326 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



undoubtedly exhibit a totally different type from this. Ordinarily, 

 however, the shaft rests immediately upon the stylobate, which is evi- 

 dently considered competent to perform the function of plinth to the 

 entire colonnade. 



§ 7. Internal Differences. 



But those differences between the true and " proto-Doric " which 

 I have called internal, justify us in making still more radical distinc- 

 tions. If we bear in mind the principles of criticism laid down in the 

 opening pages of this essay, if we admit the total theoretical dissim- 

 ilarity between, columns and piers there insisted upon, and if we 

 compare the forms before us with reference to this point with the 

 scores of previous and contemporary architectural remnants that time 

 has spared us in both countries, I think no one, after fairly canvassing 

 the evidence, can doubt that different architectural ideas find embodi- 

 ment in the two orders, in respect both of the fundamental character 

 of the shaft itself, and of its relations to the adjacent members of the 

 building. The inference is then easy, that the comparatively mature 

 forms before us have descended from utterly diverse progenitors, and 

 — unless we imagine a direct and avowed copying of these particular 

 tombs at Benihassan by the architect of every early Greek temple, 

 which is absurd — that the derivation of the Greek order from the 

 Egyptian at any previous moment of their development is in the 

 highest degree improbable, and becomes more and more inconceivable 

 the further back we proceed. 



The column, based on the tree type, rarely occurs (if at all) in 

 Egyptian buildings of an earlier time than the XXXIIId Dynasty 

 (305-30 b. c.) ; and when it does come in, it brings with it proofs of its 

 derivation from the palm-tree in the proportions of its shaft and the 

 decoration of its capital. Before this time, and particularly during 

 the period when the Benihassan tombs were cut (Xllth Dynasty, 

 2380-2167 b. c, according to Lepsius), the only supports of vegetable 

 origin that we know anything about are plainly fashioned after water- 

 plants, but never after cylindrical, log-like props.* But the variety 

 of primitive stone forms in actual existence to-day, and dating from 

 the earliest known periods of Egyptian history (at least from Dynasty 



* Almost the oldest Egyptian columns known are the few found at the 

 southern tombs at Benihassan. They are beautiful reproductions in stone of a 

 knot of four lotus-buds tied up with a string. See Lepsius, i. 00, and Essay II., 

 §4. 



