FIG. 15.—OSIRID PIER (MEDINET ABOU).
CAPITALS. The five chief types of capital were: a, the plain lotus bud, as at Karnak (Great Hall); b, the clustered lotus bud (Beni-Hassan, Karnak, Luxor, Gournah, etc.); c, the campaniform or inverted bell (central aisles at Karnak, Luxor, the Ramesseum); d, the palm-capital, frequent in the later temples; and e, the Hathor-headed, in which heads of Hathor adorn the four faces of a cubical mass surmounted by a model of a shrine (Sedinga, Edfou, Denderah, Esneh). These types were richly embellished and varied by the Ptolemaic architects, who gave a clustered or quatrefoil plan to the bell-capital, or adorned its surface with palm leaves. A few other forms are met with as exceptions. The first four are shown in Fig. 16.
Every part of the column was richly decorated in color. Lotus-leaves or petals swathed the swelling lower part of the shaft, which was elsewhere covered with successive bands of carved pictures and of hieroglyphics. The capital was similarly covered with carved and painted ornament, usually of lotus-flowers or leaves, or alternate stalks of lotus and papyrus.
FIG. 16.—TYPES OF COLUMN.
a, Campaniform; b, Clustered Lotus-Column;
c, Simple Lotus-Column; d, Palm-Column.
The lintels were plain and square in section, and often of prodigious size. Where they appeared externally they were crowned with a simple cavetto cornice, its curved surface covered with colored flutings alternating with cartouches of hieroglyphics. Sometimes, especially on the screen walls of the Ptolemaic age, this was surmounted by a cresting of adders or uræi in closely serried rank. No other form of cornice or cresting is met with. Mouldings as a means of architectural effect were singularly lacking in Egyptian architecture. The only moulding known is the clustered torus (torus = a convex moulding of semicircular profile), which resembles a bundle of reeds tied together with cords or ribbons. It forms an astragal under the cavetto cornice and runs down the angles of the pylons and walls.