks; and the
inward curve of that part of the shaft was thought
to resemble the growth of the same plant. It can
therefore scarcely be considered analogous to the
entasis of a Roman column,* which is nothing more
than a mistaken, and extravagant, imitation of the
slight convexity of the Greek shaft.

It is well known that the sides of a column, if
perfectly straight lines, have to the eye the appear-
ance of being concave; and the Greeks, to avoid
this, gave them a slight degree of convexity ; but
the Romans, misunderstanding it, made the swell
too apparent, and produced a complete deformity;
which has been imitated to the present day.

The largest diameter of this (as of the preced-

* The half columns of the aniphitheatrum cnstrense, at Rome, imitate
the curving end of the Egyptian column; hut this is only a caprice. They
probably date about tb*e time of Diocletian, and are of brick.