OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 347 



because this order is the plainest of all, the one for the study of which 

 the most plentiful materials exist, and because much that has been said 

 will apply with equal force to other orders, the descriptions of which 

 can therefore be made so much the shorter. 



§ 5. Order II. — Papyrus Columns. 



Under Order II. were grouped all columns with bell-shaped or 

 "crater-form"* capitals, whether simple or compound. This order 

 can be confounded with no other except Order III., but the simple 

 test of outline which was suggested in § 3 will suffice, I think, to dis- 

 tinguish it from the latter at sight.f 



The difficulty in handling the phenomena of this order lies in the 

 fact that, starting from one and the same type, it seems to have un- 

 dergone two distinct processes of development, which, since they took 

 place at widely separated periods, and under very diverse circum- 

 stances, led up to almost inconsistent results. In the first period, 

 during the existence of the Great Theban Empire (Dynasties XVII. 

 to XX.), these columns exhibit a stern simplicity analogous to that 

 shown by Order I. ; but in the second period, the era of the Ptole- 

 mies (Dynasties XXXII. to XXXIV.), under the stimulus of foreign 

 enterprise and foreign canons of taste, this severity disappeared under 

 a luxuriance of ornament that seems at first utterly alien to the native 

 tendencies of Egyptian art. But on closer examination it is found that 

 this new artistic life, though evincing unprecedented activity, obsti- 

 nately clung to old methods and aims in confining its choice of types 

 for its decorations to the familiar and oft-employed products of the 

 national vegetation. 



It is a striking fact that the bundle column, which is so common 

 in earlier buildiug,t was almost entirely discarded by the Ptolemaic 



* Schnaase, i. 331. 



t Although many writers seem to imagine that there is little or no difference 

 in form between lotus-flowers and papyrus-bells. See, e. g., Long, Eg. Antiqs , 

 p. 106, — "the most common form of the capital is that of the calyx of a plant, 

 probably the lotus"; Wathen, Arts, Antiqs., etc., p. 109; Kenrick, Anc. Eg., 

 i. 2o4, — "the capital is shaped like a bell with its mouth upwards, the reflexed 

 edge being an imitation of the opened flower of the lotus, or of the head of the 

 papyrus." The difference in outline was, however, recognized by the Egyp- 

 tians themselves, in their pictorial representations of the flowers ; compare 

 Lepsius, i. 26, with Rouge', p. 116, 118. 



X It repeatedly appears in juxtaposition with the bell columns, supporting 

 lower parts of the same halls, as at Karnak and Luxor. 



