Mr. Goodyear has an elaborate study of the evolution of the Ionic capital (Fig. [82]) from the anthemion. A German architect and critic, Semper,[87] appears to have been the first to derive the Ionic capital from the volutes of the Assyrian palmette (Pl. [VIII.], Figs. 9, 10) by a process of gradual suppression of the leafy portion and increase of the scroll. Dr. J. T. Clarke[88] supported and elaborated this theory. At Neandreia, near Assos, in Asia Minor, he discovered an Ionic capital (Fig. [83]) which is a valuable “missing link.” But, according to Mr. Goodyear, there is no need to seek an Assyrian origin for this capital when all the intermediate stages can be found in Egypt and in the Greek Islands.
Fig. 84.--Lotus design from a “geometric” vase from Cyprus; after Goodyear.
In Fig. [84] and Fig. [130], F, we have a lotus with curling sepals on pots from Cyprus; no one can dispute that these are really lotuses. The curling sepals become more spiral in Rhodian (Fig. [130], G), and especially in Melian pottery (Fig. [85]). The central rosette has now become more leaf-like, but there are numerous true Egyptian examples of this, as in a compound flower (Fig. [86]) from a tomb ceiling, or again (Fig. [87]), on a blue-glazed lotus pendant from a necklace in the British Museum, of the Nineteenth Dynasty. In the Owens College Museum, Manchester, there is a somewhat similar enamel tomb amulet of the Twelfth Dynasty (2778-2565 B.C.). The transition from these to the stone or terra-cotta anthemion of the Parthenon (Fig. [88]) is very gradual.
Fig. 85.—Lotus derivative on a vase of the seventh century B.C., from Melos; from Goodyear, after Conze.
