Our readers must remember the distinction, to which we called attention in the early part of our task, between two systems co-existing at one and the same time in Egypt; wooden architecture and that in which stone was the chief material used.[89] Under the Ancient Empire the only kind of detached support which appears to have been known in stone architecture, was the quadrangular pier, examples of which we find in the Temple of the Sphinx (Fig. 204, vol. i.). It was not so, however, in wooden construction. We find in the bas-reliefs belonging to that early epoch numerous representations of wooden columns, which, though all possessing the same slender proportions, were surmounted by capitals of various designs. In these capitals occur the first suggestions of the forms which were afterwards developed with success in stone architecture.
The type of capital which occurs most frequently in the buildings of the New Empire is certainly that which has been compared to a truncated lotus-bud;[90] we may call it the _lotiform_ capital, and a bas-relief has come down to us from the fifth dynasty, in which two columns are shown crowned by capitals of this type, differing only from later stone examples in their more elongated forms (Figs. 54 and 55).
[90] These slender columns with lotiform capitals are figured in considerable number in the tomb of Ti. MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, vol. i. pl. 10.
[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Bas-relief from the 5th dynasty; from Lepsius.]
[Illustration: Fig. 55.--Detail of capital; from the same bas-relief.]
After the type of capital just mentioned, that which occurs most frequently at Karnak and elsewhere is the _campaniform_ type, in which the general outline resembles that of an inverted bell. It has been referred to the imitation of the lotus-flower when in full bloom. However that may be, it is the fact that in a bas-relief of the fifth dynasty we find a capital presenting the outline, in full detail, of a lotus-flower which has just opened its petals (Figs. 56 and 57).
Rarer and later types than these are also foreshadowed in the early bas-reliefs. We shall hereafter have to speak of a campaniform capital in which the bell is not inverted, in the part constructed by Thothmes of the great temple at Karnak. Its prototype may certainly be recognized in a figured pavilion at Sakkarah, dating from the sixth dynasty. We reproduce it from a squeeze sent to us by M. Bourgoin (Figs. 58 and 59).