me of
"proto-Doric."

[Illustration: Fig. 59.--Sixteen-sided pillars, Karnak.]

The column does not rest immediately upon the soil. It is always furnished
with a base like that of the polygonal pillar, sometimes square with the
ground, and sometimes slightly rounded. This base is either plain, or
ornamented only with a line of hieroglyphs. The principal forms fall into
three types: (1) the column with campaniform, or lotus-flower capital; (2)
the column with lotus-bud capital; (3) the column with Hathor-head capital.

[Illustration: Fig. 60.--Fluted pillar, Kalabsheh.]

[Illustration: Fig. 61.--Polygonal Hathor-headed pillar, El Kab.]

I. _Columns with Campaniform Capitals_.--The shaft is generally plain, or
merely engraved with inscriptions or bas-reliefs. Sometimes, however, as at
Medamot, it is formed of six large and six small colonnettes in
alternation. In Pharaonic times, it is bulbous, being curved inward at the
base, and ornamented with triangles one within another, imitating the large
leaves which sheathe the sprouting plant. The curve is so regulated that
the diameter at the base and the top shall be about equal. In the Ptolemaic
period, the bulb often disappears, owing probably to Greek influences. The
columns which surround the first court at Edfu rise straight from their
plinths. The shaft always tapers towards the top. It is finished by three
or five flat bands, one above the other. At Medamot, where the shaft is
clustered, the architect has doubtless thought that one tie at the top
appeared insufficient to hold in a dozen colonnettes; he has therefore
marked two other rings of bands at regular intervals. The campaniform
capital is decorated from the spring of the curve with a row of leaves,
like those which sheathe the base. Between these are figured shoots of
lotus and papyrus in flower and bud. The height of the capital, and the
extent of its projection beyond the line of the shaft, varied with the
taste of the architect. At Luxor, the campaniform capitals are eleven and a
half feet in diameter at the neck, eighteen feet in diameter at the top,
and eleven and a half feet in height. At Karnak, in the hypostyle hall, the
height of the capital is twelve and a quarter feet, and the greatest
diameter twenty-one feet. A square die surmounts the whole. This die is
almost hidden by the curve of the capital, though occasionally, as at
Denderah, it is higher, and bears on each face a figure of the god Bes
(fi