[133]. M. J. Thacher Clarke, who directed the American expedition in 1881, is now occupied with a monograph on the subject, and a report by him was published in 1882. Boston and London. J. Trübner.
[134]. A proto-Ionic capital of early date was found in 1882 on the summit of Mount Chigri, in the Troad, by Mr. J. Thacher Clarke, and is described in the American Journal of Archæology, Baltimore. 1886. Another example ascribed to Phœnician artists was found at Trapeza in Cyprus, and is now in the Louvre; both are of the same type as that which is represented in the ivory carvings from the north-western palace of Nimroud, now in the British Museum, so that the Asiatic origin of the order is thus confirmed.
[135]. Pausanias, viii. 45.
[136]. Bohn.
[137]. [The earliest example in stone at Benihasan is of less diameter than the columns at Kalabscheh, so that it is difficult to draw this distinction; we have already shown also (p. 115 [note]) that wooden shafts of the twelfth dynasty have been found at Kahun, and this and the existence of the base proves their wooden origin. If therefore the Greek Doric column was derived originally from Egypt, as Mr. Fergusson believed, then its earlier wooden parentage must be accepted. Further evidence on this subject however has been afforded by the discoveries at Olympia, and the references in consequence made to Greek authors; all these show without doubt that the columns of the temple of Hera were originally in wood, and were gradually replaced by stone. The theory that the pillars in Egypt or early Greece were built in brickwork or rubble masonry is not borne out by the discoveries at Tiryns, for the walls of the palace there, in rubble and clay mortar, were of such weak construction that posts of timber were required to carry the epistyle or beam, either isolated as columns or built up against the wall as antæ.
Mr. Fergusson’s theory that a pillar, originally copied from the wooden post, is slenderer at first, and gradually departs from the wood form as the style advances, is borne out by the evidence of the Egypt lotus column; this, as found in the rock-cut tombs of Benihasan, is of very small diameter, and quite unequal to carry the weight of any stone superstructure; whereas afterwards in the temples at Thebes it assumes a proportion nearer that of the earliest Greek Doric example at Corinth.—Ed.]
[138]. These facts have all been fully elucidated by Mr. Penrose in his beautiful work containing the results of his researches on the Parthenon and other temples of Greece, published by the Dilettanti Society.
[139]. For measurements we depend on Penrose, ‘Principles of Athenian Architecture,’ &c., fol.; and Cockerell, ‘The Temples of Egina and Bassæ,’ Lond. 1860. The details of the system were first publicly announced by Watkiss Lloyd, in a paper read to the Institute of British Architects in 1859; afterwards in an appendix to Mr. Cockerell’s work, and in several minor publications.
[140]. The pyramid-building kings of Lower Egypt seem to have had some distinct ideas of a system of definite proportions in architectural building, and to have put it into practice in the pyramid, and possibly elsewhere, but it has not yet been sought for in the other buildings of that age.
At times I cannot help suspecting more affinity to have existed between the inhabitants of Lower Egypt and those of Greece than is at first sight apparent.